Transformers 2

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'm not so sure TF2 is supposed to be a popcorn movie. ...I think it's just designed to rake in the initial take at the box office and earn a quick $20M net and from there out just be one hell of a toy commercial for Hasbro. And that it is.

That said, they could have netted a hell of a lot more if they would've just had Megan Fox in various sexy outfits as she interacted with large CG robots. I still would've paid my $8 to see it and they would have spent a lot less making it.

As for the bashing of Michael Bay, I don't see the point. We all know what kind of movies he directs and he consistently gets the same repeatable results with the end product and at the box office. As far as the studios are concerned, the guy is a gold mine and the go-to guy for this sort of movie. If I had a mind-numbing action movie to produce and the budget to do it, I'd be calling him because I know he could take my $120M and turn it into $200M.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I think a good example for a bigass enterteining film working for the intellectuals and the numbnuts alike is Starship Troopers. I still love it on so many levels, it just doesn't wear off.
Just my 2 cents... now back to Bay-bashing

Haha! Wow you have even more dedication than me. I enjoyed it but I probably won't ever see it again.

Completely agree with Starship Troopers. It's probably the best summer movie ever made. I never tire of watching it.

 

[Tom Lowe]

I have respect for Bay. We know what to expect from him.

My only real beef with him on this Transformers 2 was that I felt like he blatantly ripped off a couple of prominent locations from very well known movies, like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Come on, I mean, if you have $200m budget, at least find some nice new locations!

BTW, the opening sequence, where the "Fallen" takes on the cavemen, was shot out at Alabama Hills near Lone Pine. I saw the crew out there a couple months ago. They used FX to remove Mount Whitney from the shots, though! Heheh. Also, the big shot of the rolling Decepticon blasting through the freeway overpass in "Shanghai" was shot down at the Pike in Long Beach. They used CG street signs in Mandarin.

 

[Matthew Blight]

I'm not sure either film was attempting to be taken seriously as a piece of work.

Isn't it just a bit of fun based on stylized nostalgia?

Could it be that if they satisfied us they may have disappointed their own audience?

Not with Linkin Park's droning all-too-seriousness playing during the end credits. Nostalgia probably went out the window long before that, but this would kill all remaining semblance of it.

 

[Benni Diez]

Ah well, as long as there's still guys like Nolan or Cameron or Abrams that use their budget to do a little bit more than turning in profit, he shall have his fun.

But on a serious note: The bad humor, sexism and brutality shown here concerns me a bit. The film is supposed to attract kids, isn't it? Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but there are some older R-rated films I'd rather show to kids than TF2.
Especially the mass destruction scenes are cold, you see half a city get smashed, but they are very careful not to show that this brutally kills 1000s of people. On some level it feels like a promotional video for warfare...

But enough about that. Bay can do good work. Bad Boys was pretty cool.

 

[Steven Caesare]

This may be the perfect Q&A on the movie:

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php?page=1

-Steve

 

[Brandon Fraley]

This may be the perfect Q&A on the movie:

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php?page=1

-Steve

...awesome... :yesnod:

 

[Rudi Herbert]

That said, they could have netted a hell of a lot more if they would've just had Megan Fox in various sexy outfits as she interacted with large CG robots. I still would've paid my $8 to see it and they would have spent a lot less making it.

I don't know, I am as testosterone laden as the next guy, but truth be said, there are other ways to get visual female candy that don't call for me paying $12 and enduring 2 and 1/2 hours of mindless "entertainment" just for the sake of seeing some, cute yes, but annoyingly untalented, girl running around like a headless chicken who cannot utter a line convincingly if her life depended on it. But then again, I never got the allure of Baywatch, so what do I know?

As for the bashing of Michael Bay, I don't see the point. We all know what kind of movies he directs and he consistently gets the same repeatable results with the end product and at the box office.

Not quite, you go back to The Rock, and you actually have some semblance of a plot and even a decently developed character convincingly played by Ed Harris. And yes, you got all the other trademark Bay moments, but the other older films, like Con Air, Bad Boys, etc, never felt that insultingly stupid. And God bless those here who never knew where the "plot" was leading and were able to suspend their disbelief, I only wish I was like them, and I respectfully mean that.

