Michael Bay hates children.
The transformer movies are awful, for all sorts of reasons. I'm most interested in the genre to which they conform.
Sentient beings with voices are usually the main element of a photo play. Exceptions are the pets lost in the wilderness movie genre. Which often has them voiced or narrated anyway.
So the robots that transform into stuff, they talk, they have personalities, they could be the stars. Except they only spout cliche, well, everyone does, but the world remains antropocentric. The conspiracy aspect was tagged on to make this acceptable, but it isn't, it is just badly thought out.
Well, if you expected the robots to be the stars. The title was a clue. But there is a genre where the title is occupied by something that gets little screentime, but everyone goes to see.
The monster or disaster movie. Lets list a few and try to remember how often the titular agent of destruction gets screen time.
Earthquake (1974): tits and people screaming, nobody likeable and you cheer for the barely seen earthquake. Die hard without Bruce and an earthquake instead of terrorists.
Avalanche (1978): Nobody worth saving here either, just waiting for them all to slowly die one way or another.
The Poseidon Adventure (1972): I was really happy when the priest sacrificed himself. I was hoping that a giant squid would eat anyone who made it out of the boat. I pictured a sequel taking place on the rescue boat when it too was capsized.
Volcano (1997): Bah, humbug, the pulp of the 70s was diluted by the excess of the 80s to be consumed as bland drivel in the 90s. I really hoped the building exploded and killed the guy and the kid. Only interesting bit was when everyone was covered in grey face paint at the end, but you could still tell their ethnicity. Not sure what they were trying to say.
Well disaster movies were exotic snuff films with too much foreplay and very little delivery. How about the monsters?
The Toxic Avenger (1984): Monster movie done well, monster kills unsympathetic people, monster has a girlfriend, there is no third act.
Godzilla (The s/good/Japanese/ ones): The Godzilla movies were best when it the name was followed by a VS and a second monster. Humans were of little consequence the destruction and death was an afterthought. The best use of humans in a monster film can be seen by setting up a slapstick situation. Girl sees giant monster lizard battling turtle, drops her ice cream, starts to cry, is killed by falling building.
King Kong (1933): Was better as an adversary of Godzilla. Hollywood seems fixated by the boy meets girl story. Forgot that the boy in this case was a giant gorilla. Made a superfluous romance.
Frankenstein (1931): What has science done? Scary dude, fascinating story, superstitious villagers fighting that which they do not understand. We've all been there.
Jurassic park (1993): What has science done? Electric Boogaloo. Sympathetic and interesting characters get killed, stupid children survive. This is UNIX!
Godzilla (1998): Nobody died. Radioactive earthworms. Stupid annoying humans surviving in droves. Sympathetic monster with nothing to fight but millitary dudes with massive hard ons and a swarthy foreigner with a conspiracy theory (played incredibly well by Jean Reno).
Transformers (Who cares): The black robot dies. Stupid annoying humans surviving in droves. Monsters will clearly defined rivals not really having much of a chance because of CGI and the military. Swarthy blah blah blah. The only interesting thing I thought about the whole thing was 'what if all the hackers in the matrix said "oh snap"'
There was a second one too.
It seems that the makers of these photo plays have forgotten that we identify most strongly with the extremes of the monsters in these films. The different, the strange, the socially unacceptable, this is who all humans identify with inside. Not a teenager trying to get his dick wet and certainly not the military.
On that note, I was going to make a joke about returning soldiers with acquired brain impairment or severed limbs as a result of transformer related injuries, then not having government assistance because once you can't protect your country from giant robots anymore you are useless and the government would prefer you die. But that is way too depressing to work into something funny, and it is true.
Now a third one is coming out. Don't see it. Rent a good horror movie instead.
