Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Transformers: Living the Male Dream

Yesterday night I attended a GM promotional showing of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” I have never walked out of a movie, but yesterday tested my will-power to stay in my seat. To give some credence to my argument I must admit that I enjoyed “Transformers” and hoped that this sequel could accomplish what most sequels cannot: being comparable or better than the original. Despite my disposition to be entertained by this movie, I consider it the worst movie of the summer.

This movie “flopped” because…
a. I’m an “elitist” and demand simple things like a coherent plot
b. I lack the right amount of testosterone - a chemical which induces drooling at the sight of mediocre special effects .

It’s a movie conceived by male fantasy and filmed to amplify all masculine pleasure. But by indulging all of these pleasures - constant battle, suggestive shots of Megan Fox, body humor and stock characters – strips the movie of depth and originality. The following are my critiques of the film.

Soft Porn
The most obvious exploitation of male fantasy is Megan Fox. This porn-like idolizing and objectification is established in the first scene as she straddles a motorcycle in tawdry clothing. Sadly…it gets worse as the movie progresses. I’m almost convinced that they partly filmed the second half of the movie in the desert just so they could justify Megan Fox wearing next to nothing. But it also creates a brilliant irony when she wears a traditional hijab for a few moments in an Egyptian town to hide from evil robots.

The Battle that Never Ends
Sam and Mikalea have to run two miles to their destination towards the climax of the movie - the longest two miles of my life. In my opinion it takes them longer to run two miles in the desert than it does for me to run a marathon – keep in mind that my tennis shoes are fraying from want of use.

Stock Characters
The writers wished to improve this sequel by enhancing the personality of the aliens. What they consider personality I deem as lazily falling back on stock characters. While they’re aliens, the writers seem to want these aliens to conform to the stereo-types of our own world - they had the typical brothers who bicker in colloquial lingo and fight with one another and the “humorous” side-kick robot. The writers even included the typical annoying parents. (But if my mother and father were as ridiculous as the parents in the movie, I would shun them.) Another way they avoid having to create original characters is to overwhelm the audience with too many characters.

Body Humor
Every possible sexual innuendo which context allows or does not allow was made in this movie. In particular the testicular jokes is not only a motif but could arguably considered a theme of this movie. Also, there was too much humping. I know that men find Megan Fox attractive, but I fail to understand why an alien robot would procede to hump her leg. Thus, this just proves my point that this movie was conceived and filmed for men.

As a side-note, I found it amusing that to portray the more “primitive” robot Fallen; the movie followed the Modernist sentiment of primitivism by giving Fallen a face similar to an African mask. Picaso anyone?

So if you are a man and enjoy soft-porn, explosions, no character development and no plot...go see "Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen." It may be your favorite movie of the summer.

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