Grand-Slam Blitzkrieg
No question about it: the 45-minute Chicago finale of Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (Paramount, now playing) is absolutely jump-off-a-skyscraper insane. It’s astonishing, exhilarating, relentless, pulverizing…and yes, finally exhausting. Even if you’re a confirmed Michael Bay hater you have to give the guy credit for shooting this stunningly energized and visually giddy CG symphony of madness out of a shotgun and right through your 3D glasses. And none of it amounts to anything more than motion and chaos and fury designed entirely to sell tickets.
I didn’t even see the extra-bright Platinum version (which I’m going to try and see later today) and my mouth was hanging open. I’ve never seen a battle scene that went on this long and with this level of sustained blow-it-to-pieces energy, and in 3D yet…it’s furious, crazybeautiful and a little diseased. And stupefyingly superficial. No thought whatsoever has been put into this film other than Bay saying to his crew, “Push it, faster, crazier …c’mon!” He’s delivering levels of destruction to downtown Chicago that are like 100 9/11 attacks rolled into one. (His cameras naturally ignore the hundreds if not thousands of civilian deaths that would inevitably result from this level of mayhem.) Either way the Chicago finale is one for the books and surely worth the price in itself.
What does the sequence mean? Nothing. It means that Bay had the money to shoot it. What does it tell us about ourselves? That we’re a shallow culture that enjoys seeing shit destroyed and blown up and shattered and splattered all to hell. What emotions does it arouse? None, unless you consider Magic Mountain-level excitement to be an emotion.
That said, some observations and complaints:
(a) The 155-minute Transformers 3 is basically two movies — 100 to 110 minutes of set-up, dialogue, character conflict, action-fortified exposition and blah-dee-blah, much of which is too busy or emphatic and in any case plowed right through me (or around me or over-my-head or whatever) without sticking to my brain or my ribs, and then the 45-minute Chicago payoff. I didn’t care about the first 110 minutes. The movie should have been shorter. 60 or 70 minutes to cover Part One plus Chicago, which would be 105 to 115 minutes, tops.
(b) The dialogue for the various Autobots and Decepticons has always been dreadful; ditto the voice-acting of this. The movie stops dead with every line these guys say to humans and to each other.
(c) John Turturro gives the best supporting performance. That is to say, he seems to be genuinely enjoying himself as opposed to just collecting a paycheck.
(d) Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (i.e., Megan Fox‘s replacement) is relatively okay, but she wears tall heels all through the film. Running like hell and climbing and falling down the side of a teetering glass building and scrambling for dear life over rock and rubble…in heels! Bay production assistant: “Michael, I know you like actresses to wear heels but c’mon, this is absurd, man…having Rosie wear heels through all this actionis like making her wear a formal gown with a diamond tiara. Why not make her wear a bikini while you’re at it?” Bay: “You wanna get fired? I like her in heels, she’s an incredibly hot ass-babe and she’s not wearing footwear that doesn’t look hot…end of discussion.”
(e) On top of which Huntington-Whiteley towers over Shia LaBeouf with her big heels on, and that…oh, that’s right, I’m not supposed to say that women standing taller than their boyfriends doesn’t work as well as being the same height or being slightly shorter.
It amounts to saving our world. Come on Jeff!
I know you don’t care for the robots, and the mythology etc. but it’s not like the story didn’t setup why they were fighting and the importance of it. The voice acting was pretty good throughout, and Nimoy is great.
Reads like another good review to me.
Check back on RT and read some of the “rotten” reviews. They’re almost all positive, with just the right amount of “It’s nonsense and Bay is a moron and it’s too loud and I don’t understand the story,” but with enough begrudging praise that you know they’re secretly impressed.
Are you guys going to bring your Transformer toys to the movie with you, (the play ones, obviously, NOT the collector ones in the original packaging)?
I (faintly) remember bringing my X-Wing toy to “Star Wars” on the fourth viewing. It was NEAT!
He totally should have made her wear a bikini the whole time….
Or, even better yet — lingerie.
Hey, why the hell not???
Does Rosie Huntington Whatever’s character have a real name, or did they stop beating around the bush and just call her Tits and Ass?
I’m glad I work in River North. Looks like the folks in the Loop got hit pretty hard.
It’s Carly. I did chuckle that the first shot is of her walking up the stairs barefoot, camera focused on her ass. It looked like a Victoria’s Secret commercial
Shia usually calls her “angel”, which is meta in Bay world.
You mean they really do show her bare feet? Jesus, Christmas came early for Lex this year.
“I didn’t care about the first 110 minutes. The movie should have been shorter. 60 or 70 minutes to cover Part plus Chicago, which would be 105 to 115 minutes, tops.”
See, I knew it’d be too damn long. The original had about as much depth in its plot as a porno, which is why I’ve been so reluctant to see even this one. Movies should only be significantly over two hours in the first place if you have to something to say.
It’s an impressive collection of “war scene” setpieces, but the total lack of cohesion between them and the lack of ONE single character to give a shit about living or dying keeps it from being truly memorable or impressive. Also, ONCE AGAIN the title-characters of the movie are shoved off into the background and/or offscreen completely so that Bay can wank off over whichever Army/SEAL/whatever detachment loaned him some equipment and manpower to make the movie.
Has there ever been a “big” movie where the director has shown this kind of brazen, open hatred for the material he’s supposed to be making? I mean, Verhoeven clearly thought the philosophy of “Starship Troopers” was shit, so he doubled-down and made it a self-parody… but he still made THAT movie. Bay, on the other hand, clearly has such contempt for the whole geek/scifi giant-alien-robot thing that he literally ignores them as much as possible and makes the meatheads-with-guns-save-the-day douchebag army-porn bullshit movie he’d RATHER be making instead.
Yeah, I get it – Bay himself doesn’t seem to possess (or want to possess) much of an imagination – or, at least, an inclination for the fanciful. He’s not a “giant alien robots – wow!” guy, he’s a cars n’ guns n’ bling n’ dead-eyed-expressionless-supermodel guy. Fine, nothing wrong with that. But he should be making THOSE movies (re: Bad Boys) and someone with SOME kind of eye/mind/heart for the material should’ve made these. The great tragedy of the “Transformers” movies isn’t that they made a $200 Million movie out of a cheap robot cartoon – it’s that the $200 Million movie isn’t significantly better than a cheap robot cartoon.