As a point of comparison, even though this is something I shouldn't be talking about (but has been leaked anyway), James Cameron's Avatar will BLOW YOUR MINDS AWAY. I was at Cine Expo last week when he showed around 20 minutes of the film, with roughly half of it being the final product, and I can tell you that you are all in for an amazing surprise. Those are the kind of effects that TRULY look like nothing you've ever seen before, even if every film claims that nowadays, and they are so unnervingly beautiful, crisp and sharp and life-like in a way you can't imagine, and they are deployed in front of your eyes in a slow, delicate, sumptuous manner that truly pulls you into the story. You REALLY believe you're in a different world, and whatever you've heard about the movie, multiply by a thousand and you might still fall short. I can't go into detail because EVERYBODY there signed an NDA of some kind or another, but believe me, you will understand how and why this movie cost $200 million (while Transformers to me feels like a sorry waste), because it will be a landmark event for film making, nothing will ever be the same after Avatar. And even if Bay never set out to change the face of movie making, he could have produced something a bit, just a tiny, teeny bit, smarter than what he did, because whatever type of entertainment you produce, and I agree he's VERY good at staging grandiose action spectacles in large scale, you ALWAYS have a chance to create something a little better than your last effort, and to my eyes, Bay is the champion of the idiotization and loss of respect for basic cinematic principles that seems to be becoming the dominant driving force in Hollywood nowadays...

...But again, that's just ME.

 

[Tom Lowe]

As a point of comparison, even though this is something I shouldn't be talking about (but has been leaked anyway), James Cameron's Avatar will BLOW YOUR MINDS AWAY. I was at Cine Expo last week when he showed around 20 minutes of the film, with roughly half of it being the final product, and I can tell you that you are all in for an amazing surprise. Those are the kind of effects that TRULY look like nothing you've ever seen before, even if every film claims that nowadays, and they are so unnervingly beautiful, crisp and sharp and life-like in a way you can't imagine, and they are deployed in front of your eyes in a slow, delicate, sumptuous manner that truly pulls you into the story. You REALLY believe you're in a different world, and whatever you've heard about the movie, multiply by a thousand and you might still fall short. I can't go into detail because EVERYBODY there signed an NDA of some kind or another, but believe me, you will understand how and why this movie cost $200 million (while Transformers to me feels like a sorry waste), because it will be a landmark event for film making, nothing will ever be the same after Avatar.

Holy shit. I just got wood.

:emote_happyhappy::cheers2:

arty:

 

[Rudi Herbert]

This may be the perfect Q&A on the movie:

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php?page=1

-Steve

SO FUNNY!!! That is the best thing Transformers 2 has produced. All those who stubbornly believe there's nothing wrong with this movie, go read this review, and then if you still had a great time with the movie, good for you, you get it and I didn't, as simple as that. You guys for sure had a great time at the movie while I felt miserable, but then, my two best friends, people on whose hands I put my life (factually, not literally) enjoyed the movie tremendously, so I mean no disrespect to anybody who likes the film and Michael Bay...

 

[A. Bastaki]

i cant beleive this has went on for 7 pages... hahaa

 

[Peter Simpson]

Loved the first Transformers, second one is one of the worst movies I've seen. Hated it. I don't see why, if you are spending all this money to make a film you can't spend a little while writing a script that makes at least a semblance of sense? Why should we defend it by saying "what do you expect from a summer movie?" Dark Knight was a big action summer movie, not a lot wrong there. The Q&A posted above is brilliant (please read it) and there is so much more it doesn't even touch on. They are in Petra, which is in Jordan. They leave in their cars drive round the corner and they are at the pyramids in Egypt. Which is another country. Quite far from Petra. The final battle has started, the US military decides to send some tanks which are unloaded from their transport, land at the beach and presumably drive across the desert from the coast to the pyramids which is coincidentally quite a long way all while the battle, which could only have lasted a couple hours at most, is still going? I mean come on!
I love big action movies, see them all, usually a couple times if they are good, but there is a limit to how much one can suspend their disbelief.
There's something a bit cynical going on underneath all this. Given this movie is going to make so much money do you think they are going to give a damn whether the 3rd one makes any sense? Or the other tent pole films they make next year? I just don't think it's too much to ask for a cohesive plot and a big action spectacle.
Maybe I'm being too demanding:laugh:

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

If you had to pick a single scene that exemplifies Michael Bay's utter disdain for story and continuity, what would it be?
When five Decepticons sink to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve Megatron's corpse. A submarine tracks five "subjects" going down, and when they get there, one of the Decepticons is killed to give parts to Megatron. 5 -1 +1 = 5, right? No, because the sub somehow tracks "six" subjects coming up. Not only is this very basic math, this is the simplest of script errors. It could not possibly have been more than one page apart in the script. And yet Michael Bay either didn't care to notice or didn't give a fuck. "Math? Math is for pussies. My movies are about shit blowing up, man."

