Career Day

by Mike on June 28, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Posted In: comic

The three most common lessons Cookie Monster teaches:

1) Cookies are delicious.

2) Cookies are a useful tool for learning how to count.

3) When greatly out-sized by your prey, always aim for the throat or other weak areas.

I finally saw Transformers 2 last night, and I basically took two things from the experience. The first is I will probably never get tired of watching Optimus Prime kill decepticons. Ever. I’ve been watching him wreck house since I was three years old, and the experience never seems to lose its appeal. For the 10 or whatever amount of minutes you get to watch Prime fight in the new movie, I am grateful for this facet of my personality. I wasn’t a huge fan of the big fight with the unicycle robot in the beginning, but the rest of the fight scenes with Prime were really stellar, if a bit short. The most accurate descriptor I can think of is “Brutally awesome.”

The second thing I’m taking away from the film is apparently I can sit through a movie that is otherwise quite bad just to watch my childhood hero be awesome for a tiny fraction of the film’s running time. Because make no mistake, Transformers 2 is really a pretty horrible movie.

The plot is convoluted and nonsensical, which isn’t a major offense for a sci-fi movie, but it doesn’t exactly start things off on the right foot either. Plus, it’s only the tip of the scripting terror that is this movie.

The storyline has the most bizarre and inexplicable pace, devoting huge amounts of time to Shia LeBeouf’s cheeky and incredulous antics that I don’t really give a shit about, because it’s not at all robots fighting. You get like 2 minutes of robots doing something, then 20 or so of Shia being a boring dumbass at college or not knowing how to handle things with his girlfriend Ms. Blowjob Face*. Repeat for two-and-a-half hours. Even when Shia and Blowjob Face are running through the desert, trying to get to the action that I wish I was watching, its still really boring, because IT’S NOT ROBOTS FIGHTING. Also, there are like 18 characters in this movie that are entirely too annoying, and that’s 18 too many. I understand that in a movie co-produced by Hasbro there’s going to be some annoying product placement, but Jesus Christ Michael Bay, show some restraint. And please hire some better writers next time to work on your dialogue. The one-liners in this film are baby-stompingly awful. And that’s the second-worst awful there is, right after mother-punching.

I know people are going to be like, “Bloo bloo bloo I like this movie bloo bloo it’s meant for kids, that’s why the script is the way it is,” to which my response is “Fuck that.” Go watch Iron Man, and tell me that movie isn’t meant for kids and adults, just like this one is supposed to be, and seriously try and tell me the Iron Man script isn’t a thousand times better executed, especially for a film that was essentially meant to be a studio summer cash cow. I’ll be waiting right here, with a crowbar and Jon Favreau’s ability to tell a coherent story. 

*Blowjob Face is a nickname Megan Fox’s acting method earned her from the first Transformers, referencing her constant need to be rocking bedroom eyes and a fully-glossed, open mouth. She’s not as blowjob-faced in this movie, but that’s probably because she spends more time in hot pants or running in slow motion in this one.