Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

[devlin1]

"'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination."

[cczernia]

Sounds a lot like the first one.

[mordraine]

Wow, tell it like it is Roger! That was one suweet review, loaded with witty quips that would make John Stewart jealous!


[quote="Roger Ebert"]They have tiny little heads, except for Starscream®, who is so ancient he has an aluminum beard[/quote]

[jimmy corrigan]

that was a fun read. so angry.

[Sadohara]

I have so-called friends who are trying a GIJoe/Transformers2 doubleheader. Not out of nostalgia. Not out of high expectations. Possibly because it's just stupid enough to reach the levels of stupidity that we achieved in our wayward and offensive youth.

As men in their thirties, with families, I cannot comprehend the willing desire to sacrifice portions of their precious, ever-dwindling lives on the Celluloid Altar to the Dark Child God, Michaelbay.

[devlin1]

I'll watch this movie with Rifftrax, when I can. It almost made Phantom Menace bearable -- I'm sure it can work with this, too. That's the only circumstance under which I can imagine watching this turd. I know otherwise decent, intelligent people who genuinely liked the first one, and who are genuinely looking forward to this one, sans irony. WTF is that all about?

Where's Gotetsu? Gotetsu, can you explain what appeals to you about these movies?

(Speaking of GI Joe, I admit that I voluntarily watched that old animated GI Joe movie about Cobra's Weather Dominator a couple weeks ago. But that thing was kind of its own Rifftrax. It's fucking ridiculous.)

[jimmy corrigan]

i knew that the first one was going to be a explosion-filled, plot-holey turd going into it, which let me enjoy it on its own terms. it was brainless fun. it had characters i grew up with. however, i don't think i'll be watching this next one.

[Count Zero]

I saw this today. Roger's review is an understatement. It was truly the most incoherent story I have ever seen. I was expecting it to be terrible, but fun... it wasn't even a fun kind of terrible. I almost walked out in the first five minutes of the movie... how I made the entire two and half hours I will never know. I should have gone to see Year One.

[devlin1]

[quote="Count Zero"]I saw this today. Roger's review is an understatement. It was truly the most incoherent story I have ever seen. I was expecting it to be terrible, but fun... it wasn't even a fun kind of terrible. I almost walked out in the first five minutes of the movie... how I made the entire two and half hours I will never know. [/quote]
This is how I felt about the first one.



Of course, [url=http://io9.com/5301898/michael-bay-finally-made-an-art-movie]maybe we're all missing the point.[/url]

[Gotetsu]

[quote="devlin1"]
Where's Gotetsu? Gotetsu, can you explain what appeals to you about these movies?[/quote]

Two words: Personal taste. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Michael bay doesn't make these movies for the thousands of you. He makes them for the millions of me. I am the easily entertained, "dumb" movie-goer, who likes flash, and hot chics, and explosions, and CGI up the yin-yang. We're there to be entertained for a couple of hours, and nothing more. If we want lessons in morality, or a deeper meaning to it all, we'll take a philosophy class. And he can't sh!t on my childhood memories because they're frickin' memories! I still have them, regardless of what Hollywood does. They are intangible, and beyond affectation by something as socially unimportant as a movie.



So take your $7.50 and go see Michael Moore's latest attempt to stretch his 15 minutes of fame, or go see the latest indie film that causes people to snore loudly in a theater, but has wonderful social relevance and artistic merit.



Leave my explosions and cheap dialogue alone!



Tom "Gotetsu"

Resident Meat Head

[Dragonkin]

[quote="Gotetsu"]Two words: Personal taste. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Michael bay doesn't make these movies for the thousands of you. He makes them for the millions of me. I am the easily entertained, "dumb" movie-goer, who likes flash, and hot chics, and explosions, and CGI up the yin-yang. We're there to be entertained for a couple of hours, and nothing more. If we want lessons in morality, or a deeper meaning to it all, we'll take a philosophy class. And he can't sh!t on my childhood memories because they're frickin' memories! I still have them, regardless of what Hollywood does. They are intangible, and beyond affectation by something as socially unimportant as a movie.



