The Transforming Robots

It's a movie about giant fighting robots. If you don't want to see giant robots fight, don't go see it. If you think that giant fighting robots are cool, go see it. Don't go see it if you're going to sit in the theater and roll your eyes at how unintellectual it is. There's a different kind of artistry present in a Michael Bay film, and if you can't see it then you've barricaded yourself in your fortress of pseudo-intellectual bullshit and you're not a real cinephile.

That doesn't mean that the movie can't be eviscerated, it just means it shouldn't be eviscerated for being about giant fighting robots. However, I COULD say that there's no reason, no reason on Hell or Earth, that a movie about giant fighting robots should be two and a half hours. This should be an hour and a half, two hours maximum, of robots fighting. Minimal exposition. Just robots knocking the Christ out of each other. Blowing up wonders of the world. Robots floating in space. Megan Fox standing around.

On the contrary, there's a dickload of story, and most of it seems like it was the work of a dying 8-year-old, desperately transcribing his last hallucinations as he slips away to the great parking garage in the sky.

If I can recount the plot, I'll probably be able to secure a job as an archivist. Some robots are killing eachother, the All-Spark, which I can't remember shit about from the first film, brings robots to life, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is going to model school or something and robots show up and blow the Christ out of the school. Then Sam has to go find some key thing that will bring back the key to destroying the Fallen, a giant fighting robot that's even more giant than the rest of the giant fighting robots and who wants to eat our sun (?) and blow up the seven wonders of the world (Go figure. Give Michael Bay one of the seven wonders of the world and all he wants to do is blow it up.). Sam stands around playing little-to-no role in the robot war except drooling while giant robots expound upon the origins of Robotopilis, essentially dragging the audience kicking and screaming through a million billion hours of exposition. That's honestly the best I can do to try and recount the plot.

When the giant robots fight, it's a fine summer action movie with lots of money put on the screen and some marvelous CGI to look at, and Michael Bay really knows how to stage a ginormous action scene. What Michael Bay DOESN'T know is how to craft a story, or let his directorial hand guide the narrative and hold together the parts that don't have the robots clobbering each other. Among other things.

But when I go to a movie about giant fighting robots, I want $10 worth of giant fighting motherfucking robots. The rest of it's window dressing and I want as little of it to get in the way of my giant fighting robots as possible. If the screenwriters can come up with a great screenplay with compelling characters and an exciting conflict, I would love nothing more, but I'm not going to require it of them. What I will require is plenty of giant fighting robots.

And maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just crazy. There's enough giant fighting robot action to make for a good hour-and-a-half film, just like it should be, but for a two-and-a-half hour film, there are too many passages of robots sitting around blathering on about the All-Spark or the Matrix of Friendship or something, and it never escaped me how much money was being spent on robots droning on instead of murdering each other.

Especially the finale. The finale is appropriately gigantic, but there's a good hour free of robots beating the mittens out of each other before we get the finale, and Michael Bay seems to think he needs to whet my appetite with those boring, stupid, underdeveloped soldier characters shooting at the robots before we get robots decapitating each other. At that point I was really hungry and just wanted to go home. My good will had been spent and the sweet rewards of robots impaling each other had been far too much work to get to.

I will say this in defense of the film, when the robots fight at the beginning, it's certainly entertaining. But when the robots fight in the middle of the film, in a balls-to-the-walls brilliant fight scene in a forest, it's everything I could have ever wanted from a movie about giant robots with deep, ideological differences. It's beautifully choreographed, magnificently rendered, perfectly framed and edited. Shia LaBeouf gets to do something truly dynamic, even if he is just being thrown around by the robots. That one scene was enough for me to justify my purchase of the ticket. For a moment I forgot about all the problems with the movie and just focused on the action on screen, completely absorbed.