Yeah that bugged me. Hillarious FAQ.

 

[Benni Diez]

just read the faq. i think i peed a little...
this might be the best review ever written

 

[Bayden Docking]

well i bit the bullet and went to see it last night. I kept looking over at my fiance and the look on her face said it all. When it finished she was like WTF just happened, to which i repsonded "robots just blew shit up". I think i got through it because i didnt try to understand it but another 10 mins and i would have been getting ready to leave. I loved the CG in terminator salvation and so was looking forward to it in this but by then end of the film had lost that realism due to saturation overload i think.

Doc.

 

[A. Clint Litton]

I went to see the film with a pretty good idea of what to expect. Like many, I was pulled in by the nostalgia factor, coupled with a weakness for awesome spectacle, even if it will likely fall short in the story category. FWIW, as easy as it is for some to dismiss Bay as a soul-less, talentless money machine, I think he's shown plenty of talent in the past for handling complex scenes technically, even if it's purposed more for the popcorn category than fine cinema.

All the same, I thought this latest film was a major downturn in his ability to produce something solid, even if a bit shallow, though I wonder how much of the resultant TF2 should be placed on his shoulders, as opposed to market forces like schedule and release date.

I got plenty of satisfaction from the first Transformers, even with some of the corn-factor, and while I didn't HATE TF2, I have plenty of mixed feelings about it. Like others have mentioned here, is it really too much to ask for a little substance with your explosions? I thought Dark Knight and Ironman are both recent examples of movies made for a wide audience with plenty of CGI/VFX mastery, some humor, not too heady for their own good, and yet, I get the sense that the people behind these movies CARE about the stuff they're putting out. TF2 felt like Bay ate some mexican and shat prematurely... Which is what makes me question the forces of schedule. Script was crap for the most part, but could have been much better. On that same level, there were scenes that felt rushed, in terms of plot, editing, or even on a technical level. The vfx shots of the pyramid crumbling were noticeable, but not really distracting. Some of the shots of robots felt rushed in the last battle scene, like they only had time to render half the frames, leaving a super clean but stuttery, skinny-shutter, stop motion look...could have been an aesthetic choice, but why only those 2-3 shots?

In other places, I found myself frustrated by all the camera movement for camera movement's sake...like at the graveyard with optimus, or the circle dolly when meg and shia say bye before college. It just gets ridiculous after a certain point.

I think my biggest beef would be the script, or some of the ideas that made it to the big screen. the bike girls, the sexy decepticon with the stupid tongue. all complete shite, doesn't add anything to the story, did nothing to amaze me, even when i did everything in my power to open myself up to whatever these people wanted to give me. a little filtering once in a while in the writing stage can go a long way. some may have disliked the twins, or the little robot truck, but they at least added some humor, though it was a massive jump in vocal personality from all the other robots. i don't know, i just wish the people who made this sat for a moment, maybe a day or two, to think about how they could make a ton of money AND something that could be more than mindless entertainment.

you can say bay is talented in how he manages these massive setups and pulls giant crews of people together to execute his "vision," but that doesn't excuse his apparent lack of vision on this one. and i don't think that knowing what to expect from him when walking into the theater should let him off the hook either.

bottom line, it's worth seeing in the theater, but i'd recommend seeing it at the matinee price, so you don't have to feel too jipped when you leave.

 

[Alex MacLean]

Tom, I can't agree more.

 

[Liam Hall]

I went to see the film with a pretty good idea of what to expect. Like many, I was pulled in by the nostalgia factor, coupled with a weakness for awesome spectacle, even if it will likely fall short in the story category. FWIW, as easy as it is for some to dismiss Bay as a soul-less, talentless money machine, I think he's shown plenty of talent in the past for handling complex scenes technically, even if it's purposed more for the popcorn category than fine cinema.

