Transformers review OR Why Michael Bay is the worst storyteller alive

Transformers review OR Why Michael Bay is the worst storyteller alive.

Nostalgia can be a powerful thing. In some cases it may be the only thing that keeps me from leaving the theatre and setting it on fire.

It worked with Superman Returns. I'm an honest guy. Superman Returns wasn't a very good movie. I enjoyed it purely on a nostalgic, childhood memory level.

It didn't work here. Nostalgia was not the cure to the poison that is a Michael Bay movie.

I'll give Michael Bay one thing; He knows how to grab your attention with his camera. He also knows exactly how to induce vomiting with his camera.

His story telling may induce suicide.

The last 20 minutes of Transformers is insane. Truly and utterly insane. The special effects are truly the best I have ever seen. Unlike in Spiderman 3, never once did I think anything looked fake. Yes, we're talking about giant transforming robots looking realistic.

That's pretty much the only thing the movie has going for it....that and childhood memories.

The rest of the movie made me want to stab myself in the heart. Yes, the heart.

From the ages of around 12 to 15 every afternoon at 3:30 for me was a joy. Transformers was on. Optimus Prime was my hero.
I can, to this day, quote every line from the 1986 movie.

The 1986 cartoon movie is not a good film. It's pretty bad. In that case however, nostalgia is what it's all about. I love that film, I love the feelings it brings back.

The feelings the 2007 movie brings back are pure unadulterated rage.

Which brings me to Michael Bay and his utter lack of respect for us.

He gives the audience absolutely no credit other than the fact that we have eyes and ears. We literally might as well not have a brain. He doesn't want us to.

If he did, he wouldn't have autobots urinating, small robots doing bad boys II impressions, robots saying "my bad", robots giving the finger, characters that have about as many layers as Britanny Spears. (it's a clothing joke)

Shia LeBeouf is a fun actor. His character is revolting. Bay tries to force you to feel for a relationship that has not been giving any time or respect. Don't forget, you have no brain. The music, editing and long, emotional zoom ins more than make up for any storytelling. We're supposed to feel something and the movie tries to force us to. Because we have no brains.

Characters make rash and ridiculous, completely unsupported decisions. We don't care.

That's the worst part of all of this. We don't care. The army dude has a daughter? Who cares? Shia wants to bang the hot chick who can't act? Who cares?

The only character I cared about was Optimus Prime. Was it because his character had been built up? Yeah, in ten years of cartoons. Nostalgia and love for Prime is the only thing that kept me from hunting down the people that made this movie and stuffing my Shockwave toy down their throats.

This is the worst kind of manipulation. "We don't need story or character arcs. We have breasts, pop culture comedy and things blowing up."

That's the other thing. Are Michael Bay movies funny anymore? He injects shit like a racist Ebonics speaking "black" robot, (Jazz was voiced by Scatman Crothers in the cartoon, so naturally he's a hardcore hip hopper in this incarnation.) to an equally ridiculous comment on job outsourcing. Both aren't funny, and the "East Indian telephone operator" interferes in a scene that Bay is trying to make exciting. Instead it's just repulsive.

So, by now you're saying: "Hey, relax, it's a movie about giant robots. It's not SUPPOSED to be The Godfather"

Hey, you're right.

You know what else? Batman Begins is about a guy who dresses up in a bat costume.
It has character, story, originality and respect for its audience.

So do dozens of other films that I'll list upon request.

Micheal Bay definitely knows how to set up and pull of crazy action. He's one of the best. Far be it for me to bash his skills as a movie maker. He knows his camera.

If only that made a good movie and not a 2.5 hour long trailer for something that could have been so much better.

-Elias

ps. I am also fully aware that this Transformers movie could be the childhood memory of another generation. It shouldn't be. Honestly, I'm not kidding, the 1986 movie is better written. It's brainless, but not equally brainless.

Going with the gut. Mixing politics with the flicks.... Or, How George W Bush ruined movies.

