Transformers: ROTFL (Rolls On The Floor, Laughing)
Posted June 25th, 2009 by Howard TaylerI saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen yesterday, and it was not my favoritest thing ever. Here are the rankings as they now stand:
1. Star Trek
2. Up
3. Terminator: Salvation
4. Angels & Demons
5. Transformers: ROTF
6. Land of the Lost
7. Night at The Museum 2
8. Wolverine
I got my fill of giant robots beating the cybersnot out of each other, yes. I even liked some of the bits that other reviewers despised (specifically, the twin robots “Jar-Jar” and “Binks,” or whatever their names were.) And the film had me completely gripped for the entire first Act, which concluded very powerfully.
But then we switched movies. It went from exciting and powerful with a touch of humor to being silly and stupid with a touch of “why am I still sitting here?” And there was the big Act II Continuity Flaw, in which a Transformer who has been hiding in the National Air & Space Museum (which we all know to be in the heart of Washington, D.C.) pounds his way out the back through a hangar door and steps onto an airstrip somewhere in Nevada – arid landscape with mountains on the horizon, nary a city in sight.
I can understand taking certain shortcuts for the sake of the story, but this knocked me right out of the film. I stopped believing in Transformers, and started seeing the whole thing as a dumb cartoon for kids, only with too many boob-cam shots for me to be comfortable treating it as a kids’ show.
That’s a high crime right there. When a film-maker manages to convince me to put on my suspenders of disbelief, it’s okay for him to tug on my pant leg from time to time. Ripping my pants off sideways and then giving me a wedgie? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Anyway, that was Act II. Act III had another continuity problem, this one more obvious. Four people in car, one freaking out. Somebody tases the freaker-outer, and he slumps. Cut IMMEDIATELY to car exterior, swerving to a halt. All four people jump out heroically. I actually spoke out loud… “It was nice of them to wake him up.”
But Act III’s big crime was that it meandered. Oh, sure, there were giant robots blowing the crap out of stuff and each other, there were Constructicons being all huge and dangerous, and our heroes were being all heroic and outnumbered, but it just went on and on and on. With lots of boob-cam.
By the time the film ended I didn’t care. I wanted to get out of the theater into sunlight and the real world. I wanted to go to the gym. You know the old theater saw, “Leave ‘em wanting more?” This movie was like a buffet of mediocre all-you-can food at which I unwisely ate enough for three days and then left, swearing I would never come back.
Perhaps appending the “L” to ROTF is misleading. But I bet this movie would be riotously entertaining with a group of like-minded friends shouting at the screen, or maybe just RiffTrax. In fact, that might get me to sit through the whole thing again.
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June 25th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Your comments are spot on. End of the ACT I I’m thinking that this might be a sequel that is better than the first (not hard to do in this case). But then the absurdity and the over-the-top juvenile humor destroyed the movie’s tone. It couldn’t figure out what it wanted to be. Is this a serious movie with funny parts, or is it “Old School” with robots?
Robot fight in the forest = cool.
Confusion = uncool.
The really big “huh?” = two of the three who wrote this also wrote the new Star Trek movie!
June 25th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
You have simultaneously destroyed my hopes for the movie and restored my dream of another mindless action film.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Isaac: Perhaps that’s where all their good writing went, then..
June 25th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
The sinking of the Roosevelt (the aircraft carrier that gets hit in the trailers) was a VERY powerful scene. The human cost was not downplayed.
That scene alone deserved a much better movie than this.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I should point out that there is a gulf between #4 and #5 on this list. From #4 up the films all fulfilled my expectations and left me happy for having seen them. In some cases I was thrilled.
Everything at #5 and below was disappointing, even if there was entertainment to be found.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Howard, your movie reviews continue to be spot-on. I’ve seen most of the movies on your list, and I completely agree: 1-4 fulfilled expectations, below that, not so much.
I saw the midnight showing of this with a bunch of my friends. Act I was extremely tight and immensely enjoyable, but then the movie descended into absurdity. I didn’t even notice the Act II continuity flaw at the time, but now that you’ve mentioned it, that’s downright shoddy film-making. Someone needed to catch that.