All the same, I thought this latest film was a major downturn in his ability to produce something solid, even if a bit shallow, though I wonder how much of the resultant TF2 should be placed on his shoulders, as opposed to market forces like schedule and release date.

I got plenty of satisfaction from the first Transformers, even with some of the corn-factor, and while I didn't HATE TF2, I have plenty of mixed feelings about it. Like others have mentioned here, is it really too much to ask for a little substance with your explosions? I thought Dark Knight and Ironman are both recent examples of movies made for a wide audience with plenty of CGI/VFX mastery, some humor, not too heady for their own good, and yet, I get the sense that the people behind these movies CARE about the stuff they're putting out. TF2 felt like Bay ate some mexican and shat prematurely... Which is what makes me question the forces of schedule. Script was crap for the most part, but could have been much better. On that same level, there were scenes that felt rushed, in terms of plot, editing, or even on a technical level. The vfx shots of the pyramid crumbling were noticeable, but not really distracting. Some of the shots of robots felt rushed in the last battle scene, like they only had time to render half the frames, leaving a super clean but stuttery, skinny-shutter, stop motion look...could have been an aesthetic choice, but why only those 2-3 shots?

In other places, I found myself frustrated by all the camera movement for camera movement's sake...like at the graveyard with optimus, or the circle dolly when meg and shia say bye before college. It just gets ridiculous after a certain point.

I think my biggest beef would be the script, or some of the ideas that made it to the big screen. the bike girls, the sexy decepticon with the stupid tongue. all complete shite, doesn't add anything to the story, did nothing to amaze me, even when i did everything in my power to open myself up to whatever these people wanted to give me. a little filtering once in a while in the writing stage can go a long way. some may have disliked the twins, or the little robot truck, but they at least added some humor, though it was a massive jump in vocal personality from all the other robots. i don't know, i just wish the people who made this sat for a moment, maybe a day or two, to think about how they could make a ton of money AND something that could be more than mindless entertainment.

you can say bay is talented in how he manages these massive setups and pulls giant crews of people together to execute his "vision," but that doesn't excuse his apparent lack of vision on this one. and i don't think that knowing what to expect from him when walking into the theater should let him off the hook either.

bottom line, it's worth seeing in the theater, but i'd recommend seeing it at the matinee price, so you don't have to feel too jipped when you leave.

Very well put. Having sat through it with my kids I'd recommend watching it on a plane

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Hmm

Hmm

Well of course Transformers movies have pretty silly plots, and the second one had an even more ridiculous plot than the first, basically just an excuse to have transformers beating the wires out of each other, but that's perfectly acceptable in my book. They are both really fun, awesome movies.

I loved Transformers 2, that was just a great time at the movies, and the action scenes are 4 times better at least than in the first one, which looks like a character drama compared to #2. How could you think the action is better in the first?! There are times in the first you can't even tell who is fighting who, especially on the first viewing, whereas in the second it's crystal clear -- the fight at the end even takes place in the middle of the day in a desert! That is the most light you're going to have, everything is in plain sight.

The script is pretty weak as far as dialogue goes, and just in general, and the acting is not very strong either. Megan Fox cannot act basically, but she's hot as heck. Isabel Lucas is just as hot, especially in this movie. That's enough eye candy alone to be pretty pleased. This isn't Citizen Kane, though, it doesn't matter if the dialogue is hokey and some of the acting isn't that good, because there are HUGE TRANSFORMERS blowing each other up! I don't know how that can be lost on some people, lol. I mean who cares about the humans and their stupid drama?

These silly complaints about Transformers 2 are such a joke, haha, I mean seriously. If you would rather see some boring character drama about people's feelings and "human relationships" than a bunch of Transformers fighting each other with amazing action, we obviously don't share the same values in movies. I love thought-provoking movies too, but come on, the average critically acclaimed film like In the Bedroom or Monster's Ball is boring and pathetic compared to something like Transformers, which is actually fun and enjoyable and makes you remember why you see movies. If I wanted boring character drama I'd turn to real life, not cinema.

 

[GlennChan]

Sigh, I knew that the story would be bad but paid money to see it anyways.