At this point, discussing Michael Bay's blatant love affair for anything big and on fire is beyond redundant; he's turned himself into a walking punchline:
That being said Bay has become the brunt of a lot of criticism for his unwavering movie-making formula. Although I can't say I disagree - the extent to which he continuously relies on the same tools makes his movies both predictable and ridiculous - I have to say with a franchise like Transformers you couldn't ask for anything more. A two-hour action sequence is the perfect job for Michael bay and I would go so far as to say he is probably the only person in Hollywood who could have made it work. And that's exactly what he did. Seeing Transformers was one of the best experiences I've had in a theatre in the past few years. Here is a list of the reasons why it's so entertaining:
1. A great list of characters that are just interesting enough to care about. The Witwicky family is entertaining and each of them is sympathetic and has just enough screen time to make an impact. Sam and Mikaela are barely more than archetypes of the action movie love interests but Shia Labeouf single-handedly makes it work, despite Megan Fox's deplorable acting. Jon Turturro and Josh Duhamel both do a satisfactory job as minor characters and luckily Michael Bay manages to reduce his traditional borderline racist portrayal of black people to Jazz and Tyrese (who honestly doesn't seem to be anything more than a stereotype in the every other part of his career anyway).
2. The transformers themselves are extremely well done. The effects are breathtaking and the facial expressions and voice acting create very believable characters that the audience can care about. Plus, having Peter Cullen voice Optimus Prime is just amazing and lends so much authenticity to the film even if you didn't watch the show.
3. The pacing is excellent. Michael Bay shines in action sequences and gets many chances to show his experience. The film moves along briskly and though it's a pretty long one it never feels like it's dragging.
4. The plot is all it needs to be. The background of the Transformers is well laid out at the beginning and the movie does a pretty impressive job of telling a convoluted story about aliens from a human perspective, all the while never becoming too contrived or insane.
Revenge of the Fallen, in contrast, is such a 180 to the first film that it's a wonder the systematic Michael Bay process could fail so severely with the same material. Transformers 2 is awful. It brought to my attention that every Bay film walks a thin line between great mindless fun and something so embarrassingly stupid that it insults your intelligence. Here's how it compares to the first movie:
1. The characters are disgraceful. Firstly, almost all the returning characters go downhill. Sam's mom, although funny at times, is out of place and both parents seem to have a lot of unnecessary screen time. Mikaela somehow manages to have even less of a personality. Jon Turturro is, at first, seemingly more humanized, then at the drop of a hat even more batshit crazy than the previous film. Josh Duhamel remains the same and Tyrese becomes even more of a place filler. Every single new character in this movie is awful. Sam's college roommate is a terrible replacement for Maggie in the first film. Alice is equally terrible as a character but her relevance to the plot is far more of an insult, as she invalidates the entire concept of Transformers, and completely destroys suspension of disbelief (why disguise yourself as a car when you can simulate human beings?). Rainn Wilson is lost on me as a one-line cameo for no reason. Shia labeouf, however manages to remain one of the very few consistencies of the series and Sam remains an entertaining central character.
2. The Transformers have the exact problem I was worried about going into the movie - there are just too many introduced and you have no idea who half of them are. The majority of the ones you do know are a waste of space, most notably the unbearably annoying and possibly racist twins, who are perfect for anyone who has missed Jar Jar Binx in the Star Wars prequels. Optimus Prime and Megatron somehow manage to be absent for the majority of the movie, and most of the other returning transformers seem to be undeveloping any of the small amount of personality they had in the first movie. That being said, the effects are still amazing and the constructicon near the end is pretty freakin' awesome. It's too bad, though, that they apparently were so excited to have it in the movie that they didn't give it a purpose.
The pacing is far too slow. This is the one that boggles my mind. I expected Michael Bay to have this one in the bank. The plot moves at a start-and-stop pace, and the contrast of silly outlandish humour and explosive action is jarring enough to take away from each. It takes far too long for the plot to advance and the final action sequence manages to drag to an extent I never thought possible with all the cuts and gunfire going on. I mentioned that the first film is pretty long but never feels like it, well at one point I started wondering how long I'd been in the theatre and was surprised to hear it had only been about 2 hours and ten minutes and this had been BEFORE the film reached its climax.
The plot is just bad. The general idea is fairly simple but as it develops it gets more and more ridiculous and eventually starts to pile up more plot holes than anything else. Beyond this there are a lot of small details that are just mind-blowing in how they disregard any kind of consistency with the Transformers universe, like suddenly being able to teleport anywhere you please, for one, and, as I mentioned earlier, Alice completely negates any relevance in the Transformers premise.
Incidentally I found this pretty awesome "review" randomly online. It's full of spoilers but it's hilarious and accurate so check it out after you watch the movie:
http://www.head-case.org/forums/movies/6613-hilarious-transformers-2-q-style-review.html
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