Looks like I’m seeing it tonight in IMAX 3D. I’m definitely going to have a drink or three before going though…
And none of it amounts to anything more than motion and chaos and fury designed entirely to sell tickets.
So… it’s a theme park ride. Which is all Bay’s films ever are. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, ever.
Bay, on the other hand, clearly has such contempt for the whole geek/scifi giant-alien-robot thing that he literally ignores them as much as possible and makes the meatheads-with-guns-save-the-day douchebag army-porn bullshit movie he’d RATHER be making instead.
Now, THAT’S an extraordinarily astute observation.
Yes, the Transformers are toys. But man, if you’re going to make a movie about toys, OWN IT.
I have no idea what Bob is on about. Sam in the first movie was a nerd trying to get a girl and a car. Even in this movie he’s awkward and constantly trying to prove himself as a man and hero to others and his girlfriend. (Let’s not even bring the geeky How much more of the Transformers drama can there be? More than half the movie is them fighting, debating, the bridge, complaining about humans. It’s like you’re not happy unless every second of the movie is dedicated to them.
Yeah Bay likes the military, and they give him the real shit to make his movies more awesome. If Transformers ever did come to Earth, you better believe they will be working with the US government, and Josh Duhamel will help them kill all the Decepticons.
i meant “Let’s not even bring the geeky hackers or college roommate into this either.”
I’m curious, in the cartoon or whatever, why were we supposed to care for the Autobots other than they were the goods and the others weren’t? There isn’t some depth to their actions anywhere. Hell, there’s more moral ambiguity with Sentinel Prime’s actions here.
Can’t agree with you there, Bob. If you go back and rewatch Transformers: The Movie from the ’80s, the only decent bits are some of the voicework, Vince DiCola’s awesome synth score and Stan Bush’s songs. The rest of it is horseshit. If you don’t think Bay’s films are “significantly better” than the embarrassing scene with the robots dancing to Weird Al Yankovic, you must be remembering the cartoon with rose-tinted nostalgia-specs.
Eloi: You’re right. Tentacle raping a skyscraper is a lot more impressive than a giant planet which eats other planets.
@Rashad,
Sam in the first film isn’t a “nerd,” he’s just a loser – insert tired-ass joke about the lack of difference, but in terms of character archetypes (especially in something as arch as Transformers) there’s a difference.
As to the cartoon; not to imply that it was anything approaching “deep,” but the basic setup was that the Decepticons wanted to strip the planet for resources and the Autobots didn’t; and they pretty-much held to that. In Bay’s movies, what they’re actually fighting over changes three or four times per movie. In THIS one, the Decepticons want humans for slave-labor; which of course makes TOTAL sense for a race of two-story self-replicating machines who clearly have no difficulty making more of themselves (except when they don’t, which ALSO changes back and fourth a few times in each film. Sometimes they need that magic cube thing, other times Megatron has a bunch of little repair-guys crawling all over him out of nowhere, etc.)
@Eloi,
The animated movie is junk, but it’s (conceptually) creative junk – Bay’s films are pretty generic by comparison. Plus, it “gets” that silly ideas (like robots dressed up as cars) are better when played ridiculously straight and earnest as opposed to, say, wrecking-ball gonads. The design-work involved in rendering the various all-mechanical worlds is pretty inventive in and of itself, and the big final setpiece where the Orson Wells robot (who transforms INTO a planet, that eats OTHER planets) is standing on a whole planet like he’s balanced on a damn beach-ball is the kind of gonzo-absurdity that’s missing from Bay’s “Glamour Shots Of My Awesome Army-Guy Pals: Guest-Starring The Transformers” version.
And yes, I’ll HAPPILY take a minute or so of the Weird Al bit over the ENDLESS scenes of Turturro mugging, or the racist twin-bots, or the two RC-car guys in the new one.
I really didn’t care for the Chicago battle sequence because there was too little at stake. It was spectacular though, that I gotta admit.
Bob you break my heart.
I don’t think it was slave labor that was the main reason, as much as it was to have the planet actually become the new Cybertron. I know if I took over a planet, I would want to be worshiped like a god like he wants.
I mean yeah the twins were caricatures of black guys, but let’s not act like racial jokes etc. were unique to Bay’s movies. There was an Arab nation in the cartoon called Carbombya after all.
Exactly with Jonathan. I got pretty bored pretty early on in the big action sequence because it was all so clearly MEANINGLESS. No stakes at all, not even the tiniest chance that one of the principals was even going to get a scratch on them, much less any indication of a real human cost to the battle (as Jeff pointed out). So you just sit there, watching more windows blow up and buildings get smacked around, and more instances of Deus Ex Bumblebee.
What’s funny is that I kinda like the first half, but I was kinda bored by the big ending.
There’s a sort of committed weirdness about the first hour that appealed to me.
Greatest character-introduction shot in the ENTIRE HISTORY OF FILM. It’s alluded to earlier in this thread but you know what “shot” I mean. Holy shit, I almost had a heart attack right there in my seat. Megan WHO? Officially THE hottest chick I have EVER seen, EVER.
Movie was so awesome I don’t even want to talk about it, because dorkoffs like MovieBob with his Communist leanings will just annoy me with their whining.
The 3D worked SO WELL for that INSANE last hour, but as ALWAYS, was a constant distraction for the hour or so… I kept missing plot points, such as they are, or little bits of business, because 3D is so fucking distracting and distorted it’s harder to engage a movie on a narrative level.
What I’m saying is the depth-perception distraction made it harder to enjoy the bountiful TERRIBLE COMEDY, which despite claims that it was toned down, is as Bay as ever in this…
Actually the whole thing reminded me a lot of the more icy, cold, window-and-glass obsessed “clear” Bay of “The Island,” rather than the bright-colors-and-Americana Bay of “Armageddon.”
That character introduction instantly destroyed every bit of the tiny goodwill Bay created with the interesting, but implausible prologue.
Seriously, what’s your problem? Weren’t you like OH MY GOD LOOK AT HER FEEEEEEEEET!? LOOK AT HER ASS!? I almost had a seizure. It was the most glorious shot of any film ever. I AM CUBA? Fuck that shit.
I am tempted to throw down the gauntlet, but it might just be temporary insanity:
Rose Huntington-Whiteley is hotter than Kristen Stewart.
