By Robert Humanick
I’m sick of this notion that movie critics don’t like to have fun. Like any broad accusation, it's pure cop-out, especially when founded on the basis of but a handful of films, as is usually the case. Though a minority opinion in my circles, I liked the first Transformers. It was big, loud, and dumb in that manner that recalls the childhood ambition of instilling life in one’s toys. More importantly, it stayed just behind the line of headache-inducing excess that stands as the starting point of this new film. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is to its predecessor like a medieval torture chamber is to a playground, but that won’t keep many from swallowing it hook, line and sinker, quickly and indiscriminately. I can only hope that my feelings here are the general consensus—not just for critics, but for human beings. Few elements of Fallen are completely odious unto themselves, but rolled together it becomes a wave of inescapable proportions—a literal tsunami of shit.
I mourn the volume of human life being wasted on this thing. If the film makes $100 million this weekend and tickets cost $10 a pop, that’s ten million viewers and a total of twenty-five million hours, not including previews, travel and the time spent earning the wasted money. If the average person lives to be 75, that’s 38 lives. This seems to me a crime, but even more deeply do I fear the thought of impressionable young minds being subjected to Fallen’s imagination-obliterating, standard-lowering disease—who knows how far the implications of this disaster will reach? With its grade Z humor, dearth of wit and ass-backwards ideological simplicity, this movie has been made with nothing but children in mind—more so the 36-year-old kind than the six-year-old kind, but children nevertheless—in that most contemptuous, “they don’t deserve better” of ways. Showing this thing to young eyes is to deliberately spawn a cinematic crack baby.
Only an asshole could have made this film, or, at the least, a jerk of the most obnoxious and insecure order. Michael Bay has proven this before, and Fallen is his most repugnant creation since Bad Boys II. I pity the people who find these things entertaining. Their synapses must be fried. Like that Will Smith/Martin Lawrence sequel, Fallen is all climax (which is to say, not at all—just what is Bay hoping to compensate for here?), free of anything comparable to pacing, fluctuation in tone, or flow. Make no mistake: this film (and anyone in creative control of it; why, Steven, why?) has nothing but contempt for their audience. It wants to make them feel small and dependent, to eat garbage and ask for more. Calling it the death of cinema would be an insult to cinema; film thrives, and will outlive even the biggest of dumps taken on it. Nevertheless, it is an affront of the greatest order, and it will take years of scrubbing to get the stain out.
Is this what we need to “escape”? Frankly, if Fallen proves anything, it’s that we don’t live in the real world enough as it is. On the idiot scale, it ranks off the charts. Walter Chaw points out the throwaway sound byte in which the film’s military forces, thus the audience, are reminded that the Egyptian citizens in the film are “friendlies.” I was already aware that a large chunk of Americans still think all Middle Easterners are terrorists, but a little bit of me dies inside every time our collective stupidity is reinforced. Even worse is the film’s wallowing in mass destruction—why not just stay at home, microwave some popcorn and YouTube clips from 9/11? This isn’t entertainment so much as exploitation of our political moment (don’t even get me started on Roland Emmerich’s 2012, the preview for which precedes Bay’s film in most theaters), with Bay acting as some kind of perverse ringleader, savoring every massive body count like the kid next door did his dismantled and blown-up toys in Toy Story.
Fallen has no connection to real life—only the pipe dream kind Hollywood has successfully programmed the masses to think is actually attainable. Like McDonald’s, cigarettes and post-'80s MTV, the film trades exclusively in the unhealthy and mass-produced, and like Pavlovian dogs we’re supposed to sit there and lap up Bay’s hideous potpourri sideshow: gangsta Transformers with buck gold teeth, fire-farting household appliances, suburban moms too stupid to know when they’ve bought pot brownies and preps deemed pussies because they break down in the face of death. I don’t doubt that these things could have been delivered in a manner somewhat resembling actual humor with the proper sleight of hand, but these clashing elements amount to nothing more than button pushing punchlines in the context of Bay’s rapid-fire technical assault. Fallen fails as a throwback to childhood fun because its maker never grew up in the first place, and like an overgrown man-child, it’s a case of arrested development that will likely be cured only in death.
