Serenity now. Serenity now. Serenity right fuckin’ now. For the most part, I’ve stayed away from the Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen debate because I get it. Well, at least sort of. The big-budget effects-driven extravaganza is just as much a part of Summer as Lou Gehrig, the 4th of July, David Berkowitz’s unprovoked assaults and George Costanza’s soul-crushing loss of independence. Superhero chicanery, end-of-the-world phantasmagorias, children’s films with A-List voice-overs---it’s a shared bonding experience like remembering where you were when JFK was shot or Janet Jackson’s boob popped out. Yeah, I saw Titanic in theaters on opening night. There was this collective gasp when everyone saw the ship break apart for the first time…
But here’s the thing America. Here’s what I find utterly dumbfounding, fellow citizens of this great country. Why in the holy fuck are you seeing this shitty, computer-generated string of clichés twice? I get wanting to be on the same ride as everyone else. Show up, pay your nine dollars, sigh audibly and leave, cursing both God and yourself because you’ll be back with more money in two years for the next installment. That’s the way it’s supposed to work, people. You go once. One time. But not only are you ignorant assholes going for seconds on the buffet, most of you are uniting like some down creek, stupid-and-proud-of-it lynch mob citing intellectual dislike of Transformers 2 as the one and only opinion punishable by death threats, big stupid guffaws of condescending laughter and virulent disdain. Really? Is this really the movie you’d like to unite behind?
Spoiler alert: Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen sucks, and I say this not as a holier-than-thou prick shitting on mindless entertainment but as someone who sat there and watched the film. It sucks. It’s a goddamn mess. Main characters go thirty, forty minutes in between scenes. It’s way too long. The mere presence of half the people at the final battle is illogical. The Jesus from Big Lebowski climbs a pyramid. Fear of the sun being blown up is a real plot point. Dogs humping people is comic relief. And the pathetic, misguided stereotyping is almost astounding in its offensiveness.
I don’t think Michael Bay is a racist. I don’t think the scriptwriters are bigoted, prejudiced or anything else. They just don’t get it, which is arguably worse. I will never for the life of me understand why complete jackasses will write letters to South Park or The Simpsons or Saturday Night Live complaining about satirical jokes being offensive and then turn the fuck around and laugh as two ethnic robots joke about not being able to read, you know when they’re not calling each other punk-ass bitches, of course. Keep patting yourselves on the back for not calling them coloreds, inhabitants of the Heartland. Forward progress.
Serenity now. Serenity now. Serenity right fuckin’ now. Next week I’m going to get at least twenty emails from readers saying they’ll never read Cinema Blend again because I’m clearly out of touch. Maybe I’ll preemptively send them emails because they’re up a chromosome. I don’t know; I just know seeing a film like Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen in theaters twice is inexcusable. Newton’s Third Law runs Hollywood. You pay for it, you’ll get it. Over. And over. And over again. And by seeing Revenge Of The Flaccid Robot Cock twice, you’ve upgraded it from a popular franchise to arguably the biggest franchise in the world. Shameful.
It’s fun for what it is…, the defenders keep saying. Maybe so. But there’s a hell of a lot of better adjectives given to hundreds of films each year and no one bothers seeing them twice. The first time is like witnessing a car accident; the second time is like that Cronenberg movie with James Spader.
