An Offensive Movie Met My Eye

Transformers is the worst movie I have seen in a long, long time.

Granted, I pride myself on not seeing bad movies in the first place. Anybody considering seeing a movie should first consult www.rottentomatoes.com to see what critics have to say, there is simply no excuse for watching a bad movie.

How does Michael Bay continue to get hired? I suppose his movies make money, but they all suck. Transformers is a new low, for the reasons below.

First, it is apparent watching the movie Michael Bay and the writers weren't sure what kind of movie this was supposed to be. Is it a kid's movie, or a grown up's action movie? What the hell, make it both. Therein lies the problem, Transformers is offensively inane in it's storyline and dialogue, because Michael Bay tried to disguise this over-the-top lame kid's movie as a summer blockbuster. Basically, the story revolves around a 17 year old kid who spends most of the movie chasing around the 'hottest girl in school,' though to me she looked like a 33 year old Sears Catalog lingerie model wearing enough makeup to withstand a nuclear winter.

But I digress... Essentially, Michael Bay's storyline revolves around a 17 year old protagonist, but the story itself feels like it was written for a 7 year old protagonist. For example, when Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots drive to his house to aquire something the kid happens to own that is crucial to the imminent survival of the Earth, Bay digresses into a half hour long schtick where Shia Lebeauf (17 year old kid) is freaking out because the Transformers are stepping on his dad's garden, and will be seen by the neighbors, etc. Shia further acts bizarre by hiding Megan Fox (hot girl protagonist) in his bedroom and freaks out when his mom and dad knock on the door, he even forces the girl to hide behind a chair for some reason.

This is totally nonsensical; this kid is 17, not 7! For an ostensibly rational high school 'A' student, wouldn't the impending doom of the planet take precedent over Optimus Prime stepping on your dad's lawn, especially when the first thirty minutes of the movie clearly show his dad is a goofball, not a child abuser...? And why would Shia spend the first half-hour of the movie buying a car and selling his crap on Ebay in order to win over this girl, all with his parent's implicit knowledge, only to act extremely embarrassed for having the girl actually in his room? The kid has bikini model posters on his wall, for Heaven's sakes!! In other words, the storyline of the protagonist feels like it was written for, or at least most relatable to young kids, for only young kids would be so stupid as to freak out when a robot steps on a flower bed while the world's survival is at stake.

The rest of the movie follows this same inane logic, and includes too many superfluous characters and circular subplots that are totally unnecessary to the resolution of the story. There is another 1/2 hour digression where government scientist ineptitude at solving the alien frequency something-or-other leads them to corral the best and the brightest of the private sector. This leads to a bizarre montage where low and behold, the smartest computer programmer in the world is apparently a 23 year old hot blond girl who wears a nose-stud and translucent negligee' tops. As if that isn't enough, though she breaks the first alien code in under 30 seconds, she can't break the second alien code, and enlists the help of the 'smartest programmer she knows,' who luckily for the audience is a stereotypically lazy black teenager fatty who whines about his momma and donuts, though is remarkably able to crack the alien code in literally 6 seconds, merely by listening to it, all while arguing with his brother about their XBOX game they continue to play.

Don't even get me started on the secret government shadow organization, whose leader is played by John Turturro. In another bizarre scene that shows the nonsensical mindset of the main protagonist, when Turturro informs Shia that his gorgeous high-school-honey's dad was in jail several years back, Shia gives Megan Fox a bizarre dirty look of disbelief, and walks away as she implores: "I didn't want you to know about that!!" .....Umm, wait a minute... you mean to tell me this kid is willing to change his whole life around in order to win-over this skank, yet the mere mention that her dad used to be in jail is enough to fill him with disgust?? Huh?? You would think the humiliation he had to endure at the hand of Megan's boyfriend would be a bigger detriment to his interest in her; for the love of humanity, she laughed at Shia when her 'jock' boyfriend shoots a rubber band at Shia's face a mere 48 hours prior to Shia wooing her. Why would he be willing to take that sort of pathetic abuse, only to recoil in horror when he finds out her dad is a felon?

Overall, the movie is absolutely terrible. By the time the final battle scene arrives, I was so bored and disgusted that all I wanted to do was get out of the theater. I am aware that summer popcorn movies have to be dumbed-down in order to appeal to the broadest market possible, but Transformers goes way beyond the mark in stupidity. It's not just a bad action movie, this was a poorly conceived, terribly written, sloppily edited travesty of a movie with enough of-the-moment pop culture references to nauseate even the least demanding viewer.

If I had more energy, I would rail against the gratuitous product placement in the film, but suffice to say that by the time the Mountain Dew vending machine and XBOX 360 literally transformed into robots and began shooting their super-awesome consumer products all over the place, the movie had turned into little more than a two and a half hour long commercial for the film's sponsors. The sheer amount of advertising forced upon me in this movie was so far beyond tolerable or acceptable, I am convinced the entire 150 million dollar budget was subsidized by Ford, GM, Microsoft, and Pepsi.

Don't see this movie.