 "Photo:")
It's sad, but true: most big-budget summer blockbusters fuel a vicious circle.
Each year, summer action movies strive to pack as much explosive power, visual stimulation and compelling drama as they can onto their reels in an attempt to set the standard just a notch higher than they did the year before.
But now movie directors can breathe a collective sigh of relief as Michael Bay's latest film, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," has taken the summer blockbuster film bar and stomped it into the ground after tossing it into a ditch.
Granted, the movie delivers on what little it promises. There are robots, and they are well-rendered, if at times difficult to contrast from their environment with all the CGI chrome. They punch, shoot and destroy just as one would expect of giant robots, and, as in the first film, product placement reigns supreme.
Explosions in the film are varied and frequent, giving Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBoeuf) and his girlfriend Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) something to run from that isn't rendered in during post-production.
Bay also wastes no time in giving the audience abundant PG-13 shots of Fox's character leaning over a motorcycle in short shorts or running towards the camera in slow motion (fleeing from those aforementioned explosions, of course).
If you're expecting something more out of the film than booms, 'bots and boobs, however, you are only setting yourself up for disappointment. There is no way this kind of movie should surprise anyone, even if it presents novel and innovative angles from which to view explosions.
Fox's monotone delivery makes her an unconvincing heroine, though LaBoeuf's girlish screams throughout the movie more than make up for Fox's lack of interest in her own lines.
What little plot there is to speak of in the film is derivative at best. Witwicky becomes a vessel for ancient robot secrets he doesn't understand because he touches a shard of some artifact he destroyed in the first movie. Evil robots want the secrets in his head, good robots admit they were keeping said secrets, a good robot dies and Witwicky ends up running around Egypt in search of a magical robot McGuffin to fix him, which he eventually does, becoming the Chosen One in the process.
Acting - or lack thereof - notwithstanding, there are also more plot holes than bullet holes in this film. An early example: the mysterious shard that zapped Witwicky's brain turns all the appliances in Witwicky's kitchen into appliance-sized killer robots, who then proceed to, like one would expect, try to kill him.
Granted, his house is a smoking crater afterwards, but Bumblebee - one of the good robots - saves his life and Witwicky's parents point out that the government and insurance will take care of the repair bill.
What we don't expect is for Witwicky to, immediately after narrowly escaping with his life from a machine gun wielding blender, turn to Bumblebee and tell him that he "doesn't need his protection." The logic behind this is baffling. Perhaps Bay's version of Witwicky thinks he can fend off killer robots on his own.
Perhaps Bay's version of Witwicky is just not very bright.
Having a healthy suspension of disbelief is key to enjoying a movie like "Transformers." One can accept a reality in which GMC pickups, motorcycles and big rigs transform into giant talking robots. One can accept that there are evil robots trying to destroy the sun with a giant machine buried in an Egyptian pyramid. One can even accept - with minimal effort - that the only female in the film who would express a convincing romantic interest in Shia LaBoeuf is actually a murderous robot in disguise.
Fans, however, might not be so ready to accept that Sam Witwicky is an idiot.
Final verdict: If you're happy with robots, explosions and a PG-13 Megan Fox, then Transformers' newest iteration is for you, but don't expect it to transform into anything more than that.
Be the first to comment on this article!