So take your $7.50 and go see Michael Moore's latest attempt to stretch his 15 minutes of fame, or go see the latest indie film that causes people to snore loudly in a theater, but has wonderful social relevance and artistic merit.



Leave my explosions and cheap dialogue alone!



Tom "Gotetsu"

Resident Meat Head[/quote]

:cheers: QFT

[devlin1]

[quote="Gotetsu"]Two words: Personal taste. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Michael bay doesn't make these movies for the thousands of you. He makes them for the millions of me. I am the easily entertained, "dumb" movie-goer, who likes flash, and hot chics, and explosions, and CGI up the yin-yang. We're there to be entertained for a couple of hours, and nothing more. If we want lessons in morality, or a deeper meaning to it all, we'll take a philosophy class. And he can't sh!t on my childhood memories because they're frickin' memories! I still have them, regardless of what Hollywood does. They are intangible, and beyond affectation by something as socially unimportant as a movie.



So take your $7.50 and go see Michael Moore's latest attempt to stretch his 15 minutes of fame, or go see the latest indie film that causes people to snore loudly in a theater, but has wonderful social relevance and artistic merit.



Leave my explosions and cheap dialogue alone!



Tom "Gotetsu"

Resident Meat Head[/quote]
This reminds me a little of [url=http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/yee_haw_my_vote_cancels_out]"Yee Haw! My Vote Cancels Out Y'alls!"[/url]


[quote="Yee Haw! My Vote Cancels Out Y'alls!"]Now, if you ain't noticed, we got a lot more parkin' lot space down at the racetrack and the Farm & Fleet store than y'all do out in front of your bookstores and muffin shops. All of us add up real quick, and our votes do a damn bunch more than just cancel out all y'all's! [/quote]

I think we all want to be entertained by the movies we see -- that's the point. I just don't understand how lazy filmmaking, nonsensical plots, flat characters, ham-fisted dialogue, and soulless effects could entertain [i]anyone[/i].



For example, I recently saw [i]Phantom Menace[/i] again, and though I railed against it for the better portion of Summer 1999 to Fall 2000, I think was too busy complaining to notice just how [i]boring[/i] it is. There's so much just sitting around and talking with a very low ratio of interesting information communicated to words spoken. How did those little kids who found Jar-Jar such a laugh-riot even manage to make it through the 40-minute stretches of seated exposition? Even the pod race, which I kinda looked forward to for the promise of at least a little action, manages to drag on past the point of being entertaining. I found the whole thing to be the very definition of not-fun (despite the [url=http://www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/star-wars-episode-i-phantom-menace]Rifftrax[/url]!).

[mordraine]

[quote="devlin1"]I think we all want to be entertained by the movies we see -- that's the point. I just don't understand how lazy filmmaking, nonsensical plots, flat characters, ham-fisted dialogue, and soulless effects could entertain [i]anyone[/i].
[/quote]

:cheers: QFT!

[mordraine]

That being said, however, I think there's a sliding scale of acceptance or forgiveness for the so-called "bad" stuff of a movie. My ham-fisted dialogue is another guy's gem of quotability.

[Count Zero]

[quote="devlin1"]This reminds me a little of I think we all want to be entertained by the movies we see -- that's the point. I just don't understand how lazy filmmaking, nonsensical plots, flat characters, ham-fisted dialogue, and soulless effects could entertain [i]anyone[/i].
[/quote]

I think you hit the nail on the head for me. I went into the movie wanting bad dialogue and crazy robot fights. I didn't expect it to be any sort of masterpiece. I expected an over the top summer blockbuster that was a fun ride for my 8.50.



Sadly, I didn't even get that. Maybe I have an attention span longer than 2 minutes, because my brain was spending time trying to figure out how all these scenes connected together. I was willing to forgive Devestator's testicle shot and the whole slew of other things. My problem had more to do with what the hell Devestator was even doing half the time. I spent time trying to figure out how Decepticons killed in the first movie managed to suddenly be alive again... other than Megatron (i.e. the helicopter and the scorpion). And the Decepticon's grand plan was to kidnap Sam's parents? It even had Deus Ex Machina with Jetfire showing back up. And, this is just the tip of the iceberg.



