Robot porn
Jul 1, 2009 |
Looks like she could use a giant, overstuffed CGI burrito
Scoff if you will at the testicles of a robot. If that image does not entertain you, then obviously Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is not for you. Balls are just one example of the many things this juvenile, testosterone-filled movie has way too much of.
The Fallen is a very mean robot who is the leader of the Decepticons, a whole race of very mean robots intent on destroying Earth. He wants a sliver of the All-Spark, a big energy cube destroyed in the last movie. With this sliver, he can harness more power, which he will use to do more very mean things. Luckily the Autobots are good robots and they protect our planet in conjunction with the U.S. military, and for approximately two and a half hours, we watch them beef.
Director Michael Bay seems to have completely given up on any chance at respectability in his film career as he unapologetically proceeds to bash his audience senseless with illogical, dim-witted mech-carnage. Though he was never the most subtle of directors, this sequel has Bay at the zenith–nadir?–of his excessive game. He throws everything in his cinematic arsenal of tricks at the screen and one cannot fault him for not providing a summer popcorner of no less than epic, expensive proportions. Yet, beneath all that is wrong with this gigantic overstuffed CGI burrito of a seasonal blockbuster, you cannot say the man does not do the job he was hired for: to give mecha-obsessed boys more giant robots that transform into various vehicles and appliances. Some of these machines intone solemn quotes about human lifestyles, all of them beat the living crap out of each other and the buildings of our planet. And yes, one of them even has balls.
There is a glorious amount of sheer collateral damage. Granted we never see any actual violent deaths in this PG-13 rater, but humans were definitely harmed. Bay indulges the pleasure he must’ve held back in Pearl Harbor by lovingly destroying an aircraft carrier here, complete with bodies floating in the water. The robot action still moves way too quickly but a huge improvement over the first movie’s sparring sequences is the use of slow motion as opposing to a blurring collision of shiny metal. We can now see Optimus Prime’s fist connecting with a Decepticon’s face, the impact causing shards of metal to fly through the air.
Less tenderly detailed are, of course, the humans. One can still dream of a day with an Aliens vs. Predator movie with just wwaliens versus predators, but until that sweet day comes, we will always have to deal with people. Bay moves things along as best he can, and our hero, Sam Witwicky, is played by Shia LaBeouf, who is quickly becoming a go-to good sport for these types of flicks. While we inexplicably need to deal with John Turturro as an annoyingly slapstick ex-government agent and a sidebar with Sam’s mother accidentally digesting pot brownies, we also have Megan Fox, herself an inhuman machine of hormonal teenage temptation. She straddles a motorcycle with Bay’s camera leeringly oogling her rump. Later she slithers out of a leather catsuit with her collagen injected lips defying gravity. Heck, she’s treated as such an object of universal hotness that one smaller robot can’t help but hump her leg. Suffice it to say, there is a fair amount of misogyny on display, which is–unfortunately–not uncommon in the genre.
Michael Bay will likely never achieve the level of respect that he probably desires in his lifetime; his proclivities lean too far in favor of mindless frat-house destruction. But as long as there are adolescent boys (and men) he will always have a paycheck lined up. Potty jokes aside, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is not the end of cinema as we know it because it is too irresistibly watchable. Snobs, find another scapegoat to drag to hell. This is sturdily constructed pornography that gets you off.