The word bombastic applies even before one considers the attempts at action spectacle: pure visual noise, Bay once again proves unable to compose or orchestrate a damn thing that could be called even remotely coherent or linear. Admittedly, by the halfway point of the final desert battle, I gave up trying or caring and simply prayed for the end. I mean, Jesus Christ, zoom out a little! These are ten-story robots slugging it out (something I actually want to *see*), and more than half the time we’re confined to the upper torso region, barely able to follow the fist-fighting progress of it all until the typically out-of-nowhere killing stroke. Sure, if you focus hard enough, you get the idea, but whereas the unfairly maligned Speed Racer was simply edited with too sharp a razor for most to follow (or to even care to try), Fallen splatters on the screen like diarrhea about a porcelain bowl. Action scene starts, things move constantly for a period of time, action scene ends. Exposition. Toilet humor. Do not rinse. Repeat.
Few things help to cement a film’s atrocity more so than feelings of déjà vu, and Transformers 2 hits that nail on the head. Though less awful than Bad Boys II (one of the four or five worst things I’ve ever seen), the film remains cut from the same rancid cloth—one that soaks into your bones and makes you feel every godforsaken second of its padded running time. When I first saw Bay’s 2003 sequel, I abstained from checking my watch as long as seemed physically possible; when I finally glanced down, I saw, to my eternal horror, that only an hour had managed to pass. The same scenario occurred this past Wednesday morning: as I darted out of the theater to relieve my bladder, my cell phone confirmed that, indeed, not even half of the torment had yet unfolded. Jesus must have felt the same way in Hell on Friday.
House contributor Robert Humanick's writings appear in Slant Magazine and on his blog The Projection Booth.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Tsunami of Shit: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
45 comments:
...Wow.
Michael Bay is the most dangerous man alive. Stop him before he picks up the camera again.
Seems Michael Bay has found a new height in his beautiful career, made of running characters (if they can be called that...) shouting constantly, dodging surrounding explosions, gunfire and of course flying cars... I don't understand why all his movies are SO LOUD! Is he DEAF?. It's a shame people will se this one on theaters; certainly, I will not.
Is this the modern day equivalent of the B-movie? Seen as cultural garbage in retrospect when we contemplate this period, from a decade or more, hence? Or, more worryingly, have the big studios finally found the big lowest common denominator button in our brain that releases endorphins by showing us mindless violence - poorly done and lacking even style over substance, sex and kiddy level toilet humour that means they will keep pumping out such shite from now till the end of civilisation when at least it will end!
How can he be sooooo successful?! What has gone wrong with the world?!
The most fitting review for this movie can be found in a line spoken by one of the characters (I think it was the hero's father): "I have no idea what's happening, but we've got to keep moving!!"
I will take Michael Bay over Christopher Nolan any day. The first Transformers movie was fun and (though it moved at incomprehensible speeds at times) dynamically composed.
Michael Bay's only problem is that he keeps putting human beings in his movies when his genius is for photographing automobiles, stunts, demolitions and weaponry. That's when the love, wit and inspiration come through.
Actually, he's pretty great with human beings when they are running or on fire- or running while on fire.
If he went totally non-narrative and did some kind of extreme sports doc, the kind of beauty he's capable of would be more apparent. His collaboration with DP Mauro Fiore on The Island yielded some gorgeous fruit. If he somehow stuck with that guy and ditched any ambition to say something more complex about the human condition than "Whoa, awesome," they could be a dynamic duo similar to Mikhail Kalatozov and Sergei Urusevsky. The latter two, for all their Euro-Russian intellectual cred, are close to my heart mainly cuz they were brilliant at photographing people running or jumping for joy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFcm0mjirYk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKzredIaefA
That said, all indicators, from the trailers to this review, say that this new Transformer flick is nothing but Dolby terrorism.