I think I'm probably the biggest Batman fan in the world. There are few people who can match my Bat knowledge. There are even fewer who can recite every word from every Bat film (animated or live action). Also, apparently, I'm a big nerd.

Back in 1997 I was a bike courier trying to save money for college. One day I picked up a roll of film to go drop at a local movie theatre. The film was Joel Schumacher's epic disaster film, Batman & Robin.

I remember secretly and ever so carefully opening the package and holding the film up to the sun. It was an extremely useless attempt to see a few frames from the film that I was holding out some hope for.

Could it be as bad as it looked in the trailers? Could Arnold Schwarzenegger actually pull off Mr. Freeze? Will I want to hunt down and destroy Joel Schumacher for destroying my hero?

The answers turned out to be yes, not at all, and I'm still contemplating it.

The film was horrible. Did I say horrible? I meant abhorrent, appalling, awful, detestable, disgusting, dreadful, frightful, hideous and horrendous.

It may be the worst film I have ever seen. A veeeeery close second is the Nicolas Cage comic book extravaganza Ghost Rider.

Here's a major difference between the two of them.

Batman and Robin bombed at the box office. Ghost Rider was a box office hit.

With Batman and Robin, people knew they were watching crap.
They didn't stand for it. They used their brains for once and told Hollywood that if you feed us movies that are cast with stars that don't suit the parts and have no story, soul or characters, we will not support it.

I remember thinking, even ten years ago, maybe Hollywood will get the message that people don't want to be fed stuff that "shuts your brain off" for two hours. They want to use both their brain and their gut. They want to feel something for the characters and the situations, but they want to know that some effort was put into making these characters and situations. They like using intelligence coupled with emotions.

Everything was looking good. Of course next year came Armageddon (the movie not the apocalypse) and Godzilla.
Godzilla bombed dramatically

Unfortunately Armageddon did okay at the box office, but Saving Private Ryan was the box office champ. There was still hope.

"Sure we swallowed Armageddon! But we want more movies like Saving Private Ryan!"

1999 came Star Wars. Which, even though I dislike it, the nostalgia factor made it the number one movie. The other big hits? The Matrix and The Sixth Sense. Intelligence and emotion… hope sprang eternal.

Then George Bush took office and hope sprung a leak.

Actually, to be fair, it wasn't after George Bush took office. It's how his lasting Presidency has affected the American psyche.

In 2001 Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter ruled. 2002 it was Spider-man. All good, smart, imaginative movies.

2003 Lord of the Rings, Finding Nemo…things seemed to be going well.

Creeping up, however, were films like Bad Boys II and 2 Fast 2 Furious.

2004 Van Helsing, The Day After Tomorrow, Aliens Vs Predator!
2005 Mr and Mrs Smith, Saw II, Fantastic Four! (Though Batman Begins saved my hero!)

2006….ah 2006. The year started movies, now almost unalterable, downward trajectory.

X-Men 3, Talledega Nights, Night At The Museum, Scary Movie 4, The Pink Panther, You Me and Dupree, Jackass 2, Fast And Furious: Tokyo Drift.

It has all lead to the worst summer of film I can remember,
2007
Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3, Fantastic Four 2, Wild Hogs, Transformers, Norbit, Evan Almighty and the amazing Ghost Rider.

How is it that all of this George Bush's fault?

Bush is responsible for a new way of thinking in the US. He was the President they elected because they wanted "A regular Joe like us". They elected a guy who wasn't a smarty pants egg head. They wanted one of them.

This became his calling card. He used to call himself a "Washington Outsider" even after he became President. I'm not sure you can get more "inside Washington" than when you're Commander in Chief.
Being an intelligent, thoughtful and logical person became something that only "Elites" do. George Bush doesn't have time to think. You shouldn't either. You go with your gut America.

This, I believe, took hold.

Going with your gut. Not thinking it through. That's exactly was the GOP is all about.
Mainstream America responded.

And filmmakers responded.

You can see it in the films. Let's use my favourite film to bash this year as an example.

