Chapter Two - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
By Brett Beach
November 3, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Opening Quote: "I do not make films that have sell-by dates." --Peter Greenaway
Introduction: In deciding how best to approach a Chapter Two critique on the highest grossing (domestically) and one of the "Rotten-est" (Tomato-ically speaking) scoring releases of 2009, I found myself as perplexed as if I had been asked to elaborate on some of the deeper themes in one of Godard's lesser known and more oblique works. And since I have free reign to talk about whatever the hell I want to within this electronic space, it certainly wasn't as the prospect of an act of martyrdom that I relented to see the latest/biggest/loudest spectacle on the last day (of its second run release) that it played in the greater Portland metropolitan area several weeks ago. After months of lash and backlash flying around it, I had to give in to my curiosity and make my own determination.
In evaluating my response to ROTF, I am glad to have the considerations of all the critics before me, particularly Manohla Dargis' (of The New York Times) and Armond White's (of NY Press) wildly differing takes. During my graduate days at New York University, my Senior Seminar class was on film criticism and I chose to examine the critical reception of A.I Artificial Intelligence, which had come out that summer. RottenTomatoes was still a fairly new site at that point and I remember thinking, "Wow! I can read full reviews of this and other films from over 150 different critics?!" Such were the days when the interwebs still seemed as magical as leprechauns and unicorns.
Side note 1: A.I. is on my all-time favorite list and one of a small handful of films that I am most curious to see how they will be remembered 50 years from now. As befits a project that is a "Stanley Kubrick Production," A.I. is a film that you can choose to approach today, tomorrow, next century, and the disorienting and unsettling web it weaves will still seem as immediate and as alien as it did in 2001.
Research: I did watch both Transformers (2004) and Transformers: The Movie (1986) for the first time in the months prior to seeing ROTF. It was the 20th anniversary edition of the latter and I was excited about what I thought would be a feature-length documentary about Transformers that would spell everything out for a novitiate such as myself. It turned out to be the film with Pop-Up Video style facts submitted by fans. These occurred at first quite frequently and then not so much as if after 42 minutes, there wasn't all that much new to add. I was quite shocked to hear Weird Al on the soundtrack and to finally hear "The Touch" in its proper cultural context. My thought on the two films were "Meh" and "Wow. That was 84 minutes of violent action!" respectively.
Definition: At its heart, this is what being a critic means to me: You are allowed your opinion as long as you have actually seen/watched/listened to what you are holding forth on and you have to be able to articulate that opinion within a framework of coherence and informed observation. It helps to be able to interact with the opinions of one's peers. Much of what was directed against Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen this past summer qualified as poison-pen hate mail against Bay, Hollywood, and the Crass Marketing Machine (with lots of barbs at Megan Fox thrown in for good measure) instead of criticism and much of the retaliation against said critiques qualified as school-yard epithets and other base insults devoid of worth. Now the dust has settled and everyone has moved on and I imagine that, truth be told, a lot of the early viewers who ragged on critics for ripping apart ROTF have migrated to the new shiny toy in town and have calmed down as much as, if not more, than the critics.
That's why I included the Greenaway quote at the top: as easy as it is to vilify Bay as an anti-Christ type cinematic industry figure, he is just another artist good at making the disposable pop currency that the studios are good at shilling and worldwide masses seem quite adept and happy with buying. As a child/adolescent, my immersion into the world of action figures never included Transformers - there was an extended stint with Masters of The Universe and some enjoyment of G.I. Joe, although neither produced much in the way of massive consumption on my part - so I can't speak to a feeling of either betrayal or joy at Bay's handling of the material.
There are one or two key thoughts that went through my head concerning the reception of the film and the film itself that I hope to briefly address this week. But to spare you further suspense, and for the inevitable release of some souped-up new DVD version of ROTF, I proudly present this self-approved pull-quote: "Quite possibly the best movie to date about giant anthropomorphic robots fighting for the fate of the world." This is not a recommendation for or endorsement of ROTF, but an acknowledgment of my modest pleasure at realizing that the sequel did not end up having a "Mary Hart v. Cosmo Kramer" effect on my central nervous system, nor did it result in my feeling violated or generally malevolent towards my fellow man.
Observation 1: Screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci had themselves one helluva summer, at (mostly) my expense.
Between the double-whammy pairing of *(Not Your Father's) Star Trek and the Transformers sequel, the pair co-wrote two of the year's highest grossers, although the reception from established critics could hardly have been different. Kirk, Spock, et. al were lovingly embraced with a 95% positive review tally while Witwicky and Optimus were shafted with under a 20% recommendation level. I was as impressed with the former as I was with the latter, which is to say, not all that much. I found Star Trek to be pleasant, humorous and exciting in spots, but so exactingly calculated to please every possible quadrant of the movie-going public that any sense of wonder and awe I might have felt kept getting shuffled to the side. Still, there were characters (and characterizations) at work in JJ Abrams' film. With ROTF, there are (stereo) types and cardboard cutouts and glassy-eyed females (more on them later). I kept thinking back to the endless annual debate involving summer spectacles that consists of critics bemoaning ridiculous unfathomable plots filled with holes and rebuttals from studios and "fans" who insist it's all about the ride and the rollercoaster and an experience, and round and round.