I will take Michael Bay over Christopher Nolan any day.
I'll throw 'em both to the lions.
I love you.
Let's do a poll of the most dangerous directors to human kind...
1) I agree with Jackie is MICHAEL BAY
2) Ed burns (nuff said)
3) Brett Ratner
Keith, I'd follow you into Hell for that one!
Did you just compare yourself to Jesus at the end there, Rob? I knew you had a Messianic complex, but seriously...
Ed Burns is only a threat to the four people who still attend his movies, five if you include stubborn defender Armond White.
Honest to God, this review is amazing. Absolutely spot on, and witty to boot. But I must offer (to know one in particular) a counter argument. I enjoyed this movie. Why? Because, it was horrible. TERRIBLE. The twin robots were the most racist thing I've ever seen. Slow motion Megan Fox, while she is quite attractive, is entirely not necessary.
But it's funny. No, I don't mean it's funny as in the writing is funny. It's laughable. Pathetic. One of the worst movies you could ever see. It's a spectacle. A perfect example of a bad example. Michael Bay clearly doesn't know his head from his ass. While it's most certainly dangerous, I agree, for young children (and as you mentioned in your article old children). For those of us who understand the difference between good action with comedic moments and Michael Bay's stool, it's quite enjoyable how bad it really is. Hating Michael Bay for this ferocious piece of shit won't get you anywhere, and it's certainly not going to stop him from having a job (If Pearl Harbor didn't stop him, what could?). Just accept that you can predict both the childish plot, and amateur directorial style, and maybe you can make a game out of it, and find some humor in such low quality work.
Well played sir.. well played
"I'll throw'em both to the lions." Absolutely great comment, with two reservations: 1: The first Transformers movie exhibited greater pacing and story-telling than The Dark Knight (and better characterisation!)
and 2: Nolan is more dangerous, because people seem to think he's good, for some reason.
"Tsuanami of Shit" is a great, great review, I think people need to get angry about this film, however thilting at windwills it may be in the long term.
"—a literal tsunami of shit."
Ugh. Saying "literal" when you are using something figuratively fails to make it more emphatic; rather, it just makes the reader wince.
Fabulous review -
Transformers is not just the worst big budget film ever made - it seems to be an ultimate signifier for the collapse of popular culture in the States.
its sheer offensiveness on all levels is really bringing out the best in critics, (as Tsunami of Shit demonstrates) or as seen in Mark Kermode's video take: Mark Kermode’s Finest Review: ‘Transformers’ and the Work of Michael Bay
I've seen the movie twice as of now, and both times I was under the impression Josh Duhamel was calling the autobots "friendlies."
I never had that impression. To me, Lennox was clearly referring to the Egyptians.
By the way, technically speaking, "B-movies" weren't self-consciously "bad" movies designed for the lowest common denominator. B-movies were simply cheaper productions with much lower artistic ambitions. There were quite a few gems among B-movies, and I don't mean in a "so bad it's good" way. A few classic films noirs, for instance, were B-movies.
Today's mindless "blockbuster" pictures are a new phenomenon, offering all of the production value of A-movies without the respectability.
I would consider Michael Bay this country's most profound big budget exploitation filmmaker. And that's fine with me, because I love a good exploitation film.
Jett Loe said: "Transformers is not just the worst big budget film ever made - it seems to be an ultimate signifier for the collapse of popular culture in the States."
I'd say The Dark Knight, while not the worst big budget film ever made, definitely tops Transformers 2 as the ultimate signifier for the collapse of pop culture. Folks are fretting over something that died a grisly, protracted death last summer. I saw Transformers 2 last night and can testify that it merely spits on the grave-- but so do 90% of Ho'wood offerings, at this point.
I'll still throw 'em both to the lions.
