My Personal Worst Films: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen NO STARS
PG-13, 150m. 2009

Cast & Credits: Shia LaBeouf (Sam Witwicky), Megan Fox (Mikaela Banes), Josh Duhamel (Major Lennox), Tyrese Gibson (USAF Master Sergeant Epps), John Turturro (Agent Simmons), Ramon Rodriguez (Leo Spitz), Kevin Dunn (Ron Witwicky), Julie White (Judy Witwicky), Isabel Lucas (Alice). Written by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman. Directed by Michael Bay.

I will not be surprised if "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" goes down as the number one worst reviewed film of 2009. The film deserves the honor, so much so that I actually hope it gets nominated for several Golden Raspberry Awards at next year’s Razzies and wins.

The film is critic proof and wasn’t made for movie critics. The picture was made for dumb, slow-witted audiences who have no sense of adventure and imagination, and for kids whose idea of adventure is to watch a lot of things get blown up.

For 150 minutes, I sat there waiting for something interesting, if not exciting to happen, and I got nothing. Such a testament will not sit well with those who saw "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" opening weekend bringing in over $200 million to date. I just know they will all argue and tell me a lot happened over those grueling two and a half hours where a bunch of good and bad robots fought like a couple of slow-moving overweight sumo wrestlers. In the middle of it all are plenty of sound and visual effects loud enough there was no way I could possibly get in a twenty-minute nap.

Like 2007’s box office hit, "Transformers," once again I had a hard time figuring out which robots were good and evil. The only thing I could discern is that the good robots (all right kiddies-I’ll call them by their politically correct names because you are, after all, the ones who play with these things-Autobots) lead by Optimus Prime have bright colors (blue, red, yellow, purple, and green) with eyes that are the equivalent of blue light bulbs. The bad robots, called the Decepticons, are all grey with red lights for eyes.

The Autobots disguise themselves as various sports cars and 18-wheelers. The Decepticons arrive on Earth as giant meteors smashing into and sinking aircraft carriers and submarines before turning into mechanical prehistoric four-legged monsters or fighter jets.

When it comes to the cuteness factor, an Autobot named “Bumblebee” who disguises himself as a yellow Camaro and friend to Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) provides the film’s humor using quotes from movies and playing clips of songs as a means of communication. The thing even has feelings. In an early scene when Sam tells Bumblebee he won’t be taking him to college, the Autobot spews out what I assume is green anti-freeze for tears.

Then there are a couple of jive-talking robots named Skids and Mudflap disguised as a couple of red and green Chevy compact hatchbacks who bicker and fight with each other and admit they don’t know how to read.

If there is one thing positive, I can say about the film’s predecessor is that I don’t recall "Transformers" being as vulgar when it comes to foul language and sexual innuendos. When there is no chaos and mayhem going on, there are scenes of bathroom humor that take place at the Air and Space Museum, which got grins from everyone else in the audience but me. They did the same when John Turturro’s ousted government agent character drops his pants revealing a white thong. When Witwicky’s girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) and his college roommate (Ramon Rodriguez) get transported to Egypt where the final battle between the Decepticons and Autobots takes place, we see Mikaela lying face down on the roommate’s private parts.

This brings me to the subject of the entire cast itself, all of whom are reduced to nothing more than talking props. Their jobs are simple. LeBeouf’s parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie White) are required to run for their lives when the robots start fighting. The armed forces, led by Josh Duhamel of NBC’s "Las Vegas" (2003-2008), are required to offer cover for the Autobots. LeBeouf’s Witwicky is required to do a lot of running for his life and trying to figure out why the Decepticons want what is inside his brain, some knowledge about alien symbols.

Finally, Megan Fox’s job is to offer drooling males, and females and young kiddies who have yet to be told by their parents about the birds and the bees, sexy shots of her in tight jeans shorts and boots, as she paints emblems on motorcycles. She is the film’s offering of soft-core pornographic eye candy minus the nudity; a slice of feminine cheesecake to go with that hefty dish of expensive visual effects.

Fox gets every opportunity to show off her feminine sexuality. At one point dressed in a leather outfit, she strips down to an above the knee dress and some white pumps. In another scene, Fox shows off a dominatrix side treating a little Transformer like it's her pet dog yanking it on a chain who instead of using a whip, threatens to put the robot’s other electronic eye out with a blow torch. When the little Transformer develops an attachment to her, it starts humping her leg.

As I browse over the past few paragraphs of this review, I have noticed I forgot to tell you about the plot. Well, that’s because there isn’t much of one, at least not one I can make sense of anyway. I know the Decepticons want revenge and want what’s inside of LeBeouf’s brain to use his knowledge to take over the world. I know the Autobots led by Optimus Prime need to stop them, which takes the cast to the pyramids of Egypt where the final battle takes place.

I have no idea what it is the Decepticons are so pissed off about. I don’t know why in order to win a battle against a Decepticon the Autobot must be a “Prime.” I can only assume such questions are answered in the animated television series from decades ago I never watched or the short-lived comic book series from Marvel I never read. I have never played with, much less owned a toy Transformer in my life. I don’t even buy the Star Wars Transformers and I still, to a certain extent, collect Star Wars toys.

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a sad testament of how dumbed down audiences have gotten today. Audiences apparently don’t want a movie full of engaging characters or a good story like "Star Trek" (2009), for example, which exhibited a sense of adventure, even if the space battles felt as though the filmmakers were channeling the Star Wars movies.

The film is a true waste of celluloid junk movie making and deserves a rating far lower than the NO STARS rating I have given it. How I wish there was a lower rating I can give this movie the way my seventh-grade teacher thought up a new letter grade to give failing students that was lower than an F called an F+ or F-. Up until today, I never thought it was possible for director Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer to score making a movie as bad as their previous collaboration, "Bad Boys II" (2003), which sadly went on to gross $140 million.

