Reflect On: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I know I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said a million times already, but these are my thoughts on the film.

Okay, so a friend of mine showed me the other day that “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is currently number 9 on IMDB’s highest grossing movies list of all time.(Check it out here.) This blew my mind. I knew that the movie was doing well at the box office and has actually earned the title of “highest grossing movie with the worst reviews,” which is pretty much the same thing as saying “worst highest gross movie of all time. But I had no idea that it was doing well enough to make it into the top 10 highest grossing movies ever (damn inflation).

Now the movie had already been in theaters for a little over a month before I started to take this blog seriously, so it didn’t really feel necessary that I talk about it or do a review of it (after all I’m trying to do the reviews right after I see the movie.) But after this new found information, it got me thinking more and more about the popularity of this movie and I though I would take the time and reflect on the bizarre phenomenon that is “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

I saw the movie at midnight opening night with a group of friends and to be honest, at the time, I didn’t think of it as being that terrible. I was really disappointed in it though. The humor was bad, painful at times and the first half of the movie didn’t ever feel like a “Transformers” sequel. I thought the actions scenes were pretty good, except I could understand how someone could get board or confused with them. The biggest problems I had where things like the slut terminator – duh, I mean Transformer, like I said earlier, the humor, the fact that Jetfire can teleport and of course the infamous robot heaven scene. Oh, how I hated robot heaven. I mean why is there a heaven for robots? Yes, I know one could argue that the robots have the computer based DNA, like what was mention in the first, and that they could actually be a living organism and thus could have some kind of afterlife. But then what is Sam doing there? Or what are the robots doing in people heaven? Or why was the scene ever put in there? It was unnecessary and could have been avoided if they hadn’t killed off Sam. You know say what you will about “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls” in regards to what are aliens doing in an Indiana Jones movie, but at least that was based on actual mythology and has been feature in other movies. Having a robot heave is something completely inexcusable.

I didn’t have big problem with the whole stereotyping and racism that everyone is getting so bent out of shape over. Honestly, this movie isn’t even worth getting that offended over. I mean consider the score. This whole issue says more about the filmmakers than it does the actual race that is supposedly being criticized.

Surprisingly, I didn’t pay much attention to the plot holes until sometime after the movie when I was able to sit down and think it over. If you’ve look anywhere around the internet you’ve probably noticed that it is the film’s plot holes and continuity errors that everyone seems to be attacking. And why shouldn’t they? This movie is such a mess in these regards. (To get an idea what I'm taking about, chick here. More here on IMDB.) It’s hard to believe that so many mistakes could get onto film. Seriously it’s like filming the first draft of the script with no one looking it over. This movie has been in production for like what, two years? And during that time, no one picket up on any of these issues? Mind blowing, but here it is.

Frankly I think that this is the root of the fascination with this movie, it kind of falls into the “it’s so bad, it’s good” category, but not quite. It falls more into the “I can’t believe how bad this movie is” category, and really it the budget and scope of the movie the pushes into classification. If this had been a couple thousand dollar budget direct to DVD movie (and believe me, there out there), this would be the kind movie that you show your friends to have fun and a good laugh. Sort of in the vain of “Plan 9 from Outer Space” and “Troll 2,” which both generated a cult following based around how painfully bad they are. But since “Revenge of the Fallen” is a multimillion dollar Hollywood production, you expect more. We want it to be good; we want to believe that they knew what they were doing and took their time to give us “grade A” entertainment. But they didn’t.

People have always question Michael Bay’s capability as a filmmaker and I think more a lot of these people this confers it. This stuff looks pretty, but that’s seems to be the only thing he cares about getting right. In a way this movie gives the people who criticizing Bay a way of saying “I told you so.” And I have a feeling we’ll be hearing it again all to soon, because as you know Hollywood isn’t going to look at the reviews as long as the money’s being raked in. Basically we all know that this mean “Transformers 3.” Let’s hope that the filmmakers (particularly the writers and Bay) can learn from their mistakes and be able to approach the project with fresh eyes. But since the studios want production to begin towards the end of the year, I don’t have high hopes.