Transformers 2: Another View
2009-06-26
By Destin Brooks
EDITOR’S NOTE: Knowing that our movie reviewer, Sergio Mims, has a tendency to dismiss big blow-em-up action flicks, we decided to send a 15-year old kid to see if we could trust Sergio’s judgement on this summer blockbuster that’s been so eagerly awaited. You might be surprised at the result.
Revenge Of The Fallen, the second installment in the Transformers movie franchise, is a sloppy, big-budget romp through a series of flashy camera angles, robot gunplay, and big explosions. The simplistic plot seems almost non-existent in comparison to these distractions, and the film confirms Michael Bay’s place as the destroyer of modern mainstream cinema. The plot unfolds as lead character Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) starts college. After a short time, he is suddenly re-embroiled in the battle of the first film between the “Autobots” and the “Decepticons”. Basically, big robots try to stop other big robots from activating a giant robot with the potential to destroy the earth. Of course, the U.S. army is thrown in for good measure (God Bless America).
In the midst of this nonsensical mayhem lies a shallowly explored romantic relationship between Sam and his girlfriend Mikaela Bains (Megan Fox) and almost every cinematic flaw under the sun. Transformers 2 suffers from overly pretentious dialogue, bad one-liners by the “Autobots”, a weak plot and uninteresting characters. The actors in this film are simply tools used to move the story and nothing more. Even when Sam almost dies, the lack of emotional weight or the poorly developed background of the character, fails to sell his suffering and that of everyone else. It is this same shallowness that leads to an uncaring for the cause of these people and little interest as to what that cause is.
In addition to this major flaw, Michael Bay takes a minstrel detour as he showcases two of the most stereotypical characters in the entire movie. His interpretation of a black transformer, gold tooth and all, bumble everywhere they go and trash-talk excessively. They do nothing but embarrass. Their only purpose is to make people laugh at them. Sadly they did.
To its credit, the film does have entertaining action and extreme cinematography. It possesses seemingly endless takes that smoothly blend live action with computer graphics. The metal ripping hand-to-hand combat, large explosions and chase scenes are sure to be a crowd-pleaser. Despite these attributes, the movies flaws are unforgivable. It is essentially a cheap advertisement for cars and LG cell phones. To the audience’s misfortune, Transformers 2 isn’t cheap or quick to see.
Despite it’s mass scale, the film lacks substance and intelligence, two elements all too rare in most modern mainstream movies. The intended audience won’t care, however, as long as they see a slew of robot violence. Can’t film producers just waste this large of a budget on another toy themed series? Oh wait, they did. It’s called GI Joe.
I can guarantee that Michael Bay will be laughing to the bank as he did before, but the desecration of an art form should be no laughing matter.
Destin Brooks is a 15 –year old aspiring filmmaker living in Chicago. He is the son of Ebony photo director, Dudley Brooks.
