"Transformers 2" is a horrible experience of unbearable leng

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http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... /906239997

Roger Ebert said:
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

The plot is incomprehensible. The dialog of the Autobots, Deceptibots and Otherbots is meaningless word flap. Their accents are Brooklyese, British and hip-hop, as befits a race from the distant stars. Their appearance looks like junkyard throw-up. They are dumb as a rock. They share the film with human characters who are much more interesting, and that is very faint praise indeed.

The movie has been signed by Michael Bay. This is the same man who directed "The Rock" in 1996. Now he has made "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." Faust made a better deal. This isn't a film so much as a toy tie-in. Children holding a Transformer toy in their hand can invest it with wonder and magic, imagining it doing brave deeds and remaining always their friend. I knew a little boy once who lost his blue toy truck at the movies, and cried as if his heart would break. Such a child might regard "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" with fear and dismay.

The human actors are in a witless sitcom part of the time,
and lot of the rest of their time is spent running in slo-mo away from explosions, although--hello!--you can't outrun an explosion. They also make speeches like this one by John Turturro: "Oh, no! The machine is buried in the pyramid! If they turn it on, it will destroy the sun! Not on my watch!" The humans, including lots of U.S. troops, shoot at the Transformers a lot, although never in the history of science fiction has an alien been harmed by gunfire.

There are many great-looking babes in the film, who are made up to a flawless perfection and look just like real women, if you are a junior fanboy whose experience of the gender is limited to lad magazines. The two most inexplicable characters are Ron and Judy Witwicky (Kevin Dunn and Julie White), who are the parents of Shia LaBeouf, who Mephistopheles threw in to sweeten the deal. They take their son away to Princeton, apparently a party school, where Judy eats some pot and goes berserk. Later they swoop down out of the sky on Egypt, for reasons the movie doesn't make crystal clear, so they also can run in slo-mo from explosions.

The battle scenes are bewildering. A Bot makes no visual sense anyway, but two or three tangled up together create an incomprehensible confusion. I find it amusing that creatures that can unfold out of a Camaro and stand four stories high do most of their fighting with...fists. Like I say, dumber than a box of staples. They have tiny little heads, except for Starscream®, who is so ancient he has an aluminum beard.

Aware that this movie opened in England seven hours before Chicago time and the morning papers would be on the streets, after writing the above I looked up the first reviews as a reality check. I was reassured: "Like watching paint dry while getting hit over the head with a frying pan!" (Bradshaw, Guardian); "Sums up everything that is most tedious, crass and despicable about modern Hollywood!" (Tookey, Daily Mail); "A giant, lumbering idiot of a movie!" (Edwards, Daily Mirror). The first American review, however, reported that it "feels destined to be the biggest movie of all time" (Todd Gilchrist, Cinematical). It’s certainly the biggest something of all time.

Roger Ebert remains one of my favorite movie critics ever.
 
S

Steven Soderburgin

My favorite line is, "Princeton, apparently a party school"
 

God DAMN do I love Roger Ebert! He's really the one critic I respect and listen to about movie choices.
 
Thats great!
Latino Review just reviewed it and made a similar assessmant:
The 2007 release of Transformers ushered in a new revolution in cinema watching. Audiences have now accepted big, giant, explosive films that are just plain awful to sit through. We're now inundated with the type of thought that, "It's a kid's movie." or,[quote:1a7tyku7] "Just turn off your brain." should be an acceptable way to watch a film. And Hollywood has listened,
bringing out films that make no sense and require zero brainpower from the crowd. It's a shame, and Revenge of the Fallen is perhaps the biggest ingredient in this ongoing recipe of movie shit. "But it's a movie about toys, lighten up!" says the common man. To that line of reasoning, I say "FUCK YOU." I don't care if it's a movie about toys or about toothpicks, you make the movie, then make it as good as you possibly can. Don't just rely on that bullshit to carry the film.

Alright, let me start this damn thing. In the words of my friend Hans, "Shit just got diarrheal!"