Transformers.

Michael Bay is the worst offender. Even in on camera interviews he comes across as a guy who says,

"Hey, I don't make movies for the smarty pants critics and film nerds out there. I make it for guys like me. I make movies from the gut"

"From the gut" was responsible for the epic disaster that was Transformers.

It's a huge hit. People love it.

People like checking their brains at the door nowadays. The President pretty much told them to.

What I don't get is that people hate George Bush these days. His approval rating is in the low twenties…the worst since Nixon!

But it's too late. People would rather not think if they don't have to anymore. Bush's damage is already done.

A lot of liberals say that they should impeach Bush for his numerous crimes against the Constitution. I say impeach him for his numerous crimes against the film going public.

Maybe if Barak Obama is elected we can start thinking again.

2 Kewl 4 Words

Or; how the internet is destroying the English Language

I h8 da net. Not really. Lol.
I just h8 da way ppl write on da net. Rotflol!

Dear Lord, I want to shoot myself.

Grammar is dead. I swear, people have lost all sense of grammar, spelling and punctuation.

The amazing thing to me is that computers do all of this for you and PPL…sorry…people who speak English, still can't write in English.

I was spending one of my usual insomniac nights watching various videos on Youtube. I was decidedly bored, and I scrolled down to read the comments below some of the videos. I was utterly amazed. There it was, in plain sight, the demise of the English language. People can't spell. It's not just the staggeringly annoying "Internet Slang" for the staggeringly lazy, like: TTYL, BRB, LMAO and the ever so irritating, yet popular, LOL.

It's much worse than just the typing lazy. It's almost as if people intentionally misspell words. I can't understand, for the life of me, why KEWL is better than COOL. It has exactly the same amount of letters and the O and L are much closer together on a keyboard than the E and the L.

I had assumed, perhaps ignorantly, that PPL..dammit..people were typing in "netspeak" to save precious seconds on the internet. After all, why type LOVE when you can save an invaluable microsecond typing LUV?

I was, however, very wrong. It's not that P-E-O-P-L-E…yes…want to save time; they don't want to have to learn how to spell.

I copied some pitiful examples. I haven't improved on them for humour, I swear.

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"aww thatss cool [: & very original. gr8 work!"

"ppl are laim if this is popular"

"i wish this still aired in network televisin"

"Btw its been a veeeeeeeeeeeeeery loooong time I saw a serie."

"hes not really a mna but an aloen i dont think he has a penis being an alien. hes amphibious it seems"

"ZOMG! that was HILAROUS!!!!!! PWONAGE!!!!!! Nerds like I would roue da world!!!!!"

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That last one almost killed my soul.

It's like a disease.

To close, I will tell a quick story about how much of a pompous stickler I am.

On the night of my bachelor party, my friends took me out to a strip club in Kelowna. At this point, I was quite inebriated.

As we walked in, I noticed a sign:

"SMILE YOUR ON CAMERA"

I'd ignored the fact that the sentence lacked any comma or period. I couldn't, however, ignore the sign completely. I walked up, quite tipsy, to a manager and said, "Your sign is wrong. It is bad grammar, you should fix it. Unless I should smile because I own an "ON CAMERA", and I don't even know what that is."

Then my friends dragged me out.

There are two pet peeves that I have in life. The first is when people call "Strawberry Flavoured Twizzlers" licorice. Licorice is a plant, and a flavour, it's not a type of candy.

The second is when people use YOUR and ITS instead of YOU'RE and IT'S.

This is the most common mistake I come across in my many hours talking to people through emails and text messages.

So, just so nobody emails me with this grammar crime again:

YOUR is a possessive. (Your computer Elias. Your lack of a life Elias.)
YOU'RE is a contraction. (You're crazy Elias. You're a self important jackass and you should relax about grammar Elias)

ITS is a possessive. (ITS muffler is falling off, ITS tires are flat)
IT'S is a contraction (IT'S your car you're describing isn't it?)


SRSLY!!! WTF PPL? :0