Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Film Review
by Oktay Ege Kozak
Do you recall Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's surreal comedy masterpiece Being John Malkovich? Do you remember the secret portal which allowed the characters to enter John Malkovich's mind? I recently found a similar portal behind my bookshelf. This portal does not enter John Malkovich's brain but it finds its way into Michael Bay's, the director of Transformers 1 and 2. I occasionally entered Bay's mind during the filming of Transformers 2. Below are random transcripts of Bay's thoughts:
...CRASH, BOOM, BANG, CRASH, CRASH, EEEEEK, BANG, BANG, CLANK, one more CLANK!!! Beautiful, that was a great scene. I want some extra BANG for the next scene...
...That director of photography is the most naive man in the world. He blatantly said ?Should we keep the camera steady suring the simple dialogue scene where the characters discuss their love life?? No, the camera has to spin, spin and spin around them. The camera can not stay still for a single second, not even a single frame. Now that I think of it, I think the camera didn't shake for a couple of frames during yesterday's dialogue scene. I should re-shoot that scene...
...This script doesn't make much sense. Should I work on it some more? Who cares, I'll just add another meaningless, endless robot fight in the middle of the story, it'll cover for the lack of one. That scene will have so much extra CLANK, no one will care about the script. I'm a genius...
...Tons of interchangeable Transformers are not enough. The movie should be even bigger, even more unnecessarily confusing. It should be bigger, bigger, BIG, BIG, CRASH, BANG, BOOM, BOOM!! I got distracted again, what was I saying? Oh yeah, The Terminator franchise made a lot of money, I should compete with that. I will inexplicably stick a Terminator girl in the story. Speaking of random plagiarism, I found a way for the characters in America to suddenly find themselves in Egypt. They will teleport there, just like Star Trek! How do they teleport? This one robot has teleportation powers or something like that. Who cares about story consistency? The audience are morons anyway. They'll eat up anything...
...I wonder if I have too many robot genitalia jokes in the movie? The maturity age of the audience is five, so what I should be asking myself is ?Did I insert (Ha, ha, insert) enough robot genitalia jokes into the movie? Let's see, during one scene a miniature robot gives life to kitchen electronics using its gigantic robo-penis. Another scene has a small robot humping a girl's leg. What else could I put in there? I got it, I'll add humongous metal testicles to this giant robot. The special effects guys will love that idea. After all, who would not love sitting in front of a computer screen for days, animating giant metal testicles? I wonder if kids will see this film? Who cares, they'll learn the facts of life sooner or later anyway...
...Shake the camera, shake it more, shake it, SHAKE, SHAKE!! YOU'RE NOT SHAKING IT ENOUGH!!!...
...If I suck up a little more to the US Army, I wonder if I could secure a couple more million dollars of ?help?? What could I do to scrape more cash? I got it, I'll treat the Autobots as American soldiers, and the Decepticons as Muslim terrorists. The Decepticons should throw away the American flag in every scene. I'll even have a Decepticon yell ?Jihad!? in one scene. Cultural sensitivity? What's that?...
...Editing, what editing? Take a couple of shots and ramdomly throw them on the screen. Who cares if the shots don't match, or if you can't see what's going on? These idiots will watch anything as long as it has enough CRASH, BOOM, BANG in it. They bother me with this trivial stuff while I'm doing important things such as coming up with more robo-penis jokes...
...Jar-Jar Binks from Star Wars was the most annoying, most stereotypical character in franchise blockbuster history. I want to de-throne Jar-Jar, but how? I know, I'll insert a couple of inanely stereotypical, ghetto black minstrel robots. These robots should be made in such a racist fashion, they should put back the advancement of black people in American cinema by at least 50 years. Who cares if Spike Lee complains about it? He's not a real director. A real director always shakes the camera, or spins it, or something. What's all that with the steady, non-shaking camera?...
...This Megan Fox is a bit too untalented and wooden. It's impossible to squeeze out a second of believable emotion from her. I'll use a lot of slow-motion shots of her running. That way the neandarthal male audience will be happy and I'll cover for her lack of humanity...
...I have to remember that no matter how much I treat the audience as idiots, no matter how much I undermine their intelligence, rape their senses with endless loud explosions and incomprihensible fight scenes, it's not enough. The audience expects it, these are movies made for entertainment and that's the rule of the game. Who cares if other blockbusters like Iron Man and The Dark Knight were both visually impressive and immensely entertaining without insulting their audience's intelligence? I'm making movies for the ?general audience? who love robot penis jokes and have an attention span of 0.2 seconds. CRASH, BANG, BOOM, BOOOM, CRASH, CLANK, BOOM, BANG!!!...