Transformers 2: Revenge of the Boredom

This Friday represents the release date of the Hollywood megablockbuster, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen on DVD. So I thought it would be high time to give it an honest review.

Michael Benjamin Bay was born on 17th February 1965 - wait! Stop right there! The director of this film is forty-four years old?

Well you could have had me fooled because Transformers 2 was like Dreamworks had chosen a pubescent, fourteen year old boy at random and told him he has a limitless budget to do whatever the goddamn hell he likes.

Said kid then decided, as any fourteen year old virgin would do, to open the movie with a "college sequence". Which college is not clear, but their specialist subject must be a degree in supermodelling because there is a 10:1 ratio of females to males and 100% of the former are unfathomably attractive and dolled up like porn stars.

Whilst we're on the subject of pornography where the hell did they drag Megan "Lip Gloss" Fox from? Judging by her acting skills and the way she's tarted up I would say it's obvious that she took a wrong turn onto Hollywood Boulevard when she was actually looking for Ron Jeremy's offices. But I won't treat the poor girl too badly because Michael Bay has abused her far worse.

Phwoar! Look at that!

Like every other female in this film she is treated quite literally as a piece of tit 'n' ass, nothing more. Fox has absolutely no plot function in the film at all, instead she is yanked about different setpieces as they explode by Shia LaBouef like a piece of meat on a string. What more could a fourteen year old male want than shit exploding and Megan Fox's tits juggling about in slow motion.

However, some would argue that that is not what Transformers 2 is about; it is about the robots, the Transformers themselves and the amazing CGI action sequences. Well, those people would be wrong because the action scenes are anything but amazing. Gasp! Yes I said it. Some people like to see very very shiny things (no not Megan's lip gloss) smacking the living daylights out of each other whilst sounding like broken keyboard amps for 200 odd minutes. I don't! I had a toy of Optimus Prime when I was four years old and even then "transforming" it for twenty minutes would leave me wondering what else I could do. Apparently Michael Bay did not share such a short attention span but has grown up with a different kind, that of an intriguing plot.

Moreover, when there is action on screen I prefer to be able to see what the green and blue fuck is going on. The CGI may be fancy but Bay might as well have had a cartoon cloud with fists and stars popping out of it roll across the screen.

However this goes further than just an awful movie-going experience. You may think I'm overreacting but I think it is actually quite sick when you have Disney style characters juxtaposed with scantly clad females, drug references and quite severe swearing. Has everyone forgotten that this is a childrens' toy franchise? If Barbie had a movie where tiny men humped her leg, called her a "crazy bitch" and said "bullshit" every now and then, there would be uproar! But greater target audience range means more box office earnings and that's what these guys are in it for, purely and simply.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is as glossy as Fox's lips. It's about cheap thrills and mega bucks. It's degrading, idiotic, misogynistic and demeaning but above all it's dull. Bay cannot comprehend subtlety; it's more explosions, more robots, more CGI and more make up on the girls. Cut, edit, package it with a Whopper meal and you've got one hell of a putrid cash cow.