less than meets the eye > transformers: rotf > review

Is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen the right movie for you to see this weekend? This simple quiz could help you divine an answer to that most serious of questions.

1) Do you like to see stuff get blown up?

2) Do you have Dramamine on hand?

3) Do you like your giant robots to say things like "punk-ass Decepticon."

4) Do you enjoy seeing dogs hump? Potty humor?

5) Do you have a high tolerance for demeaning racial stereotypes?

6) Do you have 2.5 hrs?

If you answered yes to three or more of these questions, then Transformers: RotF is the feel-good hit of the summer. If not, then a little more thought may need to go into this decision.

To put it simply, this movie is neither as ungodly horrible or as awesome as you might have heard. There are moments of pure fun mixed with moments of pure agony. But none of it renders this big, dumb action flick unwatchable. Nor can the incredible effects and explosions save it from pure mediocrity. It does a decent job of entertaining, but nothing here is going to make you want to watch it again....the pain point of the bad stuff is just too high.

Yes, Ironhide, the humor is that bad.The lions' share of the pain in this movie comes from the face-palm inducing attempts at humor. In fact I think they meant to call it Transformers: ROTFL, but they lost the "L". If you hated the original movie because of the stupid robot piss jokes, or John Turturo's laughable character, then stay way the hell away from this one. Michael Bay has never been one to respect his audience, but he dips to all new lows here, and seems to revel in it like a dog rolling around in a dead carcass. Apparently, the focus groups just LOVED the humor in the original, so he amped it all up to 11. It's a regular old robot clown rodeo. And if you cringed at the ghetto fabulous Jazz from the original, you'll absolutely loathe the new "Dirty South" style twins which represent some of the meanest stereotyping I've seen in years. I mean, it's Breakfast at Tiffany's bad. And the twins combine to form an ice cream truck. I shit you negative. Much has already been said about how offensive these characters are, and it is all well deserved. The scary part is that the audience I saw it with, which was diverse in age and race, absolutely wailed at the off-color stuff. I guess that they didn't know they were being made fun of. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it through the white guilt lens. I don't know, but I know what I saw on screen embarrassed me. Well, enough about that.

The plot...well...I hope you aren't there for a good story. This is no Terminator 2. Hell, this is no Transformers 1. With what was no doubt the most expensive production in film history, TF:RotF manages to put a ton on screen, but I'll be damned if it says anything worthwhile. In this case, it's much less than meets the eye.

So what's good? Some of the action is pretty sweet, even if keeping track of what all is going on has actually gotten harder. But as giant robot fighting with cameras that rotate around in dizzying ways go...it's pretty good. Particularly, Optimus Prime and his merciless badassery. He basically got his can handed to him in the last film, but here, he's a one-robot wrecking machine. I guess he learned some robot-fu between films. Shia and Megan are still watchable as the human leads, but there isn't exactly much believable chemistry on screen. But they look good, and that's what matters in a Michael Bay flick. The Parents are back, and provide some of the only humor that actually works in the film, even if they are in it too much.

In the end, you'll probably come out of the theatre much the same way I did...with a glazed over look on your face. Openly acknowledging how crappy the bad parts, and a bit embarrassed that actually enjoyed it as much as you did. There are worse movies that you could see this year, but not many. Unless you just want to see the spectacle of hundreds of millions of dollars flying by on a big screen, I can't really recommend you spend your money on this one. Go see Star Trek, a big and expensive action flick that can actually tell a good story and a good joke at the same time.