Jul 08 2009
What They Could Have Left Out Of Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
I’ve been holding off on writing anything about the new Transformers movie until everyone had a chance to see it. I know that some people really don’t like “spoilers”, but the movie has made about $600 million world-wide by now, so all of the people that care about this have already seen it. Chrissy and I saw it on opening day on the IMAX.
I enjoyed “Revenge of the Fallen“. It had even more giant robot action than the first, but it was a little too long. I drank two huge colas (free refills) before the movie even started, so I was hurting after two and half hours. There were plenty of bits that could have been removed for time. Which parts, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.
The movie could have done with less dog humping. I told some people this over the Fourth of July weekend, and inevitably I got raised eyebrows: “Why is there dog humping in a Transformers movie?” Your guess is as good as mine, but Mojo scored a recurring role with a love interest, as well as five minutes of makin’ sweet love down by the fire.
I support our military completely, but some scenes bordered on recruitment video. Michael Bay claims that no stock footage was used, that every shot was taken with real military vehicles and personnel at his whim, but it looked an awful lot like stock footage to me. About twenty minutes of it, all told, none of which had any giant robots in it.
For some odd reason, John Tuturro’s ass made a cameo in the film. He just dropped trou right in the middle of the movie, with only a thong underneath. And to add insult to injury, he then turned around. This was in closeup, mind you. If they were trying to offset the female sexuality in the movie, this was the wrong way to do it.
And when I say “female sexuality”, I mean Megan Fox. There’s actually a line in the movie: “You’re hot, but you ain’t too bright.” It’s true. The girl can’t act, but she’s hot and she spends most of the movie bending over things. The newcomer, Isabel Lucas, is arguably hotter, shows off her panties, and then turns into a Terminator.
I don’t want to give the impression that I’d rather have those scenes cut, because they were hot. Oh wait, no, the Pretender character (a robot disguised as a real person) is just lame. The gimmick didn’t fly in 1988 and it still doesn’t fly. I’d hate to see Alice the Horny Co-ed Robot go, but it just doesn’t add to the movie at all.
Who else could go? They introduce Sam’s college roommate in this one, and he pretty much just eats up screen time that could have gone to giant robots fighting. He tags along for the rest of the movie and ends up being the butt of Skids and Mudflap’s offensive jokes. It’s rumored that he’ll get a bigger role in the third movie though.
Speaking of Skids and Mudflap… I wasn’t offended by their stereotypical personalities and appearances (this happens all the time in cartoons), but many other people were. Their bad language and crude humor should have been curtailed. I love crude humor, but it didn’t work here for me. Many other Autobots had no lines at all, so what gives?
That’s about it for parts that could have been excised from the movie. Don’t even get me started on plot issues or breaking with established canon. At about two hours into the movie, when my bladder was uncomfortably full, I was wishing for a more concise story with less expositional scenes. I smiled the whole time though.
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