The finale in Chicago is indeed amazing and totally mindboggling and all the other hyperbole you wanna throw at it.
However, and this may stun anyone who knows me ’round these parts, I was left mildly unsatisfied by the entire thing. The comedy bits were DREADFUL. The first 90 minutes are a major SLOG to get thru. The two minor action beats (the bit in Chernobyl and then the freeway rampage) in the first half were fun, but honestly, I didn’t pay $12 to see shitty comedy, Shia overacting, and terrible scenes with McDormand, Jeong, Turturro (who is in another movie ENTIRELY) and Tudyk. Bay even used STOCK FOOTAGE from The Island during the freeway sequence.
And I wasn’t sold, AT ALL, with the 3-D. Sure, my screen was bright and it didn’t look dark in the slightest, but I just didn’t get any extra value outta it.
A few weeks from now I’ll slip into a 2-D late matinee after seeing something else and watch the last hour again.
Revenge of the Fallen was WAY MORE entertaining.
And as cute as this Brit chick is, she’s got NOTHING on the Fox.
I’m w/ Lex against Spuij. If you don’t like that intro, then I can’t help you. You likely hate then everything Bay, and he’s incapable of earning goodwill.
“Rose Huntington-Whiteley is hotter than Kristen Stewart.”
And a better actress to boot!
“Tentacle raping a skyscraper is a lot more impressive than a giant planet which eats other planets.”
Wow. You’re implying they ripped off Japanese tentacle porn to make a metal creature that burrows through a skyscraper. Well done, Deez. Well done.
(Then again, to the point of your ridiculous argument: isn’t it entirely possible that the “giant planet that eats other planets” just ripped off Japanese game shows where contestants are forced to gorge on food to win? YES, IT IS!)
“And as cute as this Brit chick is, she’s got NOTHING on the Fox.”
She is the hottest woman I have ever seen. She is hotter than the Fox. I can’t even BELIEVE I am saying this, but she is. And she is CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAARMING in the movie, to boot.
And how about some dap for Patrick Dempsey’s incredibly awesome smarming here?
You gotta like that after all the hullabaloo about those black robots in 2, Bay still said FUCK IT and went with a typically subtle Ken Jeong minstrel performance…
…as a guy named WANG.
@Rashad,
Dempsey’s character (and Sentinel Prime, if I’m remembering Monday night correctly) both specifically state that they “need” humanity to be a slave-labor force; that’s why they’re beaming Cybertron there.
It’s the entire “point” of the story – the whole movie (Transformers 3) is basically a douchey gung-ho pro-military propaganda wank about “never surrender!” and how “you can’t negotiate with EEEEEVIL!” Humanity (read: America) surrenders and agrees to work with the Decepticons (read: terrorists, commies, whatever) because they just want our resources and then they’ll leave us alone… but they’re lying, and they REALLY want to enslave us permanently – so it’s up to Optimus to teach humanity the lesson that you can’t trust or negotiate with enemies, and instead must kill them to the last man even if they’ve given up and surrendered to YOU (which Megatron basically does, after which Prime beheads him.)
I won’t pretend to know Bay or Ehren Krueger’s real-world politics; but if you switch-out Deceptions for “The Muslim Threat,” Sentinel Prime for Obama and Optimus for “insert-GOP-candidate-here” you’ve got a pretty solid diagram of how the Teabagger/”stay-the-course” nuts see the world – and I don’t think it’s entirely an accident.
“Actually the whole thing reminded me a lot of the more icy, cold, window-and-glass obsessed “clear” Bay of “The Island,” rather than the bright-colors-and-Americana Bay of “Armageddon.”
I totally agree.
But sorry, Lex. Fox OWNS.
“But sorry, Lex. Fox OWNS.”
Dude, I am the biggest booster of Fox on this planet. I took a day off work to see Jonah Hex. I paid 14 bucks to see Passion Play on the big screen even though it was gonna be streaming for free a week later. I own six copies of Jennifer’s Body…
And Rosie is hotter. And unless John Landis is hiring someone to star opposite Amy Irving, Fox isn’t gonna be getting much A-list work for the foreseeable future, so it’s time to move on to the new.
(I’m gonna keep using that Landis-Irving line of Spielberg kiss-offs until someone recognizes its brilliance…. I think this is the fourth time I’ve busted that out, so make it count.)
Fox has the advantage of being an actual person. RHW is a dream sculpted by the best Italian artists; she sleeps on actual clouds, doesn’t require food, which means that she’s never taken a shit in her life. To even compare her to Fox, or any other human, is ridiculous and unfair.
“Fox isn’t gonna be getting much A-list work for the foreseeable future…”
I think this applies to RHW as well. I mean, c’mon, who else can she play? How many roles call for perfection? She resembles Diaz in The Mask, but Diaz has enough flaws to play real people and build a career.
LexG, you lose all credibility rating women if KStew is your definition of the pinnacle of hotness.
If we could take our minds off of RHW’s ass for a second, I have a question:
Why on Earth does Bay need to make this movie 2.5 hours long??
It’s not like anyone paying money needs or wants a full hour of Shia screaming “No no no” and lame comedy bits. I think everyone universally hates the human characters in these films, right?? So why not make the film 1.5 hours long, and make it a complete maelstrom of robot destruction? Then you’ve saved some costs of making the film, and also maximized profits by allowing more screenings per day.
After all, these films are all about making Bay and Spielberg extremely rich, and that’s all. So why not go that route and make the maximum amount of cash??
Bob, I got that, I’m just saying there’s more to our world than just the slaves. I mean they might as well enslave us. They’ve been here long enough.
Actionman, I’m baffled by your reaction. Tudyk was clearly the funniest thing in the movie.
You know, I’m fine with this. If Bay makes films with no substance whatsoever for as long as he lives, I’m fine with it – as long as he pushes the envelope as far as possible each time. Screw logic, screw character, screw story and arc. Just put explosions in my face and make it fucking exciting.
If Bay’s next film has no story whatsoever but was just a freeform of set-pieces like the finale of TF3 – he would be hailed as genius. I’ve hated Bay for as long as I can remember because it’s nauseatingly clear he knows what his strengths are (big, dumb, overwhelming action) yet he still carries a pretense that he knows how to make us care about people who are clearly nothing more than players for a different purpose. What he needs is a format like Kurosawa’s Dreams in which he gets to packe a few bugfuck-nuts set pieces into 100 minutes. If he doesn’t hone in on that, he’ll have a difficult time topping this since it feels like the apex of action done in this over-the-top manner.
