TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE FALLEN
Australian/NZ release: June 24
Note: this will be an entirely spoiler-free review.
This is not because the movie has any particularly impressive twists and turns, or because I think you should all go in as fresh and possible, but rather it's that I have no fucking idea what happened.
I'm not even kidding. This film is almost completely impenetrable. Oh sure, it looks like a big Hollywood blockbuster, but as bad as they can sometimes get, at least they're relatively simply to follow. This film is all over the place, and I'm not even sure the audience is expected to follow what's going on.
What I would like is for this to be an anger-fuelled review. You know the type. Where they took some property I loved, or even liked, and distorted it beyond belief, creating something that offended every one of my sensibilities. Those reviews can be a lot of fun to read, as well as a lot of fun to write.
Unfortunately, I wasn't angry. I was just bored. Yes, bored. Big explosions and CGI creatures are not interesting just because they're BIG. It takes about five minutes to get desensitised to all the Big Stuff Happening, and so for the remaining seven hours you're just numb. CGI should work for your story, not the other way around. And I'm not saying that from the point of view of an analytical critic; I'm guessing a lot of the audience is going to feel the same way, even if many of them can't articulate why. When mega-huge Transformers are climbing up the side of a pyramid, you don't for a second believe that's what you're watching. You're watching an exercise in large-scale CGI, and that lack of engagement is what makes it dull. No attempt is made to engage us with the story, so you end up just ticking off each scene as it runs through the predictable motions.
I'd have been more impressed had the CGI been better. The Transformers, I'm sorry to say, have not improved since the first film. They're too busy, there's too damn much going on. If you're going to do anything with the core idea of a Transformer, then I should be amazed at how all the parts folds into one another, how a robot can become a truck. Instead, we're blinded by an infinite number of moving parts that mean nothing. As if someone waved streamers in your face and then showed you a semi-trailer.
The dialogue is, it must be said, fucking terrible. Look, I'm not expecting Mamet when I go into one of these things (although, who wouldn't love to see Mamet write a TRANSFORMERS?), but this is just unforgivably bad. Are those two African American robot car things supposed to be funny? I don't understand. Are we supposed to like them? Did the poor woman who plays Shia's mother ever stop to point out her dialogue is the worst ever given to an actress? Oh, I know middle-aged people saying "shit" a lot is really funny in and of itself, but after a while the joke starts to wear thin, you know? And why is one of the deep-voiced dignified Autobots saying "Damn, I'm good" like he's recording catchphrases for his toy? Who fucking wrote this shit?
Well, two of the writers were Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the guys I praised for delivering me a STAR TREK film I actually loved. I'm at a loss. I loved TREK, so much so that I was willing to forgive some minor flaws and inconsistencies. How did they go from that to this? Maybe it's Ehren Kruger. I don't know. Kruger did write the terrific ARLINGTON ROAD. Dammit. Who is to blame? Who can I throw stones at? Who was responsible for the line -- and I swear, this is verbatim -- "I'm just an ordinary kid with ordinary problems". Guys, I think that was a suggestion for characterisation, not a dialogue note.
I know this reviews is a bit all over the place, but that's appropriate given the film is as well. And I know it sounds like I'm angry, but I'm not. I'm enthusiastically confused.
But hey, it's not all bad. The film does somehow manage to be closer to three hours than two. If nothing else, rest assured that what the film lacks in quality, it more than makes up for in length.
Just don't bother.