To which I can't help but wonder, if that is true, why does there need to be a plot in a film like ROTF? Is it necessary? Could Kurtzman, Orci, Bay and others collaborate on something that is clearly, insistently, spectacle and nothing more? (There are a couple of moments in ROTF that approach this train of thought.) I think the answer is no and the studios and the public at large need something to hold on to, even if the plot is simply a placeholder of miniscule motivation to fill the transition from action scene to action scene. If it was gone, it would be missed and what would result might be a $200 million avant-garde piece of free-form eye candy. Of course, me being me, I find that notion very appealing.
Observation 2: ROTF as recruitment for ROTC/allegory for any and all wars we might currently be involved in?
To be truthful, I honestly don't know how to resolve my thoughts on this. But allow me to run a stream-of-consciousness: Middle-class average (by Hollywood standards) Americans are caught up in a battle without boundaries between warring factions whose enmity is beyond global and who are parts of an ancient race that is both exotic and foreign to us. World monuments are destroyed, the final battle takes place in a desert environment in the "third world" and the military must step up and kick out both the shifty bureaucrats who want to dictate rules of war. The bureaucrat in question seems like a mash-up of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, while Obama (name-checked) goes running for safe hiding once things get ugly. Meanwhile, ethnic slurs abound and racial stereotypes are solidly reinforced. I am not sure if this is supposed to make me feel patriotic or not, but it does stir some feelings of queasiness in my gut.
Observation 3: Relief? Relief from what?
The structure of ROTF (and a lot of Bay's films) is spectacle alternated with scenes of comic relief, which strikes me as absurd because the idea of "comic relief" originates in bringing humor into otherwise unbearably tense situations or stories. In ROTF, scenes of dogs humping dogs and supporting characters being repeatedly tasered provide the counterpoint to massive destruction and unacknowledged scores of people being annihilated. As Ryan O'Neill pointed out in the October 26th Win/Lose column, there is a heartfelt scene between Kevin Dunn and Shia LaBeouf in the midst of the climatic carnage but as the one moment in a film whose archetypal image (I would argue) is that of a horny Chihuahua banging another dog, Dunn's tears seems as ridiculous an example of real human emotion as Ben Affleck playing animal cracker games with Liv Tyler's navel.
Observation 4: The eyes have it (or maybe they don't). AKA: How to make Megan Fox appear less robotic and mechanical and more human by comparison.
In a lot of the ads for ROTF, as well as the film itself, my biggest problem with ever hoping to care about the robot characters is that you are all but unable to see the eyes. "The eyes are the window to the soul" is the hoariest cliché I know and I believe in it 100%. You may be the sweetest, kindest, awesomest person (or giant robot) in the world but if you are saddled with dead eyes, vacant eyes, glassy eyes, overly intense eyes, or beady suspicious eyes, you are screwed. Giant whirls of CGI skirmishing accompanied by Steve Jablonsky's metallic score (which at times reminded me of the intro notes to a Traci Lords techno song scratched and skipping on a CD player) made it hard for me to get emotionally involved with any of it, least of all that the fate of our planet hung in the balance. Bumblebee's gimmick/status as a living, breathing all-media "sampler" is cool but outside of him, Autobots and Decepticons alike fail to make much of an impact or impression on me.
What is interesting is to compare this lack of "vision" in the machines with the eyes of both Fox and the other significant sex symbol of the film, Alice (Isabel Lucas). I have no great love for Fox, belief in her acting talent to date, or much stock in her status as a vision of hotness. But Bay pulls off two remarkable feats in relation to Fox within the film.
The first is to cast Lucas and apparently (I say this, because in real-life pictures, her peepers appear normal) make her eyes into the cold dead pools of a coke whore. It's more than a little disturbing, even upon reflection with much distance, to consider how vacant her expression is. This allows Fox's normally composed and posed face, and bright, though lifeless eyes, to seem warm and inviting. In the breathtakingly composed shot (which Armond White alludes to) where she hovers over Sam's lifeless body and a helicopter hovers in the upper far right frame, she could almost be accused of grieving.
The second of Bay's accomplishments is to, during the race through the desert as Sam pulls Mikaela along with him, as explosions close in all around them and sand flies everywhere, to keep Fox's breasts perfectly positioned in the center of the screen, and bouncing in counterpoint to the mayhem around them. That might be the other key image from the film, and visible though tiny in the final poster art.
Final observations: Although I have seen several of Bay's films more than once (to increasingly diminishing effect), only one of them have I longed to see again, as it combines his skill at overkill and ridiculous mayhem with a splashy satiric sci-fi plot, and the glimmerings of a conscience. I won't name names, but would you be surprised to know that it's the one that is the lowest-grossing (by far) of his career? I can be such a contrary punk sometimes.