Why does this keep happening to me?

I’m sitting at home, enjoying my day, when someone (usually a parent), tells me that we’re going to see a shitty movie. Now what, pray tell, could I be talking about? Only Shia LaBoeuf’s latest mutilation of the art known as “acting,” sponsored by Michael “Explosions are Plot” Bay. I speak of course about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Let’s turn the clocks back a couple years, to when the first one came out. People, critics, too, were too blinded by the orgasm of CGI (and orgasm of their own genitalia, after seeing Megan Fox) to notice that the plot was so weak that if one more explosion was placed on it, it would shatter, raining down shards of stupid cameos and idiotic continuity nods (I remember Shia LaBoeuf claiming that Megan Fox’s character was more than meets the eye. Ha). This time around, at least the critics caught on. Took them long enough.

Let’s discuss first what Michael Bay seems to think is a successful formula for making a movie:
Giant Robots + Megan Fox + Tons of Explosions = Legitimate Plot.

This is not how you make a movie. You make a movie by writing a story, damnit. Then you can put in explosions, and perhaps a couple sacs of silicon. But please, Mr. Bay, stop thinking that blowing stuff up will sit well with people who want a story with their Rule of Cool. There are still intelligent viewers left in America, and I am proud to count myself among them.

The film opens with, what else, an action scene. Not just that, a badly lit action scene, meaning that you have no idea if that car that just got cut in two deserved it. Everyone’s favorite, Optimus Prime, comes down, turns into a truck, and shoots up a bad robot, but not before the bad robot gives us some obvious foreshadowing. Then we get Shia LaBoeuf back at his home doing…something. Honestly, I care so little about his character that I sometimes put my fingers in my ears and pretended that he was talking about pie. In all seriousness, he was going to college. His girlfriend, Megan Fox, was not, because her father just got out of prison, and he wanted a line. I will skip complaining at this stupid plot excuse because I really have bigger fish to fry. Several drawn out action sequences later, the fan has been clogged with human excrement and I have officially stopped feeling sympathetic for the main characters. Except for Jetfire. He was cool.

As long as we’re discussing plot, I might as well take this opportunity to talk about “the Twins,” as the movie calls them, or “the Ghettobots,” as I call them. They are two smaller Autobots who speak in jive and do nothing for the plot. Nothing. We have to put up with them following LaBoeuf and Fox around for the entire movie. The. Entire. Movie. They are not funny. They don’t advance the plot at all. The only thing they did was make me hate rap music even more, which I did not think was possible. I don’t know who it was that woke up one day and thought, “I think the new Transformers movie needs some racist caricatures. That would be a really good idea,” but I hate them as much as I hate the Ghettobots. Somehow, they made it to the final version. Fascinating.

Want to know what I believe? No? Well, I’m going to tell you anyway, because this is my review. I believe that Shia LaBoeuf represents one third of what I like to call the “Triumvirate of bad new acting.” The members are him, the star of bad high budget movies, Seth Rogen, the star of bad mid budget moves, and Michael Cera, the star of bad Indy themed movies (except Juno). We cannot allow these three to be in the same movie together. The resulting explosion would wipe out Hollywood in an arguably horrible tragedy. What I’m getting to is how deep my distaste for Shia LaBoeuf runs. He’s not a good actor. He’s just kind of a wuss. He’s the Coldplay of the movie world. And I don’t like how they dress him. Next we have Megan Fox. She is not a very good actor. She lacks what psychologists refer to as “emotions.” However, everyone gets all excited when they learn that she’s going to be in another movie. The explanation? She has what is sometimes referred to as a glandular problem. This is a problem. Why can’t we cast hot women that can act? Michelle Monaghan for instance. Attractive? Yes. Talented? Yes. They could have used her. I don’t see what the problem is. I suppose it’s that they saw Megan Fox first. I dunno. At least they had Hugo Weaving as Megatron again. I met him in a bookstore once.

Overall, this film left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I felt like I just watched someone play a video game, which I can attest is not very fun. Michael Bay has failed us once again by supplying us explosions where we should have plot. And no, I’m not missing the point. Action movies need plots too. It’s why Die Hard is such a classic: it’s really well written. This? Not so much. And this one doesn’t have the theme song from the show. They killed off Mr. Exposition too. I liked Jetfire.