Since the wife is out of town, I think I’ll go again tomorrow and show up an hour late to catch what Bay really has to “say” (which is ‘Nothing’, but he has said ‘Nothing’ better here than he ever has).
I disagree; I love the characters in all the Bay movies, and think he does the human emotion stuff really well, at least as mainstream popcorn movies go, in that Don Simpson story points kind of way. All the stuff between Willis and Liv, Willis and Affleck, Will Patton and his family in Armageddon works perfectly in the cornball tradition; The Connery-Cage interplay is some of the best stuff in The Rock (admittedly because it’s two great movie stars having fun, more than any brilliant writing or pathos-laden story arcs)… I’ll concede this one’s about as robotic as Bay gets in terms of the human stuff… But a 90 minute “spectacle” feels like a ripoff in this day and age.
BAY = MAESTRO.
Though even I’ll concede I don’t know how that freeway setpiece got started; One minute Shia’s yammering into a phone telling McDormand to hide Sentinel… so I think he’s racing to the scene, but apparently it’s some motorcade and Shia’s there? I didn’t understand that at all.
Or how they got out of the building. And if I’m REALLY nitpicking, Bay shoots his load so thoroughly with that INSAAAAAAAAAANE demolished building bit AND the Duhamel flight-suit stuff, the final robot fisticuffs on the bridge seem like an afterthought. Also not sure how twenty minutes earlier they hadn’t managed to destroy that power source rod thingy, but Bumblebee TACKLING IT saves the day. But whatever.
BAY.
“I think everyone universally hates the human characters in these films, right?”
Isn’t it clear than many of are in absolute love with at least one of the human characters? Even though she’s not really human. I really disliked no one except ungrateful-and-on-coke Shia, and most-boring-actor-in-the-game Duhamel.
Duhamel is GOD. GOD.
They should make a movie with Duhamel and Sam Worthington and Bradley Cooper and call it I’M NOT GAY, BUT…
“No question about it: the 45-minute Chicago finale of Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (Paramount, now playing) is absolutely jump-off-a-skyscraper insane.”
FUCK YEAH!!!
“It’s astonishing, exhilarating, relentless, pulverizing…and yes, finally exhausting.”
Fuck Yeah!!
“Even if you’re a confirmed Michael Bay hater you have to give the guy credit for shooting this stunningly energized and visually giddy CG symphony of madness out of a shotgun and right through your 3D glasses.”
fuck yeah!
“And none of it amounts to anything more than motion and chaos and fury designed entirely to sell tickets.”
[scattered] fuck…..yeah.
“He’s delivering levels of destruction to downtown Chicago that are like 100 9/11 attacks rolled into one.”
[lone voice of an unnamed filmmaker] ummm…..fuck yeah?
Do I have any interest in paying to sit through this whole thing?
FUCK NO!!!
Although — since I have absolutely NO respect for this franchise (hey, kinda like Bay!), and there’s absolutely NO story here to speak of — I might be a fucking asshole about it and sneak into it after the 90 minute mark at the multiplex after another movie, bringing my douchey 3-D glasses. But even then, I bet I’ll be seriously underwhelmed and feel ripped-off.
FUCK YEAH!!!
Kaned, stop being an asshole.
Condescension is the lowest form of behavior.
I also have to admit I’m totally relishing actionman’s gloriously turncoat behavior in pulling a Darth Vader in Jedi by throwing his filmmaking hero Emperor Baypatine off the towers of cinematic idolatry.
“No. You’re coming with me. I’ll not leave you here, I’ve got to save you.
Actionman…I won’t leave you.”
And Dear Christ, Lex has a new fantasy fuck. Awesome. I didn’t get enough of his infatuation with Kristen Stewart or his bizzarre “admiration” for ELLE FANNING WHO IS NINE MONTHS OLD AND OH MY GOD PLEASE FUCKING STOP. Lex, you know this is creepy right? You have to. I know beautiful, successful people regardless of age are inseparable from your cinematic goings, but enough is enough.
If this thread is still alive, would it be too much to ask for ask for a show of hands for the straight women or gay men? I’m only asking because every time I come across a post with a picture of a woman, I don’t even bother to read the comments. It seems like every commenter is jacking off under the table and it makes me deeply uncomfortable.
Lex, you have a plethora of original things to say. That doesn’t include “Megan Fox is a Goddess” or “Oh Man Megan Fox’s Replacement Is More of a Goddess Than I Initially Thought Megan Fox To Be”. I used to look to HE for thoughtful discussion about cinema, and now I avoid it because it’s a Straight Boys’ Club.
Show of hands (if this thread is still alive): How many straight women or gay men actively participate in the comments here?
Roger Ebert ripped Transformers 3 a new asshole in his review.
Just when I was thinking of checking out the movie…Ebert comes through! He is my hero.
Here’s an honest question. What was the deal with the decepti-rolex Shia betrayal business? Where did that go exactly? Not the plot point of finding out what the Autobots were up to, but all of the setup of betraying Optimus, who trusted only Shia (which is pretty sad, btw).
One of the few moments of potential emotional complexity was a red herring!
What condescension? I don’t like Bay and what he “stands for.” At least I’ve seen most of his films.
No, being an asshole is hating an entire genre (animation) or entire section of the world’s movies (Asian) WITHOUT EVEN SEEING THEM.
You, sir, are the fucking asshole!
Asshole.
Lex, I immediately regretted posting that. I know you have a lot to say, and I appreciate your viewpoint – I would go so far as to call it a vision. It’s interesting at the very least – that is, when you’re talking about the actual movies. That shit stands on its own.
I should have elaborated that it’s tough to see through the veneer of leering and ogling of even marginal female actresses when coming here. I enjoy your passion about film, but your fixation about the people behind it, be it girls you want to fuck or guys you want to be in order to fuck the girls you want to fuck – well, it seems trite and beside the point.
It puts me off, and of course I know that no one is missing my contributions here. Still, I worry that it limits the diversity of the conversation.
Bottom line: I like reading your posts when they’re not about something that I consider superficial and beside the point.
“But a 90 minute “spectacle” feels like a ripoff in this day and age.”
