I have not seen the second Transformers film, REVENGE OF THE FALLEN. But I've read a ton of reviews, and spoken with people who have seen it-most of them love it to bits, hail it as epic, awesome, the works. But what I don't get is how a movie (much like the first one) with awful acting, sloppy directing, embarrassing dialouge , no character development and a convoluted plot can be so wildly popular. It puzzles me to no end, it frustrates me even though I should just accept that people will like what they like. But is it that awful of me to think a little less of someone when they tell me they thought this was the best movie ever?? I mean, come on. Bay seems to be critic-proof in the sense that , well, no amount of horrendous reviews will stop people from seeing it. But at least many recognize it only as a popcorn film with no substance, Megan Fox's glistening slowmo body, and explosions. But why are we entertained by this? Last summer's Dark Knight managed to give us a good story, great action scenes while managing to tug at our heart strings...these kind of movies are just explosions and robots, really there is not much more to them. Which is fun, once and a while, don't get me wrong..but is it that awful to ask for a little bit more? Just a little?
Here's one review I liked, among many, written by Robert Dougherty on the Associated Content site.
Transformers 2 reviews are useless because no
Transformers
2 review will stop people from seeing
Revenge of the Fallen. A
Transformers 2 review truly means nothing, for if
Transformers 2 reviews could stop big
box office, Michael Bay would be out of work. Michael Bay lives on his
movies being critic-proof, and
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen reviews are no exception. But that hasn't stopped critics from decrying in their
Transformers 2 review that Bay may have gone to the bottom of the barrel again.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is pretty much a remake of the first movie, for all intents. Shia LaBeouf's Sam and Megan Fox's Mikaela are on the run from evil
Transformers for two and a half hours. The good
Transformers, led by Optimus Prime, are again out to defend them and all humans from Megatron, and his new master, The Fallen.
The
Transformers reviews for the first movie weren't that great, but they were about down the middle. That is extremely rare for a Michael Bay film, as he hadn't come close to getting half-positive reviews for his
movies since
The Rock in 1996.
Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II and
The Island had helped make Bay the anti-Christ for critics.
The first
Transformers let Bay off the hook a bit - especially since he introduced Megan Fox to the world. But
Transformers 2 reviews are back to slamming Bay as the devil.
The expected complaints in
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen reviews are that it is
empty, hollow, an assault on the senseless, and brainless. That's no surprise - but many a review also calls
Transformers 2 even more brainless than usual, and even downright racism with a couple of ethic stereotype robots.
Pretty much no review has anything to praise
Transformers 2 for except the
technology and robot battles. Since they are even bigger than ever, and will be viewed on IMAX, that's more than enough for
Revenge of the Fallen.
The hope in
Hollywood is that
Transformers will be the biggest opening of the summer, with an opening of over $100 million expected. Previous big summer hits like
Star Trek, Up, and
The Hangover also had very good reviews, but
Transformers 2 will outdo them all without them.
Whereas reviews were at a fair 57% for the original on Rotten Tomatoes, the
Transformers 2 reviews are at a piddling 21% on Rotten Tomatoes so far, with a rating of 4 out of 10. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus reads that "
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a noisy, underplotted, and overlong special-effects extravaganza that lacks a human touch."
But if Michael Bay really needed to provide that to survive, he would have been out of the business a decade ago. So a
Transformers 2 review gets doomed to relative obscurity while the millions get made this weekend.
Additionally, every review I've read also mentions how god awful Megan Fox's acting was...and I'm glad. I wanted to give the girl a chance, but it was too hard. She's just a vapid headed girl who is getting by on nothing but her looks and sex appeal (although she claimed in interviews that she doesn't like being called sexy, and resents it. okay, world's sexiest woman 2 years in a row! don't promote yourself as a sex symbol then! don't go to maxim when you've got nothing else to prove except how mind blowingly hot and perfect you are!) and who has virtually no talent.But, she's hot in Transformers, so America loves her. I just am so confused and frustrated with the state of cinema sometimes.
