Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
* (out of 4)

I grew up with the "Transformers" cartoon and really enjoyed Michael Bay's 2007 film. It had its problems, but it captured the essence of the show, and that was that these robots were alien and awe-inspiring. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" leaves behind everything that made the first movie good a popcorn flick. Not only that, but it revels in insulting stereotypes and toilet humor, and reveals things about Michael Bay that we'd rather not know.

The plot is so convoluted as to be nearly incomprehensible and there is no meaningful character development. This could be forgiven in lieu of visually amazing effects and scenes of giant robots fighting (because let's be honest, that's what we shell out our ten bucks to see,) but the editing is so frenzied and the robots' designs so similar that it's impossible to tell the difference between any two Transformers. If you can't figure out who you should be rooting for, what's the point?

These complaints alone simply describe a bad movie, but what makes "Revenge of the Fallen" truly awful is the casual racism and sexism that pervades the whole affair. Two of the Autobots, allegedly for comic relief, have big ears, monkey proportions, gold teeth and speak in stereotypical ghetto voices. Megan Fox spends the entire movie running away from explosions in slow motion while in various states of undress that accentuate her most famous assets, none of which is a skill in acting. All the girls that Shia LaBeouf's Sam meets at Princeton (or Harvard, or Yale, I'm not sure) seem to be supermodels, which I'm sure is true to life at all Ivy League schools. The frat party Sam attends looks more like a strip club; I was in a fraternity in college, and never attended a party like that, even at fraternities that were cooler than mine.

I wanted to like this movie. I really did. What I learned from the experience (which could have been a good forty five minutes shorter, by the way) is that Michael Bay and his screenwriters believe the following: an attractive woman is defined as one who is anorexic, big buxomed and scantily clad; unfair black stereotypes are funny; dogs humping are funny, and one dog humping joke is not enough for one movie; pot jokes that were old when "Half Baked" came out are still funny; and giant robots with giant testicles are very funny, but not obvious enough unless John Turturro makes reference to "alien scrotum."

To quote one of my favorite critics, Roger Ebert, I hated this movie. Hated hated hated this movie. It's obviously aimed at twelve year old boys, but I weep for the future if this what twelve year old boys really want to see. Here's a list of movies that are also aimed at twelve year old boys: "Star Wars," "Iron Man," "Spider-Man 2," and even the first "Transformers." These films are infinitely better than "Revenge of the Fallen." Please see them instead.