How??!! As televisiontears said, Bay clearly has nothing to say. What’s with all the terrible buildup? It’s no secret that all these films are about are the money shot, so why keep beating around the bush with details that nobody making the flick even cares about, let alone the audience?
This thing running 2 1/2 hours is absurd– it’s not like they’re running around trying to tie up 7 movies’ worth of loose ends a la Deathly Hallows. Take the Black Keys’ advice and “Tighten Up.”
Music CDs can hold what — 74-75 minutes of audio? Does that mean the sub-half-hour thrashterpiece Reign In Blood is a ripoff?
ALL KILLER, NO FILLER. Words to live by.
Saw it this morning and then stepped into Cars 2.
I hope that John Turturro gets cast in a future Terminator film, thus cementing himself in all of the major talking machine movie franchises.
Jeff’s part d) can be amended to include that Rosie wears a white jacket and white shirt through the entire major battle scene, and never gets a speck of dirt on either. For the climactic final kiss, Shia is covered in grime yet Rosie looks like she just got ready for a trip to the mall. That one shot says everything about Michael Bay you need to know.
so…$200 million in the first 10 days or so…?
Televisiontears, no need to apologize or backtrack, wasn’t offended… And you DEFINITELY should post more, even if it’s to call me out for being a repetitive douche. Though chances of me toning down the whole “longing for actresses/wanting to be actors” thing is pretty impossible, since that’s almost the entirety of how I process movies– viscerally and emotionally and wishing I was doing THAT instead of typing about it online.
But I mean, seriously, this Rosie chick, it’s like, LOOK AT HER. When I see a movie like this, it’s like, if I had a wife, I’d dump her right after the movie, because THAT is exactly what I want, what every man wants, and Bay knows PRECISELY how to shoot and light women in the way that ALL STRAIGHT GUYS SHOULD DESIRE…. It gives me what I call a rage-boner; I’m all STOKED to be seeing my personal fantasies on a 2.35:1 frame in glorious colors, and I’m simultaneously depressed that I’m a balding douche watching it passively and I’ll drive home from the theater in a Ford Taurus and eat a Lean Cuisine Salisbury Steak by myself. That’s how I process movies, for better or worse…. there’s no distance or remove or intellectualizing of it.
On to CitizenKingBetterDays: I can’t BELIEVE that the biggest Bay-disser in this thread is also the biggest Paul Greengrass fan, since PG straight-up STOOOOOOOOLE Bay’s style and only added muted colors and boring politics. (Settle down, I like the Bourne movies and U93 and Black Sunday and Green Zone too… but he’s a Bay wannabe who’s fooled people into thinking he’s Costa-Gavras.)
Dude, Lex, my whole thing is, there are plenty of fantasy actresses to choose from. Why not choose someone who is super hot and also, like, really talented and super smart? Whatserface in T3 is gorgeous, no argument here, but she’s not an artist. She’s not. She does what she does in T3 just fine, and she may do a thing or two else here and there, and become a fucking talking head on VH1 or become a spokesperson for some bullshit cream or whatever, but she herself will most likely not contribute anything compelling or memorable in film.
When there are people like Eva Green, like Michelle Williams, like Carey Mulligan, who are smokin hot and also ridiculously talented. I have a hard time relating to it. I love all the shit you post, but I feel a big disconnect with the lady fantasy stuff. No judgment, I just don’t get it. I feel like there are so many BETTER fantasy girls out there, who are sexy as hell but probably also could talk about film and be pleasant to be around.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
I actually think, in many of her profile shots, that the new TF girl was sorta ugly, whereas with Fox, she’s never less than GOREGOUS from any angle. FOX ALL THE WAY.
GORGEOUS
I love how in T3, when all of the pillars got activated, half of the shots were in Cambodia.
actionman: Agree. Fox looks amazing in 2D whereas Rosie needs 3D gimmicks to make her look halfway decent.
To which specific 3D gimmick are you referring?
Do you think said 3D gimmicks made Kevin Dunn more of a looker, too?
Unleash your hate, actionman…Gooooood!
As for Lex: I don’t deny that Bay “got there first” — actually “first” is very, very debatable in this instance as it’s been a sliding scale that goes back to Tony Scott, before that those ’80s Hong Kong films that you despise so much, before that Friedkin and Penn, before that the French New Wave, before that Eisenstein, Dali, and a bunch of other people you probably ignored on your way to getting your three “film degrees” from Faber College — with the quick-cutting aesthetic.
I feel that Greengrass does, however, use this editing at the service of narrative — he knows how to pace a scene so that when you’re watching Bourne having a conversation, he’s not lit and shot like Billy Bob Thornton in Armageddon or Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys 2 (Jesus Christ, sitting down at mission control and delivering sub-Big Momma’s House comedic beats do NOT require a full-on “action hero treatment”…it’s awkwardly embarrassing and exhausting to watch).
When has Bay ever been involved with anything as cinematically-restrained and claustrophobic as United 93? I’ll admit, the first have of The Island seemed to hint at some sort of promise, but then he’s taken on three consecutive bloated blockbusters, and hasn’t looked back since. Hey — more power to him if that’s what he wants to do for the rest of his life, but I’m not going to support it (not that it matters).
Interesting that you mention Black Sunday (that typo kinda makes me wonder if you even saw Bloody Sunday — seriously how do you mix those up?? — but I s’pose I’ll take your word for it), because I think the simply watching their respective movies would serve as more than conclusive Povich-like evidence that Bay is clearly NOT the offspring of the late, almighty Frankenheimer (“Exhibit A, your honor: Seconds“; Judge: “Case dismissed”).
Isn’t Fernando Meirelles the modern-day Costa-Gavras?
^ Hot damn, that was easily a candidate for HE post of the year, right there.
Please folks: single-file only queues when lining up to cast your All-Star ballots.
“When I see a movie like this, it’s like, if I had a wife, I’d dump her right after the movie, because THAT is exactly what I want, what every man wants, and Bay knows PRECISELY how to shoot and light women in the way that ALL STRAIGHT GUYS SHOULD DESIRE…. ”
LoL, how much of this do you tell your ex-wife that you still live with?
http://actionman-nickspix.blogspot.com/2011/06/recovering-from-bayhem.html
For Eric Glide:
ROSIE HUNTINGTON-WHITELEY, Kristen Stewart, The Fannings (ie Dakota now and Little Elle in three years), The Fox, Blake Lively, Mila Kunis, Hathaway, Jessica Alba, Amanda Seyfried, Emily Browning, Taylor Swift, Emma Roberts, Taylor Momsen, Keira, Amber Heard, Natalie Portman when she’s not a big fat pregnant fatty, Rachel McAdams– all TOP CALIBER actresses and beauties who will all but surely be ADORNED with Oscar Gold sooner than later. And, yeah, I’d throw Mulligan in there, too… but let’s not forget, she dated LaBeuof.
