Transformed

I love the hotel where I’m staying this week because I can leave my room and within four minutes be standing in the lobby of the movie theater next door. This may be my favorite hotel ever.

I have seen three movies this week, which I don’t think I’ve done since college, and the lingering celluloid images flashing through my mind has definitely helped me survive the lengthy days sitting in boring meetings. Fortunately, not much was required of me this week other than attending, because my thoughts were on giant robots, subway trains and tommy guns.

I started the week with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, sequel to a movie I didn’t think I would enjoy but did very much. The new movie has some spectacular action sequences, increasing the number of robots from the first movie and making the battles more epic in scale. Most of the original human cast returns, led by Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox, who represent one of those “geeky guy/stunningly beautiful girl” couples that is marketed to the primary audience for this kind of film.

My biggest problem with this film is that it seemed to have lost its identity. It started as a kids show, which was designed to sell toys…to KIDS. Yet the movie is full of bad language, sexual innuendo, sexy girls in revealing outfits, anatomically correct robots, and two dogs who act like they are on their honeymoon. This didn’t seem to bother most of the attendee’s at the crowded theater where I watched the movie. Families with ages ranging from toddlers to teens chomped on popcorn and laughed as the dogs humped and one male character dropped his pants for a loving close-up of his thong wearing hairy rear-end. This ain’t Disney.

Even worse was the offensive racial characters created for two smaller robots who help the heroes along the way. Talking in exaggerated street/rap slang and sporting a gold tooth, these obnoxious bots should inspire protests, not laughs or cheers. How this idea made it past a late night, drunken first draft script session, I’ll never know.

Another thing that drove me crazy was the completely illogical inclusion of a robot who can transform into a human. I know that arguing “logic” when discussing a “giant robot movie” seems ridiculous, but any film, even a fantasy film, should develop its own rules and logic. If the bad robots have the ability to transform into humans, then why don’t they do that all the time, replacing humans at high levels of government? This could come in very handy. Not in this movie, however. This device is only used once and then we move on. Dumb.

I walked out of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen thinking that it’s a shame that it wasn’t called “Revenge of the Fallen Leader,” because it could have been more accurately abbreviated Transformers: ROTFL. Sadly, this film will no doubt be the biggest moneymaker of the year, having already passed the 300 million dollar mark in less than 15 days in theaters. The filmmakers are laughing all the way to the bank.