How is Dark Knight the worst film last summer? Did anybody SEE Iron Man? At least Dark Knight gave us something new and intriguing. Iron Man 2, Transformers 2, they're just here to make bank.
Jury's out on Iron Man until that run is over. They set up the potential for a cutting tragedy there - whether they follow through with it is questionable, but Favreau's claimed that's the goal.
I'm really glad that the Dark Knight backlash has started up in full force.
Really enjoyed this breakdown of TF2:
http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php#more
Anyway, I said my piece on TF's in my last article - you can spin gold out of anything if you give a shit, which of course Bay doesn't. I really do wonder what Spielberg thinks about this film, as I suspect he doesn't care, either.
Tristan Eldritch put it eloquently in his Transformers blog entry: Of course, summer block-busters are one of the less significant forces at play in the grand scheme of things. Nevertheless, they have a purpose and a value: they are barometers of mass cultural sensibility; they construct contemporary myths, and should, in an ideal world, inflame the imaginations of children and teenagers. With this in mind, its somehow deeply depressing to think that millions of youngsters this summer will unreflectively flock to ROTF's noxious brew of militaristic destruction-porn, misogynistic ogling, puerile toilet humour, and border-line racism. The Los Angeles Times reports that as of today, Transformers should have grossed about 190 million, making it the highest ever five day take for a movie opening on a Wednesday. The Decepticons are winning.
http://kirbydotsmovies.blogspot.com/2009/06/summer-2009-decepticons-are-winning.html
So, yeah, Keith, to the lions with Bay, too, but we are making a grave mistake if we let the other master criminal, Christopher Nolan, slip out of sight. Nolan completes the circle. Both The Dark Knight and Rise of the Fallen use crude, abusive visual/aural tactics to prompt audience response, and the crowd mistakes its trauma for profundity (in the case of TDK) or rollicking entertainment (in the case of ROTF).
But audiences have been primed to accept this as the new cinema language. Making Michael Bay answer for the larger crime of supplanting a visual language that was perfectly fine, far from moribund with a crude, inelastic one... let's the entire Ho'wood regime off the hook.
It's not about one filmmaker's talent or expertise. It's about how event movies like TDK and ROTF cement the impression that this dastardly decline in visual literacy is some kind of evolutionary leap. Orwellian. And film critics who pound on Bay yet uphold the whole rotten system are either blind, lazy, cowardly or some gruesome comibination of the three.
Fight the real enemy!!! [tears group photo of media conglomerate honchos]
Nolan's a "magician" who likes ripping back the curtain on the cinematic illusion, like Henry from Eraserhead tearing open his deformed baby's body with scissors.
As to the media conglomerate, well, I believe you fight them by putting into the world the things you think are missing or that which someone like Bay perverts. These media conglomos aren't going away, but I do think we can work (always…to the last breath) to balance things out between (dread dichotomy) "us" and "them."
One thing we shouldn't lose sight of: Just because something like Transformers makes a lot of money doesn't mean the opinion on it is even across the board. We go in collectively to a movie, but we come out ourselves, and those variations in reaction (however major or minor) should be accounted for.
"Nolan's a "magician" who likes ripping back the curtain on the cinematic illusion, like Henry from Eraserhead tearing open his deformed baby's body with scissors."
But that's high praise.
aside from the (common) misuse of "literal", this has made my morning. now i can get to work with so much aplomb.
what, exactly, is so bad about TDK? hyperbole aside, it's as bad as ROTF? really?
Since "literal" was brought up as a point several times, I thought it worth addressing. Critically speaking, it can be interpreted as a bit much; I was on the fence about it, but utlimately went with in because I liked how the sentence flowed better than without.