Even with a theatre filled with emphatic fans, I was not impressed. Cool robots cannot balance out confusion and bad storytelling. By the end of Act III, I wanted to go to sleep (and just because it was approaching 3am).
I wouldn’t have minded it so much if the action in Act III paid off. Spoilers: that whole sequence about getting Sam to Optimus was ultimately worthless, because the Fallen immediately stole the Matrix as soon as Sam got there. Soon thereafter, Optimus is resurrected anyways. It made me say, “Well, that was pointless. They could have done revived Optimus the whole time.” Further stupidity: “Only a Prime can defeat the Fallen”, and yet there is no logical reason why this is. Optimus didn’t exactly do anything special to beat him.
Would you mind if I linked your review on my blog? You made the same points I would’ve made, so no point in me typing it all out again when you did.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
@Chaos2651: You’re welcome to link to my review in your blog. In fact, anytime you want to link to something I’ve written you have permission to do so.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
The even weirder thing about the screenwriters is that Kurzman & Orci wrote what I think are pretty much the worst Xena episodes they ever aired. I was shocked at how good ST was (and wholly amused at the List Of Things Which Must Appear).
June 25th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Okay, i have to correct you, Howard, although it was the movie’s fault for poorly stating it. The shot at the Smithsonian Air & Space was actually at the Udvar-Hazy Center A&S Annex outside of DC near Dulles Airport. They don’t have a plane graveyard there the last time I was there, but they probably could, as it’s kinda in the middle of a big hole in the development of the area. The Udvar-Hazy Center backs onto the general aviation strips at Dulles International and there is a lot of open field there.
Udvar-Hazy is a muthering huge hanger that looks just like it does in the movie, although all the rails and glowy stuff around the SR-71 isn’t there. The Enola Gay is there, the Space Shuttle Enterprise is there, one of the Concordes…you get the idea. I love the place; check it out on A&S website
June 25th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
thank you howard, you’ve saved me a useful bit of money with that review.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
So… Only see TF:ROTF if you’re in the mood for looking at clothed boobs?
And tasers don’t knock people out – they paralyse (and hurt like hell). How much stupider is that scene if you know that?
June 25th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I enjoyed the movie *after* the first act. I was kidna annoyed by the nonstop sex refrence jokes. When Optimus rolled out of the plane, transformed, opened his chute, and retransformed just as he landed I whispered to my friend “That was absolutely gratuitous’ He whispered back “It’s Michael Bay”
Suddenly it all clicked. The man doesn’t understand the concept of subtle. So i sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the show.
I told my friends there are two reasons to watch the movie. Megan Fox. and Giant Robots beating each other stupid. If you go in expecting those two things (with a good measure of explosions thrown in) then you will be happy. If you are expecting *anything* else (coherent plot, good characterizations etc.) you will be disappointed.
June 26th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
This movie is so heavily stereotyped that I was shocked and pleased they didn’t make the female Autobots into ridiculously sexist breathy-voiced trollops with permanent high-heeled feet. Of course, they avoided this by giving them no legs at all and only two lines in the whole film, but no characterization is an advantage over bad characterization. The proposed robot design for Arcee from the first film was a triumph of feminine-yet non-ridiculous design, this just looks half done. But it looks like the toy.
I liked that GM made them shoehorn in the Autobot Jolt, who is a Chevy Volt. I am glad for this because it means he gets a toy, and I am so in love with the very idea of this car that I’m psyched it gets a toy at all, let alone a Transformer.
Prime was if anything too badass. He’s supposed to respect life. Killing is supposed to be like cleaning toilets for him, he’s really good at it but finds it distasteful. But in this film he’s a little too cavalier about blowing off faces.
Someone needs to buy Michael Bay a damn Steadicam. I saw this film in IMAX from the third row, and I had a headache trying to follow some of the scenes.
