It's been almost a year since I wrote here. At times I feel guilty about that, but I haven't had a lot to say. Watching what's happened in Canada and the world for the last nine months or so just saddens me. It doesn't much surprise me, but it does sadden me.
But that's not what I'm going to write about. I'm going to write about the movie I just finished watching.
It was the worst movie I have ever seen.
I'm so glad I didn't spend money on it.
I feel ashamed to have watched it. My brother, who watched the last half hour with me, is now physically ill. In his own words, he watched so much shit that he developed indigestion.
Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, is utterly, wholly and in every way a terrible film. I did not think it was possible to make a worse movie than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (or whatever it was). Michael Bay should be dragged out into the street, wherever he is, and shot twice in the head.
After which, we should collect up EVERY copy of his films. All of them. Every iota of his work. We should take his corpse and all of those movies and commercials and everything else and toss them into the reactor in Fukushima before we cover it all over with lead and concrete for the next few centuries.
Other people have explained that Michael Bay is incapable of telling a story. I agree. I can't help but wonder if Michael Bay is capable of coherent thought. Has anyone held an actual conversation with him, or does he just spew cliches and sound bites of horrible dialogue?
The plot, what there was of it, was a jumbled, muddled mess. I can't imagine that there was an actual script, given the ridiculous shit that was spewing from the actors mouths. My personal theory is that Bay simply masturbates onto a storyboard and then goes on to film whatever he sees there. It's the only way to explain some of the ridiculous bullshit that ends up on the screen.
Physics? Bin it. Logic? Nope. Reason? Out the window with the extra who didn't hang on while the building was falling over for what felt like twenty gods bedamned minutes. Autobots? No, they don't really feature. They wander in, speak a few lines, blow some shit up and then they're gone again for ten or fifteen minutes (or more).
Michael Bay has made a movie trilogy about robots... and THE ROBOTS DO NOT HEADLINE A SINGLE FILM! They hardly even qualify as characters, though to be fair none of the human characters truly qualify as characters. They're cardboard cutouts with a handful of traits assigned to make them seem more than two dimensional.
Instead we are treated to Shia LeBoeuf, who is easily an actor of the caliber of that red shirt who got eaten by the Denebian Slime Devil in that one episode of Star Trek. He's a fantastic actor, truly, with a range from grumpy to angry to screaming and back to grumpy again.
But when I go to see a movie about Robots fighting Robots, a C-list actor who lucked into A-list credentials isn't what I'm looking for. Hollywood nepotism, oh the joys it holds for us.
I am searching for something else I can say, but all I keep coming back to is my disorganised fury at the wreck of a film I just witnessed. From Leonard Nimoy, who played Evil Robot Spock, right down to the cliche Star Trek quotes; to John Turturro, who seems bound and determined to be Al Pacino but simply doesn't have the presence or the charisma to pull it off; to the assortment of Ethnic stereotypes that make up the Autobot ranks. Or the fact that, while equipped with cannon, blasters and missiles, most of the Transformers still seem to prefer swords, axes, buzz saws and bare hands when fighting. None of it was good. The movie is truly horrible, both as a whole and in every single part. As bad as movies get.
And then there was the female lead. No, not Intelligence Bitch (who was both, and who seemed devoid of any other traits than Spy and Bitchy), the other one. The blonde mouthbreathing underwear model who looks for all the world like she just walked out of the intensive care ward.
Really. Those who have seen the movie can vouch for me on this - every time you see her, she looks as though she's been hit between the eyes with a hammer. I don't know her, so I make no judgement, but it's not an attractive look. It leaves me wanting to wrap a blanket around her and call an ambulance. Whether it's shell shock from witnessing Michael Bay's directing or just a quick trepanning during the casting session I have no idea, but I truly do believe the poor woman is in need of medical attention.
Ugh. I feel dirty. I love the Transformers. I can deliver long winded stories about them, treatises on Energon and The Matrix of Leadership and why Hound should have had the spotlight instead of Bumblebee. I remember when Ratbat was in charge of the Decepticons, and I still cry when Optimus Prime dies in Transformers: The Movie (the 1980's one, which was animated by hand as God intended). This abortion is not even in the same world as the Transformers of my youth, and I speak not in dizzy nostalgia, I watched Grimlock kick Unicron just last week.
I have seen bad movies. We all have. Some bad movies are, secretly, in our heart of hearts, good. Ones that we treasure and trot out now and then, to savour the badness. Guilty pleasures.
Rest assured, Transformers 3: Dark Day for Cinema is NOT one of those films. This is the other kind of bad. The kind of bad that will leave you feeling nauseous and angry. The kind of bad that ends marriages. The kind of bad that sees you leaving your child in the woods on the way home from the theatre and telling your spouse they were a lost cause anyways.
I could not conceive of a movie this bad before. I saw it and I still cannot encompass how bad it truly was.
If you haven't seen it, steer clear. If you have seen it, I know your pain.
If you have seen it, and you enjoyed it somehow? I don't know... I can try to forgive you, but I think leaving you in the woods for the coyotes might still be for the best.