Probably because she wanted to hang out on a Transformers set and see how a GOOD movie is made.
You know that, as one of the big champions of the film on this thread, you yourself pointed out like 5 things that you didn’t like about it, probably without a whole lot of stopping and thinking, to boot.
I’d agree with you on McAdams, Seyfried,and Hathaway. Maybe one of the Fannings after they grow up, MAYBE.
I am going to see it six times this weekend.
Maybe five if I need to see Monte Carlo twice.
“hopefully he can get back to something more real-world rooted like The Rock or another Bad Boys movie.”
Amen.
“He’s threatening to do his “little $20 million dark comedy” which I think is a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE idea”
“Threatening” is absolutely the correct term for this. His “comedic” setpieces in the second Bad Boys film — which I actually assume are a lot more tolerable than the ones found in the TF movies given the fact that Lawrence and Smith are actually pretty talented, funny guys — were absolutely atrocious. I literally think there were more genuine laughs in the average episode of Small Wonder, which is to say about 0.4.
Megan Fox>RHW
Greengrass’ action is incomprehensible. Bay blows that guy out of the water. Even with his attempts at politics stuff, which came off as tired in Green Zone, the Bourne series was just as vacuous as any movie. At least in The Island there’s something to ponder afterwards. I honestly don’t get the Greengrass love. The make shakes his shit too much, edits too quick. He’s about implying you’re seeing action rather than actually seeing it in it’s full glory.
“Ebert comes through! He is my hero.”
He’s really an idiot. Any reviewer who says they could never care for Optimus simply because he’s a robot is an ass. That’s not even getting into the other parts of his review, of which I stopped reading. Seriously, why do people read him still? He says nothing; he doesn’t break down a film, he just litters a synopsis with jabs or quibs or some brief thought. No insight or anything. The irony of this guy’s attitude, is he made it big simply because he was the Roland Emmerich of film criticism. Quick, loud, sensationalist arguments and became popular for it. Roland Emmerich didn’t destroy movies, but Armond White is right when film criticism went the way of the dodo with Ebert. It’s all shit.
Sat next to Nick Turturro on the LGA shuttle recently, he was up to Boston to see the Yankees and was in full Yankee regalia. When I inquired about his brother, his exact quote was; ” My brother? My brother never has to work again because of those stupid robot movies!”
Which is nice.
did xiaowu just wake up and log on in Pago Pago? …. regarding point “D” .. yes the femme running around in 5″ heels is essential to the total aesthetic …. in fact I think you could narrow T3 to the five minutes when everybody is in the building and it’s teetering … and then they jump out into seemingly mid-air but it turns out to be the sloping falling building and they are sliding down it all yelling and shit and then they shoot out the windows from underneath them and fall into whatever floor that is …. oh gosh, that was awesome – and Carly can do all of this in 5″ heels because she is The Stronger ….
“Seriously, why do people read him still? He says nothing; he doesn’t break down a film, he just litters a synopsis with jabs or quibs or some brief thought. No insight or anything”.
i sincerely hope you grasp the irony in that statement…..
Rashad, you are an idiot. Ebert is a brilliant writer. Don’t make him poke you in the ass with his Pulitzer to remind you.
oh jeff.
u mad.
I was one of the harshest critics of the first two Transformers movies. This one was awesome and was pretty much what I had initiall hoped a Transformers movie would be.
And the girl was good in it.
Oh another minor thing I wanted to bring up is, Why didn’t it have that AWWWWWWWWESOME music from the trailer? The Jablonsky score was good as always, but I kept waiting to hear that thunderous DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH! riff from the trailer, and they never played it.
This is always annoying. See also, Where the Wild Things Are, where EVERY PERSON WHO SAW IT went waiting to bawl their eyes out over that Arcade Fire song, then it never played.
Yeah, that song would have been awesome when Optimus came swooping in and fucked every thing he saw up with that sword.
The song btw, is by Paul Jebanasam
I won’t pretend to get exactly where Ebert is coming from re: Optimus Prime, but the character is kind of useless and the insistance of the score and cinematography that we’re supposed to adore him is another of those “Bay really doesn’t get this stuff” elements that keeps cropping up.
Prime is pretty-much THE key figure of the merchandising, the posters, the trailers, everything pretty-much because he was the main guy on the TV show… but in the movies he’s a supporting character at best who never really does much. He’s not the star – Sam is the star, and Bumblebee is the “main” robot because they’re pals.
They keep telling us that Prime is a total badass leader but his strategy is never anything other than “lets go kill the bad guys” and he NEVER wins a major fight on his own. Sam kills Megatron in the first one, Sam raises him from the dead in the second and even then he has to use the plane guy’s wings to beat the bad guy, in this one Megatron saves his ass and before THAT he somehow gets hopelessly stuck in some ropes despite being able to sprout swords and axes from his arms.
“And, yeah, I’d throw Mulligan in there, too… but let’s not forget, she dated LaBeuof.”
Which, by a strange coincidence, is exactly what LaBeouf is going to claim about RHW in about two years.
I know everybody loves to hate on Bay. It’s become as in and as hip as it was to love the Cure back in the late 80′s. That being said, anyone who whines and cries and wonders “Why do they keep letting him make movies?” should really sit in a packed theater with regular people during a showing of this film.
