Let’s be honest: We sometimes watch movies to think, to ponder, to be enlightened about the meaning of life and so on and so forth. Sometimes. But, most of the time, you buy that 150 peso ticket and the 80 buck popcorn because at the end of the day, you might want to forget the problems of your world and would rather have fun.
We like action movies, because unlike us, the characters in these movies do something. They act, and they act in ways we will only dream of. And so, I think, the action genre has a lot of potential to be entertaining as well as thought provoking.
Michael Bay’s Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen manages to entertain and to provoke. But for all the wrong god-awful reasons.
Everybody by now knows what’s in store for them when you enter the Cineplex: robots, shootings, places to places, sexy-sexies, explo-booms, Megan Lips & Shia jokes and of course, astounding graphics (from a company called Industrial Light and Magic, sfx-ers responsible for almost any major sfx movies, like Harry Potter, Speed Racer…) that you wish you had whatever computers these guys used to get that amazing realism to the transformers. Pixar would pee their wall-e pants.
But what I think Michael Bay fails to realize is story and character. Trans 2 has little, if any, continuity and as a critic points out, “no motivation within the scenes themselves”. There is a lot to be said about the numerous holes in the movie- so many, that if this would be a fly swatter, the fly would definitely NOT be swatted.
And by-golly-gosh batman, the characters just don’t make us believe, they don’t transport us. It’s funny that out of all the humans in the story, out of all their supposed hardships, problems and the fate-of-the-world-rests-in-your-hands premise, no one really shed a tear. Who shed a tear? This yellow dude:
And he’s not even human.
But that can be forgiven to an extent. Just look at the recent JJ Abram’s Star Trek. That had plot holes as well. The difference is Star Trek had far more entertainment in it than the 2+ hours of Trans 2. That movie knew that it’s about quality versus quantity when it comes to action scenes. It knows how to breathe; it knows silence is a tool that can make those action money shots worth the 150. More boom boom pows do not mean more wows.
Michael Bay, the man responsible for rent-heavy movies like ‘Bad Boys I (1995)& II (2003) ’ (whose poster was smack in the middle of Sam Witwicky’s dorm room, how humble) or ‘Pearl Harbor (2001)’ knows the bang-boom scenes are what the audiences are after and that’s fine. But consider for a moment the awesomeness of movement and action in, say, ‘The Matrix (1999)’, ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2003)’, ‘Lord of the Rings (2001)’ : their action is superbly choreographed. We are riding with the fighters, not just bystanders. When the Autowhos and Decepti-whuts rampage each other, it looks like one big junk shop in a signal no. 4 typhoon. We are not really awarded, we are punished as viewers. There is a lot of promise in these scenes but alas, I myself am still nauseated from these scenes.
Whatever anyone says about this movie, it does not matter. People will watch it. It will be a blockbuster. A lot may come out the cinema and say, that was a nice movie. But for the movie’s cost, at 200 million, I would bet that we could make 10 or more action movies that are far more entertaining.
Trans 2 is junk food we all like to eat but know we should not. That’s a sad thing about blockbuster movies like this. What’s sadder? The herculean effort the animators put into every single frame- and for what? For 20% at RT. That’s what makes me angry.
So if you want a long spectacle full of action but with BETTER action and characters, I can think of Yu Yu Hakusho (1992-1995) or Flame of Recca (1997-98) would be a lot better. Granted their serials and are animation but then again, this movie is almost 80% animation, right? You could do better.
Chris