I really hope that Michael Bay quits and Spielberg gives the third film (if any) to a sympathetic director. There’s no reason why we can’t have action and a good story, and I’m sick of these “writers” thinking that stupidity is a vital and required component of an action film instead of a forgivable shortcoming.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Kurzman and Orci may have gotten writing credit because of Writer’s Guild legal actions; they might have written totally awful 1st draft versions, and the third guy actually salvaged it into a workable movie, but because of Guild laws K&O had to get writing credit.
(In response to K&O writing a bad Xena episode, a bad Transformers, and a surprisingly good Star Trek – the ST might not have been their work.)
June 27th, 2009 at 1:45 am
“I saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen yesterday, and it was not my favoritest thing ever…Perhaps appending the “L” to ROTF is misleading. But I bet this movie would be riotously entertaining”
If one were to smoke enough cannabis – Isn’t this why God put Weed on the Earth in the first place! Please forgive me, but a film this bad demands sedation, or at least an altered state of mind! Bumblebee my fat left…
June 27th, 2009 at 10:47 am
The jump from the Udvar-Hazy center to the airplane boneyard was especially jarring for me, because while flying on C-130s for the USMC, I actually dropped two planes off there. It’s at Davis-Monthan AFB, just outside Tuscon, Arizona.
Definitely not in DC’s backyard.
That said, I went in expecting a movie where robots ran around and crap blew up. I was not disappointed in that regard!
June 28th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
AlEcyler Says:
“…I whispered to my friend “That was absolutely gratuitous’ He whispered back “It’s Michael Bay”
Suddenly it all clicked. The man doesn’t understand the concept of subtle.”
You’re just discovering this *now*???
June 28th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
i just went to watch giant robots thrash each other and enjoyed that. Everything else was secondary (as well as thrashy).
At least my tickets were free.
June 29th, 2009 at 8:56 am
I’ll go see this for two reasons. One, he ranked it higher than Wolverine, which I found a reasonable way to waste some hours I wasn’t using for anything else (probably along with a few brain cells I could say much the same about). And two, it’s $1.50 at the bargain theater. Or at least it will be in a few weeks.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Due to an oddly-placed period and a fortuitously-placed line break, I initially read AlEcyler’s comment as:
“I told my friends there are two reasons to watch the movie. Megan Fox.”
Which is not a point of view I can deny.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
actualy I have several complaints just on the SR-71s
one is that they could have easily used any one of a number ofSR-71s out there (Never mind the oddity that somehow the US Airforce had a transformer-sr 71 and that between them and the Smithsonian and noone seems to have noticed)
the one they picked was the one “on display” at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. . . .
And then spend one heck of a lot of effort trying to hide that fact in the movie. . . (why? who knows but they hid several aircraft that were on static display display there that should have been visible in the shots they used, and I dont think the Smithsonian removed all of thoes displays wich included a number of aircaft but meh)
Only to have him smash his way out of the back of a hanger that that is currently in use by both the smithsonian and the Pima Air and Space museum for preservatioS/restoration work(where again they have at least one SR 71″)
June 30th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Say it with me, Everyone!
“Firing in the desert!”
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:34 am
I just got back from watching it, because all my friends did. Ouch. I had a hard time tracking the continuity. Then I checked IMDb, they saw what I was seeing as well-there wasn’t any. The same characters magically jumped from point to point (you caught the magical change from the Air and Space Museum to a desert boneyard, IMDb caught that in the final battle you had Constructicons together as Devastator and apart fighting individually, at the same time. Want to play ‘follow that plane’ during the airstrike scene? Good luck! Aircraft carriers, which one is which-the 74 is introduced, something hits it, and suddenly it’s the 71 sinking. But the 74 is back soon thereafter to fight at the climax…never heard of two carriers in one battle group, though.) And the pan shots! I was getting vertigo, especially in the romance scene early in the film, where he alternatingly swung left and right in half-rotations around the two major actors. A full spiral not good enough, huh, you need to return to your start point with a jump cut and rotate in the opposite direction, about ten times? He never used a straight shot if he could do a two axis pan.
BigAllChiro, on the subject I could have done without Whiny Witwicky Woman on Weed. Actually…I could have done without Whiny Witwicky Woman, altogether.