There are two twin Autobots called Mudflap and Skids (voiced by Reno Wilson and Tom Kenny). These are the sequel's "ethnic" robots. By ethnic, I mean they're the southern black robots of the film. Why would I say such a thing? Because Michael Bay and his cohorts put in perhaps the most racially offensive stereotyped black characters I've seen in years. The two talk like they're rappers from New Orleans, they have gold front teeth, look like monkeys, and admit that, "they can't read." when asked to decipher symbols only meant for the Primes to be able to read. (Even though Wheelie, one of the tiny Decepticons, knows what language it is.) They also repeatedly call characters "pussies" and talk about busting caps in people's asses, all with that southern crunk drawl. Song of the South comes across as Leave it to Beaver compared to this. I mean, what the hell are these people thinking? What executive from Paramount saw these characters and was ok with it? They're not innocent playful characters that today's youth will 'relate to'. I swear to God at one point, when Bumblebee separates the two when they're fighting, one of them says the 'n' word. It might have been my ears playing tricks on me after being assaulted for an hour, but I wouldn't be surprised. (I need a reader to verify it for me.) They're about as racially offensive as you can get. I'm surprised Bay didn't have the Latino character of Leo run around holding a fucking bean burrito and a piñata.

[/quote:1a7tyku7]
 
P

Philosopher B.

Yeeeaaahhh ... think I'm-a skip seeing this one in theatres. I'm low on funds anyhoo.
 
Charlie Dont Surf said:
Jesus christ. I had heard the "black" robots were bad but that is terrible.
Go read El Guapos whole review. It's brilliant. You will enjoy it. It's head bangingly bad.
 
S

Singularity.EXE

I was hoping that this might just be enough fun to make up for the suck, but alas.
 
R

Rubicon

I just wanna see Devestator and Soundwave..thats all. The rest, eh it is what it is, giant robots fighting.
 
Meh my friends and I are still going to see it at midnight tonight. All my friends loved the first one where as I think it was decent at best and I am not expecting much from this one except lots of neat explosions.
 
HoboNinja said:
Meh my friends and I are still going to see it at midnight tonight. All my friends loved the first one where as I think it was decent at best and I am not expecting much from this one except lots of neat explosions.
Mav said:
I just wanna see Devestator and Soundwave..thats all. The rest, eh it is what it is, giant robots fighting.

ladies and gentlemen your halforum starting lineup
 
Ebert rules, if I'm unsure about seeing a movie I'll see if Ebert tears into it before flipping a coin.
 
S

Steven Soderburgin

@BreakingNews Noted Halforum poster HoboNinja says of TRANSFORMERS 2: I am not expecting much from this one except lots of neat explosions.
 
Dude that's basically what the first one was and that isn't always bad. Sure the plot sucked donkey dick but sometimes it is just fun to watch mindless violence and things make big booms.
 

But that's why Hollywood keeps making these dog-assed movies! People will still pay to see them because they are dumb and things go BOOM!
 
There is a little point to hang up the brain and enjoy the movie. I did that with the last movie and still spent all my time wondering what the fuck was going on... Especially the fight scenes. The only good fight scene in the last movie was the one done off screen.
 
C

Chazwozel

Charlie Dont Surf said:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090623/REVIEWS/906239997

[quote="Roger Ebert":1trl5a77]"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of *, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

The plot is incomprehensible. The dialog of the Autobots, Deceptibots and Otherbots is meaningless word flap. Their accents are Brooklyese, British and hip-hop, as befits a race from the distant stars. Their appearance looks like junkyard throw-up. They are dumb as a rock. They share the film with human characters who are much more interesting, and that is very faint praise indeed.

The movie has been signed by Michael Bay. This is the same man who directed "The Rock" in 1996. Now he has made "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." Faust made a better deal. This isn't a film so much as a toy tie-in. Children holding a Transformer toy in their hand can invest it with wonder and magic, imagining it doing brave deeds and remaining always their friend. I knew a little boy once who lost his blue toy truck at the movies, and cried as if his heart would break. Such a child might regard "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" with fear and dismay.

The human actors are in a witless sitcom part of the time,
and lot of the rest of their time is spent running in slo-mo away from explosions, although--hello!--you can't outrun an explosion. They also make speeches like this one by John Turturro: "Oh, no! The machine is buried in the pyramid! If they turn it on, it will destroy the sun! Not on my watch!" The humans, including lots of U.S. troops, shoot at the Transformers a lot, although never in the history of science fiction has an alien been harmed by gunfire.