As for the acting, I have little to say aside from Megan Fox is hot, and Shia LaBeouf gets to kiss her, even if he is a little goofy looking. They don't do much else. On the other side, John Turturro is one of my favorite actors. I know he hasn't been trying very hard recently, and I'm glad to see that most people will at least recognize his face after this, but does it have to be such a useless role? He was the only thing in You Don't Mess With the Zohan that made that movie worth seeing, but here, although he isn't exactly sleepwalking, he fails to even make an impression.

So let me reiterate. If you like giant fighting robots, this is worth your time. They're giant, they're robotic, and they're fighting. Feel free to nap through the bits of the film with the giant talking robots, though.

6/10


EDIT:: The more I think about it, the more I can't shake the feeling that I was far too kind to this film. By the time I had left the theater, I had forgotten all about the awful humor in the film that wasn't present at the end. It was oppressive and insulting to listen to, not to mention I only REALLY recommended one scene out of an entire film, which isn't a great batting average. There's no way this is a 6/10 film, despite the appealing novelty of giant fighting robots, I feel like I was far too generous. I don't relish giving out negative reviews, but I feel like this film really deserves it.

3/10

To whom it may concern

Due to money problems (more specifically, I have no fucking money), I have been having a hard time making it to the theater. I hope my loyal readers will forgive a lack of reviews of new films. In the meantime, I am putting together a few more looks back at those film franchises we all got so excited about before Hollywood pounded them into the ground and out of our cultural vernacular. Also, I may, if money problems don't prove a factor, be putting together a Spielberg retrospective, which could be a lot of fun, or could be an absolute train wreck, or as much of a train wreck as blogging will allow. So stay tuned, dear reader. Watching a series of three films in close proximity can be a difficult task, especially when multiple people have to agree on the series before the viewing commences. Requests are encouraged, but don't get too excited. Unless my prostitution career takes off, I can't see myself able to publish much unless I can borrow it from a friend.

Franchisicide: Vol. 2. Book Three

Watching Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End is one of the most joyless experiences I've ever had. I attempted to watch it in theaters but ended up leaving a little less than half-way through due to some sound issues and a real-life witch sitting behind us. I opted for a refund because sitting through the first forty hours of that movie again was about as enticing as seeing how long I can sit in an oven at 450 degrees.

Taking on the Pirates of the Caribbean series was daunting just knowing that I'd have to sit through this film, and as I came to enjoy the first two, I thought all my fears would be washed away by the sensation of pleasant surprise. Of course, the ugly sister-in-law of pleasant surprise is nasty shock, and that's all I can say about Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Evidenced in the fact that I watched the movie about a week ago and am only now dragging my feet through the desolate wastelands of the actual fucking review.

I get the feeling that the filmmakers thought they could cheapen everything good about the film because we're so invested in the universe, but just because everyone has seen the movies doesn't mean we're all head-over-heels in love with the world of the series. Watching Elizabeth and Will get married during the climax of the film has to be one of the worst ideas they could have possibly come up with. If you get a jolly from watching a couple of paper dolls get married, and I can't imagine who you might be, but you probably would like to see a romantic wedding, not the most violent wedding in the history of fiction. And if you're into awesome violence, and I can imagine who you might be, you will probably be turned off by all the wuss-burger romance going on in this fight. And that doesn't even begin to describe the horrific retardation present in that scene.

But that's not even the worst part about this film. The worst part about this film is it's about twenty hours long. I know the other films were long, but this was a torturous experience. It was just twenty hours of pirates talking about how they deserve the freedom to rape and pillage and murder and how they need to rally together and form a pirate nation to combat the East India Trading Company nation or something. Honestly, I think I may have fallen asleep at a few points in this movie. There's no compelling Macguffin or mystery or characters in this film. None of the characters are at the forefront of this story, they're all ciphers for the plot, and I can't imagine who thought that would be a good idea, considering the plot is like having balls forced down my mouth.

The second film had some great action setpieces, especially towards the end. This film mistakes "big" for "good". There's a gigantic action setpiece at the end of this film, but by the time I got to it, I had been bored to death by the endless exposition. It wasn't interesting, and even if it was a tour-de-force, it would have been too little too late. This film outstayed its welcome. There's no reason for this film to be so long. It's a pirate movie for God's sake. It should be 90 to 120 minutes of Johnny Depp swashbuckling and adventuring, with very little else involved.