Anon, a handful of reviews (including Mr. Uhlich's) got at why The Dark Knight was such a miserable offense, but I wonder if anybody put it better than David Denby last year:
Yet I can’t rate “The Dark Knight” as an outstanding piece of craftsmanship. “Batman Begins” was grim and methodical, and this movie is grim and jammed together. The narrative isn’t shaped coherently to bring out contrasts and build toward a satisfying climax. “The Dark Knight” is constant climax; it’s always in a frenzy, and it goes on forever. Nothing is prepared for, and people show up and disappear without explanation; characters are eliminated with a casual nod. There are episodes that are expensively meaningless (a Hong Kong vignette, for instance), while crucial scenes are truncated at their most interesting point—such as the moment in which the disfigured Joker confronts a newly disfigured Harvey Dent (a visual sick joke) and turns him into a vicious killer. The thunderous violence and the music jack the audience up. But all that screw-tightening tension isn’t necessarily fun. “The Dark Knight” has been made in a time of terror, but it’s not fighting terror; it’s embracing and unleashing it—while making sure, with proper calculation, to set up the next installment of the corporate franchise.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2008/07/21/080721crci_cinema_denby
I understand where the Dark Knight hate comes from, but for the life of me I just can't get with it, much less wish that Nolan be fed to lions (come on, The Prestige is pretty good). The fanboy insanity surrounding it makes me want to distrust it, yet I can't deny that I got a ton of pure movie-movie pleasure from the flow and forward momentum and relative sophistication (to me, anyway) of the movie in a way that made me forgive its lapses in coherence. The general relentlessness of it does remind of Bay, but only superficially. Bay is doing far more godawful and vile and stupid things with a similarly disorienting but more extreme aesthetic.
P.S. I would've posted this under my film blog pseudonym "theoldboy," except I'm figuring now's about the time to start putting away childish things.
This review made it into a D.C. area newspaper. Wheeeeee!
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/06/29/best-of-the-transformers-bashing/
I enjoyed Transformers 2. And in spite of this being a reactionary environment and the author of the review writing that anybody who could enjoy such a movie is worthy of pity (i.e. contempt) I thought I might try to explain why I like it...
I think Michael Bay is fascinating; his soul seems to be completely commercialized, but he’s got the mania and obsessiveness of a genuine artist. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Bay is the equivalent of Spielberg or George Miller; his movies remind me of something George Orwell wrote about good bad poetry.
“There is a great deal of good bad poetry in English…poems of this kind, are capable of giving true pleasure to people who can see clearly what is wrong with them. One could fill a fair-sized anthology with good bad poems, if it were not for the significant fact that good bad poetry is usually too well known to be worth reprinting.
It is no use pretending that in an age like our own, 'good' poetry can have any genuine popularity. It is, and must be, the cult of a very few people, the least tolerated of the arts…True poetry can sometimes be acceptable
to the mass of the people when it disguises itself as something else…But generally ours is a civilization in which the very word 'poetry' evokes a hostile snigger or, at best, the sort of frozen disgust that most people feel when they hear the word 'God'. ..Good bad poetry,
however, can get across to the most unpromising audiences if the right atmosphere has been worked up beforehand.”
I think Michael Bay is an exceptionally good bad poet. And I'll take good bad poetry over stale pseudo poetry ("Wall E") any day.
In a way, you’re all absolutely correct…but, for me, the joy of watching Transformers 2 is in everything you hate about it: its complete vulgarity, its unapologetic dive into adolescent excess, and its sheer craziness. (I wish every summer blockbuster were as bugfuck). It’s not a “Tsunami of shit” (BOM! BOM! BOMMMMM!). It’s wonderful junk.
I learned a lesson from the first "TRANSFORMERS" movie. If you have very low expectations of a film and learn to turn your brain off, while watching; you can actually enjoy yourself . . . and realize that not every Hollywood movie has to be worthy of an Academy Awards nominations.
The kiddies and a good number of adults managed to enjoy themselves with this movie. Hell, I enjoyed it more than "STAR TREK". It wasn't what I would call art, but at least it wasn't bombarded with countless plot holes like the TREK film.
My favorite part of the review: "...Fallen splatters on the screen like diarrhea about a porcelain bowl."