I now stand corrected.

©6/29/09

Michael Jackson (1958-2009): Recalling the popstar's better days before the curtain came crashing down

Upon hearing the death of Pop star Michael Jackson June 25, 2009, at age 50 of cardiac arrest, brought about not surprisingly by a combination of prescription drugs the singer was likely addicted to, I did not do an imitation of his famous moonwalk dance as fans did.

I did not go out the next day like countless fans to spend hundreds on Michael Jackson CDs, magazines, and anything else they could get their hands on.

If I shed any tears for the singer, which will remain my secret and mine alone, I would have done it in the heat of the moment; the result of reading all the coverage on a variety of news websites that night, which almost completely overshadowed the death of actress Farrah Fawcett who had passed away hours earlier at age 62 from cancer.

What I did do after hearing that the King of Pop was gone, I began recalling several of Jackson’s hits from the early 1980s l enjoyed hearing like “Beat It” and “Thriller.” The one tune I could not get out of my head that day was “Billie Jean.”

Then there was the 1983 music video “Say, Say, Say,” I watched on www.youtube.com where Jackson collaborated with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney. The two played a couple of conmen named Mac and Jack who sell a magic potion “guaranteed to give you the strength of a raging bull.”

It was over twenty years since I last heard that song and it was a joy to see and listen to it again.

There is a certain kind of nostalgia that came to mind recalling those songs. That nostalgia was the ushering in of VHS video recorders and the arrival of pay cable television. Living in Chicago at the time and unlike most of my friends whose parents either had cable or owned a VCR, or both, we never got a video recorder until my grandparents bought us one for Christmas 1983, along with our first VHS owned movie, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), which back then cost $50.

Whereas everyone I knew got to see Jackson’s 14-minute dancing zombie video, “Thriller,” on MTV three weeks before Christmas in 1983, I didn’t get to see it until the summer of 84’ when it came out on video cassette. Honestly, my only interest in seeing it was not so much Jackson as it was seeing the singer turn into the undead and start dancing alongside several other rotting corpses.

Whereas I thought the song’s best selling point was actor Vincent Price’s ghoulish monologue near the end, the music video’s selling points were that it was directed by John Landis, who helmed “Animal House” (1978) and “The Blues Brothers” (1980) while the visual effects were handled by Oscar winning special makeup artist Rick Baker (“An American Werewolf In London” = 1980).

The fact I had seen George Romero’s 1978 horror sequel, “Dawn of the Dead,” a couple weeks earlier, however, increased my interest. The film was about four survivors who take refuge in a shopping mall from flesh eating zombies who have taken over the world and I assumed Jackson’s “Thriller” would have almost the same premise but set to music.

I admit, perhaps shamefully, that I owned one of Jackson’s greatest hits CD and sometimes had it playing in the car as I made my hour long drives to and from work at my former IT job.

As the pop star’s private life and eccentricities got stranger and more out of control over the years, however, I had a hard time comparing this talented dancer and singer from Gary, Indiana whose music videos from the 80s I saw on MTV (when we finally got cable) and heard on the radio with the person who in recent years was being accused of child molestation charges. By the time those allegations hit, whether he was guilty or not, or paid off his accusers to buy their silence, I decided that was it. I said to myself, “Jackson had crossed the line”, and I wasn’t going to listen to songs that were written by someone who might possibly be a pedophile.

Yet still, there is no arguing that the guy was not talented, much like John Belushi, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Heath Ledger, Jim Morrison, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley before him who died giving in to the demons of illegal or prescription drug use.

The day after Jackson passed away, the pop star’s ex-wife, Lisa Marie Presley, who was married to the singer from May 1994 to January 1996, wrote in her online blog that the King of Pop told her that his death would echo that of her father, Elvis Presley, who died at the age of 42 on August 16,1977. Presley’s official cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia and was supposedly attributed to prescription medications but never proved because the autopsy report was sealed.

"I promptly tried to deter (Michael) from the idea, at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that,” Presley wrote on her blog. "The hardest decision I have ever had to make, which was to walk away and let his fate have him, even though I desperately loved him and tried to stop or reverse it somehow."

Perhaps the saddest revelation on whether Jackson, who was about to kick off a comeback tour of 50 shows in London in July ironically titled “This Is It”, was really happy with his success came from the singer himself when friend Uri Geller asked him if he is lonely.

The King of Pop’s response was “Uri Geller, I am a very lonely man.”

If there is any lesson to be learned here other than realizing how dangerous it is to rely on prescription medications is the notion that money doesn’t buy happiness.

My feelings about Michael Jackson are the same as my feelings for Elvis Presley. Sure, I liked some of their music, but I was never a fan of either one. Yet, I own “Elv1s 30 #1 Hits” on compact disc and have several of the King of Rock and Roll’s songs on my iPod.

I suppose listening to that CD is how I prefer to remember Presley. Not as that bloated, overweight, over worked, sweaty picture I saw of him in author Albert Goldman’s 1981 unflattering biography of the singer called “Elvis,” or watching him in a scene from the '81 documentary, “This Is Elvis,” in which he can’t remember the lyrics to “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”

I don’t know if I will ever download and listen to any of Jackson’s early number one hits again.

I will say that for a brief moment on June 25, I preferred to remember the Michael Jackson of the early 1980s over the Michael Jackson we had seen in recent years whose scandalous private life became the subject of jokes for late night talk show hosts and endless fodder for the tabloids, and who now, rest assured even in death, is not going to get a moment’s peace.

©6/27/09