Level 1 Review

Overall this was a fun movie! There’s no doubting that, it’s  the sort of movie that will keep you entertained forn hour or two. A popcorn summer flick, really. It’s pretty much there where you want set your expectations. The movie starts off in the ancient human past, where – who knew! – Transformers had come to Earth for the actual first time. What were they doing here? Were they good, were they bad?

Fast forward to present. Sam Witwicky is off to college, with his girlfriend, scantily clad Megan Fox. He finds a sliver of the cube from movie 1, and it encodes all sorts of stuff into his brain. To make a long story short, the Decepticons want the info Sam has to destroy the world. They get it and try to destroy the world. The Autobots and Sam and company try to stop them while running away from huge explosions in slow-mo. The good guys win. Hurray!

The special effects in the movie were great. The transformations looks really nice, and they did a really good job of making it seem as the robots had real presence and weight, which is not always easy in special effects. There was more actual robot-on-robot fighting, which the first movie needed more of. This time there are plenty of scenes where we get to see full metal throwdown.

There was a decent amount of comedy in the film, and some genuiely funny parts. Definitely enough to show that the movie didn’t take itself too seriously. Sure a lot of the comedy was amatuerish is nature, but hey, what were you expecting?

So overall, decent, watchable summar action movie.

Level 2 Review

For those of you who are incapable of turning off your analytic nature, who love to introspect, who look for meaning, for a message…or perhaps you’re the kind of person who just wants a movie to make sense; you will hate this movie.

Seriously, there were so many plot holes, ridiculous, irrelevant, impossible, improbable, cheesy scenes you’ll really start to lose count after the first 10 minutes. What were my specific beefs?

**** SPOILER ALERT ****

For those who don’t want any spoilers do not read any further!!

These aren’t in any particular order, but here you are:

• Almost all of the comedic moments went for the cheap laughs. I mean, the movie is about giant transforming robots, so take everything with a grain of salt but still. But still. For instance, Sam’s mom insists on eating a brownie made with marijuana and goes crazy. Two of Sam’s parent’s dogs are always humping each other. One decepticon starts humping Megan Fox’s leg. Two autobots are continuously acting like little kids an name-calling Sam and his roommate – stuff you’d hear in junior high. Which is pretty much who all the comedy is aimed at!
• The Transformers are stupid. I mean literally stupid. Most of them are idiots. They either talk like idiots, or act like idiots.
• Megan Fox’s makeup was flawless at all times.
  All of her lines were breathy and ridiculous. Literally ANYONE who’s taken one acting class could have filled her role, with respect to her dialogue and acting. Clearly, and unabashedly, she is used just as eye candy to get little boys in the door to see the movie.
• The military action was so over the top it was comical. At one point, a general says “Call in everybody!”. We get a bunch of US troops landing on beaches and tanks rolling off with soldiers running with guns. The only problem is that Sam is in the middle of Egyptian desert. I assume those tanks would take a couple hours of rumbling through the desert sands to get to where Sam is. Perhaps they got some audio books to listen to on the way? Why did it take Sam 10 hours to get from where they were to Optimus? What were all the ruins that the Transformers kept breaking through and rumbling through? How could an entire section of the American military highjack a military cargo plane, carrying a high-profile alien robot, fly it half way around the world (without refueling I assume) and land it without orders? When the C-17 cargo transport plane is carrying the soldiers and the high-raking administration official, it’s banking like crazy from side-to-side. Yet when they cut back to the soldiers in side, they’re all just standing around like gravity doesn’t exist. The county of Jordan would let us land US troops and tanks, fly F-16’s, B-1 bombers, Helicopter gunships, reconnaisance drones, and have a navy battleship off it’s shores without so much as an afterthought? And within the window of a few hours? The sliver of cube that was in the highest security military installation we had turned out to be a joke. Oceans’ 12 could have broken in there. Icould go on and on and on and on…but I won’t.
• The cursing in the dialogue. I know a lot of people don’t really care about that very much, and I understand when movies put it in for dramatic tension or to talk like real-world people. I really do understand it. But this movie was silly – they put in curse words for no reason other than so that they had them.  In fact, it seemed really awkward most of the time – I felt bad for the writers when I was watching the movie.
• The Decepticon-Autobot fighting was impossible to follow. They just look too similar! I admit, it was better than the first movie, where it was all Borne-Identity-closeups. But still, it was hard to distinguish who was who during the fights.
• Scenes that were supposed to be moving turned out to be funny. Like where Sam is about to die and sees the ancient Primes. “Robot Gods” is how my wife put it – she was trying not to laugh during this supposed serious scene. The scene where Sam’s parents reappear and he has to leave them and Sam says “you have to let me go.” It seesm so forced…the scene really had no emotional impact at all. Everyone in the audience is saying, “sure, the father loves his kid, we get it, move on.”
• Every other scene was a slow-mo shot. Seriously. If Sam was brushing his teeth, the second half of the shot would be in slow mo.

The list is getting so long…it’s just not worth it to make it any longer.

So was this movie a bad movie?

Well…yeah.

Was it a decent movie?

Well…I guess, yeah, that too.

Which is a weird contradiction right there. Would I recommend seeing it is theaters? If you’re just out to be entertained and zone out to some cool fights and explosions in slow mo while getting the full theater experience? Yes, go see it! If you’re out to see an awesome, well-done, action flick – heck no, stay way!