I saw it at 9.00 pm on Tuesday night and there were six (6) seperate applause breaks thorughout the film. The first came during the freeway chase when Bumblebee transforms, tosses Sam into the air, turns and slams a Decepticon, grabs Sam and transforms back into a car, all in one motion. The place exploded like they were at a rock concert. Say what you want about the flick, but it plays like gangbusters with a summer audience. It’s funny. Before, people bitch and moan that there was no story in T2 and it was all action. In T3, there is 90 minutes of story and then the most insane 3rd act ever attempted and now people are bitching that it moves too slow and there isn’t enough action. That cuts it, they just hate Michael Bay. If you’re looking for deep story and a slow art house affair, he isn’t your guy, but in 2011, there are few people alive and absolutely nobody on a message board who does action like Bay. There just isn’t. Don’t talk to me about the Twins, and the inchoherent action of T2 because there is none of that here. This is smooth and clean, with long (for an action film) scenes that give you time to take in what you’re seeing. Bay has slowed down all the frantic shit and in this flick you can SEE whats happening and who is where and what they’re doing. And i’ll say this: If you can’t tell who’s the good guy ‘Bots and who’s the bad guy ‘Bots, that’s on you. Don’t whine that the director should make it a priority to keep the action clear, because then that same argument would have to apply to The Tree of Life, which I saw last weekend and loved. (Best film of the 2.0 Malick) because he made no attempt to make it clear what was happening in that and the people who don’t pay attention were left scratching their heads at the end, but we all say that it’s the audiences fault and they should have kept up with Malick and his story. If that’s true and that’s what we all think, then the same should apply to Transformers. Because you know what? I knew which ones were the good guys and which ones were the bad guys. I kept up. And the packed theater on Tuesday night all kept up just fine. I predict that it’s gonna come down to this and Harry Potter as the years biggest earners.
Can’t wait to watch
My friends told me not to watch it, I like Transformers very much!
Oh, that’s Michael Bay as a director!
I love all his movies, especially The Island.
Jeff- There are plenty of civilian deaths in Chicago. Fuck, people are turned into flying meat before your eyes!
TheMovieBob- thanks for continuing to use your copious amounts of spare time to confirm you are a dickhead, It was never in doubt but thank you.
Style, shmyle…..
Bottom line:
Greengrass has made good movies (“United 93″, “Bourne Whatever”)
Bay has made a continuous line of crap (“Everything”)
“It’s become as in and as hip as it was to love the Cure back in the late 80′s.
[...]
The place exploded like they were at a rock concert.”
You mean kinda like an Asia show in the early ’80s?
Apparently using paragraphs was one another one of those in/hip fads that michael never really embraced.
“I knew which ones were the good guys and which ones were the bad guys. I kept up.”
LoL. I really, really hope this guy sticks around, but I have the sneaking suspicion he came over from Don Murphy’s message board, or googled Bay pulverizing blitzkrieg (probably the same difference).
i like mike
Kaned, you’re someone I enjoy reading here on HE, but your little tee-hee anti-Transformers licks are getting annoying. Gee, we ALLLLLLL get it, you think it’s big and stupid and you don’t like Michael Bay. Bully for you. Can you move on now?
Your loss.
Michael is spot-on
Kaned- Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not from Don Murphy’s blog, I’ve been a member here at HE for about 4 years now. And it wasn’t like an Aisa show, it was more like a New Kids On the Block show.
Everyone has at least one filmmaker or genre that they enjoy digging into. I really used to dig Mike back in the mid-’90s, and he’s someone that I soured on tremendously after his first two flicks (which I really liked).
So I’m sorry. And I promise you I’m done railing against him here — at least until TF4! — but please don’t act like you don’t do the same thing. You’re just the guy that “loves movies” until there’s a thread about Pixar or Scott Pilgrim (I would say something Asian, but our congenial host seems to share your distaste for Eastern cinema).
Eh, it happens.
Alright, michael — genuine apologies to you, too.
I’m now leaving the thread on the thing I had no intention of seeing in the first place.
Gotta be pretty friggin’ pretentious to be lumping Bay in with Malick.
Please re-read what I wrote again, DZ. I didn’t put them in the same league, just said that we don’t need two standards, one will do just fine.
Now, feel free to twist my words and cut me down to make yourself feel better.
Thanks, Kaned, I appreciate that. I agree, to each his own. I like this kind of stuff, even though I know it’s shit at it’s core, it still makes the 14 year old boy in me giddy.
I guess that’s something some people just can’t understand.
It’s easiest to do this chronologically – and only because I know Rashad goes back and checks all his comments, just to get the “last word”:
RJ: “Does Rosie Huntington Whatever’s character have a real name, or did they stop beating around the bush and just call her Tits and Ass?”
Rashad: “It’s Carly.”
It was a fucking rhetorical joke, bonehead. No grasp of nuance, have ye?
Rashad: “I did chuckle that the first shot is of her walking up the stairs barefoot, camera focused on her ass. It looked like a Victoria’s Secret commercial.”
Was this surprising to you? Because Bay’s directed many VS commercials…and RHW is a VS model who has only been in front of the camera for VS ads. Surprised easily, huh?
Rashad: “If Transformers ever did come to Earth, you better believe they will be working with the US government, and Josh Duhamel will help them kill all the Decepticons”.
It is indeed insightful that you have ruminated on this possibility so thoroughly.
Rashad: I don’t think it was slave labor that was the main reason, as much as it was to have the planet actually become the new Cybertron.”
So you missed the entire point of the invasion? Really? Amazing….
Rashad: Bob, I got that, I’m just saying there’s more to our world than just the slaves. I mean they might as well enslave us. They’ve been here long enough.
So you missed the entire point of the invasion? Really? Amazing….
Look – MovieBOB is extremely well-versed in this and he caught more of the silly ridiculousness and plot-holes than I did….but you’re a HUGE FAN and TIRELESS ADVOCATE!
Rashad: I mean yeah the twins were caricatures of black guys, but let’s not act like racial jokes etc. were unique to Bay’s movies. There was an Arab nation in the cartoon called Carbombya after all.
Nice to see that you’re against “sexual licentiousness” because it specifically endangers young black audience members….but Amos-n-Andying is “okay-by-Rashad!” (Look them up, since you’re such a Google expert.)
Rashad: “I know if I took over a planet, I would want to be worshiped like a god like he wants.”
Dude, you can’t even propound on a comments-forum without becoming a laughingstock.
Rashad: “Greengrass’ action is incomprehensible. Bay blows that guy out of the water. Even with his attempts at politics stuff, which came off as tired in Green Zone, the Bourne series was just as vacuous as any movie. At least in The Island there’s something to ponder afterwards. I honestly don’t get the Greengrass love. The make shakes his shit too much, edits too quick. He’s about implying you’re seeing action rather than actually seeing it in it’s full glory.”
Don’t even think I need to comment here.
“Ebert comes through! He is my hero.”
