‘Reel Son’ finds Transformers a real ‘guilty pleasure’

Written by MATTHEW SCHUMANN
Thursday, 16 July 2009 10:10

For several years, Matthew Schumann contributed film reviews as part of the “Take Two” father-and-sons movie reviewer team. This week, his father Mark, steps aside to bring Matthew for a guest appearance.

When I told one of my brothers that I was “psyched” to see the new Transformers movie, he politely responded that I was someone who would enjoy a movie labeled “cretinous” by most movie critics.

While it may be true that Michael Bay’s latest film creation is vapid and tasteless, no one ever said that all movies have to be artful. In fact, sometimes we are treated to films that are so terrible that we are able to revel in how they fail. In the Schumann family, we call these “guilty pleasures,” movies that are so bad they are very entertaining. We have many such favorites and here’s a new one to add to our list. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is as ideal a guilty pleasure as I have seen in quite some time.

Now, anyone who would expect Transformers to be a movie of any decent quality should look up “gullible” in the dictionary. Michael Bay is a gifted director in the art of dazzling visual effects and sick fight scenes. But he is not so talented at telling a story, lacks a solid sense of taste, and simply doesn’t know when to stop. Rather than building a solid storyline, this movie maker would rather mask the movie’s plot holes with an incessant string of fight scenes, almost all of them involving the slow motion dismemberment of one of the film’s many robotic villains.

In the brief moments where the screen is not dominated by one of the highly sophisticated cartoon robots, the audience is subject to the rudimentary slapstick of one of the supporting characters, the awkward romance of the film’s main characters (played by Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox), or a prolonged moment of melodrama. Each of the film’s non-fight-scene moments is hilarious, either due to the offensive nature (such as the twin simian transformers who speak in ebonics) or the complete lack of believability. This latter is most true of the on-screen romance between LaBeouf and Fox. Why would a motorcycle “babe” ever fall in love with a “dweeb” like LaBeouf? Maybe I’m just jealous.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen reminds us, however, that all films do not need not be artful to be entertaining. For all its weaknesses, I was never bored, and I was entertained. And if we have learned anything from recent events, it’s that fancy, latte-drinking, New Yorker-reading, limousine liberal, media types don’t always know everything about what Americans want to see at the movies. Sometimes people need to revel in the unabashed over-use of explosions and special effects of a Michael Bay film. Sometimes, even, a film as mind-numbing as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is just what people need to escape from a hectic world.

But be warned. Do not expect the new Transformers to be anything more than a superficial action-fest. And if you want two and a half hours of cinematic eye candy, this is a movie for you. Though, if you’re like me, two hours would have been enough.

Video Pick:

Transformers (the original)

Looking for something to rent? Here is a suggestion inspired by new Transformers film:

Back in 2007, director Michael Bay hit the right notes with the first Transformers film. It is outrageous and very entertaining — in its tale of a conflict between two extraterrestrial clans — and is, perhaps, as much a “guilty pleasure” as its follow up.