Summer Movies, Part Six

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Whenever I watch a Michael Bay movie, I go in with a certain set of expectations. After all, no one, including Bay himself, is pretending that we're dealing with high art, here. Quite the contrary. As a result, it's difficult for me to write this review, which is heading to very negative places very shortly, without feeling slightly morally compromised, for lack of a better word. How am I supposed to rip apart a movie that met my every expectation (even if that expectation was that this movie would be shit)?

There are poop, pee, fart and sex jokes. Megan Fox runs in slo-mo and screams "SAM!" a lot. A crotchety old Transformer talks like Vinnie Jones and uses a cane to walk. There are some gangsta robots. I could go on, but suffice it to say that all of the old Michael Bay tropes are present and accounted for.

The movie also suffers from all the same flaws as the first. Not only is there not nearly enough focus on the Transformers, but the ones we do see get no personalities. There is entirely too much time spent with human characters in this movie, to the point that the robots often seem an afterthought.

So, yeah. All of that makes this movie as dull and mediocre as the first, and as all of Bay's other movies. Fine. Normally, I would give it a C and move along. However...

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN IS THREE FUCKING HOURS LONG. I exaggerate only slightly (the movie clocks at 2 hours and forty-five minutes), and believe me when I say that it is at least an hour too long. This movie is actually painful to sit through. There is barely enough to hold my interest for ninety minutes. What this film asks for is entirely too much. I am comfortable in saying that Transformers is the worst movie I have seen, or will see, this summer, without exception. It's action sequences are too few and far between to redeem the remainder of the film, which is entirely cheap jokes and weak writing. At least Wolverine was decent enough to have a talented cast and a reasonable run time.

F