Rashad: “[Ebert's] really an idiot. Any reviewer who says they could never care for Optimus simply because he’s a robot is an ass. That’s not even getting into the other parts of his review, of which I stopped reading. Seriously, why do people read him still? He says nothing; he doesn’t break down a film, he just litters a synopsis with jabs or quibs or some brief thought. No insight or anything. The irony of this guy’s attitude, is he made it big simply because he was the Roland Emmerich of film criticism. Quick, loud, sensationalist arguments and became popular for it. Roland Emmerich didn’t destroy movies, but Armond White is right when film criticism went the way of the dodo with Ebert. It’s all shit.”
This is fantastic fiction, highlighting how ignorant you are. Ebert was writing incredible works on the movies long before you were an itch in your daddy’s pants….and he’s expounding more truth *without a voice* than you have or ever shall by mashing your fingers into your keyboards here. Maybe you’re “star” at slashfilm…but that’s a vastly lower bar.
By all means – latch onto Armond White as your mentor, assuming (big assumption) that he isn’t already your mental mentor.
Rashad: “Michael is spot-on.”
He is, but solely about Malick and the NKOTB allusion.
Fuck, dude…you are, seriously, when all is said and done, an idiot.
“Kaned, you’re someone I enjoy reading here on HE, but your little tee-hee anti-Transformers licks are getting annoying. Gee, we ALLLLLLL get it, you think it’s big and stupid and you don’t like Michael Bay. Bully for you. Can you move on now?
Your loss.”
@lexg
Take your own advice.
A huge group of friends sat through this earlier today, and in 3D on the biggest screen we could find.
Bless me father for I have sinned.
Is there any reason, any reason at all, why this film could not have been about 100 minutes? I can think of zero reasons why not.
There are some memorable razzy type moments in this, as some of the performances are just flat out craptastic. First and foremost has to be Duhamel. I still have no idea what attracted Spielberg to this guy. He is pretty dreadful, every time he shows up it’s a guarantee the scene is dead on arrival. You just start rooting hard for this guy to get impaled, beheaded, thrown out a window tied up so his guts fly out on the ground, anything, ANYTHING to just get him out of there. There’s no hope, but what else can you do sitting there?
The new girl is a cypher. Bay loves his puppets I guess. One of my friends kept whispering “Cinemax after dark” every time she showed up on screen and I guess that about covers it. Maybe she’ll be showing up there sometime soon!
This franchise just doesn’t work. This is one of the worst screenplays of the past few yeras, it’s painful in its attempts at being melodramatic, almost always unintentionally funny, and sadly unfunny during the idiotic attempts at humor. Good God it’s almost unbelievable that someone with such an eye for one thing (action) can be so jaw droppingly bad at almost everything else.
The final 40 minutes or so: it just keeps going and going and…it just felt so good to get the hell back into the open air afterward and go get some tacos, the pitcher of sangria is good at Javier’s and it just wiped the damn slate clean.
The best part was a couple friends telling me, I don’t know if it’s true, that the new girl said this week that she wants to be in more “serious” movies! If it’s true that is just fabulous!
First 15-minutes: beautiful, awe-inspiring, not enough superlatives…
Next hour or so: Oh, my God, this is bad. This movie deserves to sweep the Razzies acting categories. does SAG have a “worst ensemble” category, because this should win. I’m not gonna pick on the hero and heroine; they’re lame, but basically doing what they’re supposed to do. John Malkovich? John Turturro? Alan Tudyk? What is hell are you guys doing? You’re great actors! The only saving grace is that Ken Leong gives the worst performance in film history, but you guys are pretty awful in this! His parents are bad. Buzz Aldrin shows up and he’s a terrible actor! The three lead robots are fine, but the comedic robots need to STOP!
Final hour–OK, that was amazing. This is the greatest 3D movie ever. Oscars for visual FX, Sound, Sound Editing, Cinematography. But my favorite part was the 30-second long shot of the heroine just staring blanlly while the camera revolved around her… for no reason other than to dweel on a hot chick as a respite to the action. Like FAST FIVE, it’s one of those rare movies in this era of CGI that leaves you thinking “I don;t know how they did it and I don;t wanna know. It’s awesome.”
Other notes–the one actor good actor/interesting character is Patrick Dempsey as the human Quisling. It’s one thing that he’s selling out humanity to alien invaders because he wants to be on the winning side, and these aliens kill their human helpers, making his choice seem ill-advised. But he’s actually fighting at the end of the movie to help his evil aliens when it looks like they’re losing. Is he hyper-competitive? Does he realize he’s screwed if the humans win? who cares, this was a really good villain, I hope he gets nominated for one of the MTV Best Villain awards.
*I missed Ms. Fox. this heroine valiantly did the whole hour-long finale in high heels, but otherwise we needed someone with Ms. Fox’s “spunk” to make a second hero rather than a vapid cardboard cut-out. That said, her entrance shot was quite lovely, particularly in 3D.
*Man, the 3D in this movie is so good, I thought the real world looked fake and phoney as I drove home.
This is one of the worst screenplays in film history. With all the effort and brilliance (in some areas) going into the making of this movie, why couldn;t they have gotten themselves a good script. There’s nothing wrong with the story. But is this awful comedy on the page, or are these people improvising this stuff? Ehren Kruger wrote ARLINGTON ROAD and THE RING, which are terrific genre scripts. Then he writes SCREAM 3 and this…are there two Ehren Krugers out there?
johnny: “Buzz Aldrin shows up and he’s a terrible actor!”
Jesus, he’s actually in it?! So one generation of childhoods wasn’t enough for Bay to rape, and he had to go after the Gen X’ers *and* the Boomers too? Anyway, judging by your other, comments, if Bay isn’t the cinematic equivalent of Hitler, he’s at least the ADD answer to Leni Riefenstahl.
I thought this movie was amazing! Loved the affects and didn’t think the acting was terrible. Its definitely 1000 times better than the second Transformers!
And, on cue, Film Freak Central critic Walter Chaw waxes vituperative:
http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/transformers3.htm
Transformers 3 without Megan Fox…too bad for one of the sexiest women,because her acting wasn’t terrible in 1 and 2.
So finally it released and was ultimate that I feel. It was much better than last parts and full on expectations of viewers. And the next that i am waiting for this year is harry potter and I am so excited to watch harry potter and the deathly hallows part 2 online
this is the end of saga now.
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