There are many great-looking babes in the film, who are made up to a flawless perfection and look just like real women, if you are a junior fanboy whose experience of the gender is limited to lad magazines. The two most inexplicable characters are Ron and Judy Witwicky (Kevin Dunn and Julie White), who are the parents of Shia LaBeouf, who Mephistopheles threw in to sweeten the deal. They take their son away to Princeton, apparently a party school, where Judy eats some pot and goes berserk. Later they swoop down out of the sky on Egypt, for reasons the movie doesn't make crystal clear, so they also can run in slo-mo from explosions.

The battle scenes are bewildering. A Bot makes no visual sense anyway, but two or three tangled up together create an incomprehensible confusion. I find it amusing that creatures that can unfold out of a Camaro and stand four stories high do most of their fighting with...fists. Like I say, dumber than a box of staples. They have tiny little heads, except for Starscream®, who is so ancient he has an aluminum beard.

Aware that this movie opened in England seven hours before Chicago time and the morning papers would be on the streets, after writing the above I looked up the first reviews as a reality check. I was reassured: "Like watching paint dry while getting hit over the head with a frying pan!" (Bradshaw, Guardian); "Sums up everything that is most tedious, crass and despicable about modern Hollywood!" (Tookey, Daily Mail); "A giant, lumbering idiot of a movie!" (Edwards, Daily Mirror). The first American review, however, reported that it "feels destined to be the biggest movie of all time" (Todd Gilchrist, Cinematical). It’s certainly the biggest something of all time.

Roger Ebert remains one of my favorite movie critics ever.[/quote:1trl5a77]


Roger Ebert has almost identical taste to movies as myself. I usually always go by his reviews and thus will wait to see Transformers on DvD.
 
O

Odie

I will go see it and im sure i will have problems with most if not all the movie. But sometimes you just need to turn off your brain and go "ooooooh shiny".

Also i have learned to take everything with a grain of salt, remember Rodger Ebert was also the same person who recommended seeing Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Which i think was one of the worst movies i have ever seen in my life, and i saw Torque. Ya. Torque... the movie where they joust and fight with bikes as if they were swords.... ugh. :facepalm:
 
C

Chummer

Looking at the picture of the "black robots", DANG, the do look like monkeys.

I saw the first one in theaters and was largely disappointed. I'll be skipping this one.
 

Shannow

Staff member
Am I the only one reading these reviews and wanting to see this movie even more? I mean, this sounds hilariously awesome!
 
I don't *want* to turn my brain of when watching a movie. The reviews posted here aren't anything unexpected, but they are nonetheless a fun read.

The bar's been lowered so far in Hollywood we're nearing magma, not just bedrock.
 
T

TheBrew

Ebert did give Star Trek a thumb down, so I am going to take this review with a grain of salt.
 
C

Chummer

While Star Trek was pretty fun it did have some glaring problems. Like plot wierdness and those awful product placements.
 
A

Alex B.

Awesome reviews. I wasn't going to see it anyway, but it's fun to see it so thoroughly ravaged.

Makes my decision to pick up Hobgoblins 2 today all the more satisfying. :uhhuh:
 
Charlie Dont Surf said:
[quote="Rob King":2vpxea6d]Did anyone else see the irony in the title getting cut off halfway through the word 'length'?
I cut down the "revenge of the fallen" bullshit to make that happen :redface:[/quote:2vpxea6d]

Good show!

/monocle
 
Rob King said:
[quote="Charlie Dont Surf":1aczxe6f][quote="Rob King":1aczxe6f]Did anyone else see the irony in the title getting cut off halfway through the word 'length'?
I cut down the "revenge of the fallen" bullshit to make that happen :redface:[/quote:1aczxe6f]

Good show!

/monocle[/quote:1aczxe6f]



I really must stop being so horrified.
 
I'll still be seeing it at the movie theater.

Like all things subjective, I choose not to let other people tell me what movies I am or am not allowed to enjoy.
 
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