You know what would be a good Pirates of the Caribbean film? How about Barbossa and Sparrow racing to find something mythical, like the Fountain of Youth, and the film could start with Sparrow killing Will and Elizabeth. I could stand twenty hours of that.

Franchisicide: Vol. 2, Book Two

What a strange thing it is to ignore a bad screenplay, and not just out of a desire to enjoy the positive elements of a film, but out of the body's natural defense mechanism against sensory overload.

But I'm a critic (amateur as I am), and even when my eyes have turned to yogurt in my skull, my instincts pick up on things that my smoothie-brain never could. Sort of like when the hunter realizes that the gazelle saw him come into the forest, and now has him in the crosshairs of his rifle. Yes, Mr. Verbinski, I shall now call you GORE VERBINSKI: CRITIC HUNTER.

That's right, I know your game, and just as I would never end up a trophy above a gazelle's mantle, I won't fall victim to your trap. You've fashioned a pretty movie, Mr. Verbinski, but a film is only as strong as its screenplay, and while you've spent several truckloads of leprechaun foreskins to try and disguise that, you had one fatal flaw in your dastardly plan: the fucking scene with the natives on that goddamn island. Aside from not being interesting, or funny, or in any way riveting or rousing or, fuck, even diverting, it was completely and totally unnecessary. This is a summer blockbuster that's two and a half hours. I don't have any problem with that, but if there are pages of your screenplay that can be used to warm your child's cabbage water, by all fucking means.

Johnny Depp is considerably less interesting in this film because the part was written for him, instead of being a role written for whoever they could find that Johnny Depp took and turned on its head. There's no replicating that. Depp, of course, isn't bad. He's very good, but he's nothing like he was in the first film. Orlando Bloom is about as bad as he was the first time around, and Knightley is roughly as bad. Thankfully, Bill Nighy manages to show up even Depp as the delightfully evil CGI sea devil Davy Jones. It's all in the physicality and voice as he uses a tongue that would only be silver to pirates to try and steal souls and wrestle people into debt.

And at the same time, we have Gore Verbinski, who, in the last film, seemed content to guide along the massive production, taking the reigns and creating a film that's a powerhouse of action, excitement and wonder. Some scenes are so good that they recall the wonder that people used to associate with the word "Hollywood". I'll try not to oversell the film, though. My point is that instead of staging action setpieces, the film manages to do more. It transports and transfixes. The oceanic setting does far more for this film than it did for the first film, and it's always clear that we're looking at a world of magic and mythology. Similarly, instead of just being mindless eye-candy, the action setpieces seem intent to actually rouse and excite us. That means that, aside from the classic Hollywood swashbuckling, there are exciting non-fight setpieces. One of which is a marvelous scene of the Kraken (an ancient pirate myth) destroying a ship as Will Turner (Bloom) tries to escape.

But the best scenes in the film take place on Davy Jones' ship, The Flying Dutchman. Some of the most extraordinary production design and CGI work have gone into turning that ship into a floating pirate's version of Hell, with its barnacle-encrusted crew slaving away for all eternity.

But the film still has a myriad of problems, and as much as those things do to make up for them, they can only hope to counter-balance them. The performances (aside from Nighy) are universally underwhelming, the script is poorly written, it's nowhere near as funny as the first film, it's very sad to watch Depp not quite live up to his own work and there's that FUCKING SCENE ON THAT ISLAND.

That scene is about as exciting as an immunity challenge on an episode of Survivor, and the action takes a woefully misguided turn towards the silly.

I have to say, though, I enjoyed this film, although for different reasons, as much as I enjoyed the first film. It isn't great, but I didn't expect it to be. It's certainly a lot of fun, especially if you get really drunk and pass out for the scenes on that goddamn island.