That being said... is anybody besides me pissed off that Egypt finally let someone film at the pyramids just so we could be treated to this steaming pile? C'mon, Egypt... did you really think Michael Bay would come up with something that was relevant, useful, or even watchable?
The Spy Who Loved Me filmed there in 77. Surely there must be others, perhaps with less access. But they have been put to better, or other, use.
z: I guess a better articulation of my thought would to have said "I pity people who need this to be entertained." There's a vague essence of Transformers 2 that I almost dug, but it never had nearly enough room to become anything more than just a whimper - nevertheless, I dig your angle on it, and think it is this exact quality that makes both Transformers, The Rock and Armageddon so unabashedly likable even as they trounce upon "good taste".
I guess a better articulation of my thought would to have said "I pity people who need this to be entertained."
I'm afraid I find that insulting. It's one thing to dislike a movie. It's another to insult those who do not share your opinion.
Don't sit there and absolve yourself of blame, Robert Humanick! Transformers 2 exists because of people like you, people who went to see the first one and made it a monster hit. You even admitted to liking it, for Pete's sake, something even I, this blog's former connoisseur of trash, can't admit to doing.
Your act of contrition, here masquerading as a (presumably deserving--I won't go see it) evisceration of TF2, should have been more an act of attrition. "I is sorry, so sorry for my positive review making people go see TF1!"
I can't blame you, dear Robert, for the inevitable TF3, but all of you folks out here in this comments section whining about Michael Bay's super duper career need to start (singing) "lookin' at the man in the mirror" because YOU MADE HIM! (evil laughter, followed by 100 quick cuts of me, Martin Lawrence and Nicolas Cage flashing on the screen.)
There won't be a Land of the Lost 2 because America finally came to their senses and realized Will Ferrell was Satan. TF2's $206 million opening proves that y'all are still willing to swim in Bay's ADD editing.
Keith, I may fight you when you try to throw Christopher Nolan into the fire, but I'll be more than willing to help you scoop Bay and the shitload of people who paid to see the first Transformers movie into the fiery pits of Hell. (I may toss in Lars von Trier when you're not looking. He'll love it!) And no, you can't throw me in because I saw that shit on bootleg.
Re: Juanita's journal.
I don't think pitying someone and insulting them are the same thing. Needing something as excessive and cranked-up as Transformers 2 to be entertained is like needing 3 bottles of vodka to get drunk: unhealthy. Even if I liked the film, I'd pity them. They're missing out on all that cinema has to offer below the level of 17 (on a 1-10 scale).
odie: I seriously doubt the $20 - $30 I've contributed to Michael Bay over the years (3 paid movie screenings - all discounted, 1 copy of The Rock on Criterion purchased used, and probably a rental of Armageddon back in the day) constitutes "making" him (It's alive! IT'S ALIVE!!!), though I never fail to dig your charged freak-outs. You're actually too kind, suggesting I got anyone to see Transformers 1 who hadn't already, and like 2 or 3 (or in one case, 7) times at that.
I initially was going to go at this review with a Jay Sherman "If the movie stinks, just don't go" homage at the end, but quickly abandoned the idea. Too absolute for my tastes. I love the show to death, but he's wrong: there are good sequels past numero two, there are good remakes, and there are good movies made with $100 million worth of stunts and explosives. I'll take ten gallons of shit if it means finding a diamond at the bottom.
I kind of adore Land of the Lost (seriously, have Ebert and Armond ever been in agreement with minority opinions before?). Seems poorly received TV adaptations are my thing this decade.
I haven't seen this film, but I relay your encapsulated review -- "Tsunami of Shit" -- to everyone I know that has.
The response is laughter, followed by agreement. Great phrase.
hate all your want. i enjoyed the movie
Not sure if the majority of that article really did anything reinforce what it was supposed to be disproving, that movie critics are elitist snobs totally disconnected from the taste of the average viewer, but I do generally agree with it regardless.
Post a Comment