It seemed everyone in the theater, except me and my two friends, really enjoyed the movie. I can even understand enjoying scenes, but to say it was a good story? I always wonder about movies like this and what the original script looked like, because I can't imagine the original script being this incoherent.



I wanted to enjoy this movie... I was really trying. It just doesn't seem possible.

[Dragonkin]

I haven't seen the movie yet, but it seems that for quite a few members of our community, this is like Pulp Fiction for me. I've heard praise and commendation for that movie ad nauseam, but I fail to see why it's such a great flick. It was, to me, an exercise in confusion. All I remember from it is "Royale with Cheese."

I expect to enjoy TF2 when I finally get to see it. I also plan NOT to try and pick it apart. Like Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." And sometimes, a guilty pleasure is just that.

[Gotetsu]

[quote="devlin1"]I just don't understand how lazy filmmaking, nonsensical plots, flat characters, ham-fisted dialogue, and soulless effects could entertain [i]anyone[/i]. [/quote]

So, basically when you called for my opinion, you didn't really want it. Since you went ahead and ignored[b] the very first sentence of my post[/b].



That being said, I haven't seen the movie yet. But as I loved the first one, I expect I'll like this one. But the point of my post was that sometimes the explanation you want can't be explained. People like what they like because they like it. Opinions are the only things we can call our own. Unless you're just regurgitating someone else's opinion to make yourself seem smarter/hipper/etc...

[mrlost]

I didn't like the first one but when a friend suggested we go see the sequel I went ahead and bought both our tickets so he wouldn't have anything to complain about and as I recall he had bought my ticket to Kung-fu Panda so I owed him.

I must admit, I was surprised. EDIT I was also surprised that the National Security Adviser didn't turn out to be a decepticon inflitrator.

Revenge of the Fallen was a massive improvement over the last Transformers movie. I could follow and predict the plot's tired tropes, and actually follow what was happening in the CGI battle scenes. All in all, I think I enjoyed it. Certainly I didn't walk out of the theater like some of the folk around me. However, I wasn't about to join into the standing ovation that erupted around me as the credits rolled.

I was a little confused why an ancient Decepticon turned into a blackbird. But wasn't surprised that Optimus Prime was suddenly Robot Jesus. I was even prepared when they trashed the pyramids and suggested that ancient human monuments had been built by aliens.

The jive talkin robots weren't nearly as offensive as I expected them to be. All in all a massive improvement on Bay's usual faire.

[Gotetsu]

[quote="Count Zero"]It seemed everyone in the theater, except me and my two friends, really enjoyed the movie. [/quote]

And there you have it. :)

[Uber_snotling]

I haven't seen this movie, and I don't intend to.

However, I did see the previews for TF2, GiJoe, and Terminaor:Salvation all in a row while waiting for Batman to start. That was an overwhelming 12 minutes of robots, robot-suits, explosions, and buildings falling over that almost sent me into an epileptic seizure.
Don't get me wrong, I like action movies. I loved Terminator 2 and am a big fan of most of the classic sci-fi flicks. But the sensation overload of some of the modern summer-movies is a bit too much for me. I'm not saying it is bad, just overwhelming.

I wonder if I had been my current age in 1977 whether I would have found Star Wars to be too much.

[ekomega]

I liked the movie (saw it opening day for $5.50), despite all its faults.

The two things that bothered me were the racism robots (they were ridiculous) and the level of humor in the movie, which was consistently aimed at 13 year olds. The first one didn't have so much crude humor, especially dialogue such as Sam's mom joking about when he got "his cherry popped" recently. Come on. It was waaaaaay too low brow, base humor.

It amazes me since the original show came out when I was a kid, and anyone who was 13 wasn't even born before the show went off the air. I didn't know they were aiming their humor at the demographic who watched that dinosaur transformer show that sucked in the late 90's.

[Skyman]

Wow I got to stop reading this thread everyone is giving away too much of the plot:biggrin:

[Cthulhu]

Excellent review of the movie here. Contains spoilers.