Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Mistake 1: going to see Transformers 2

Mistake 2: going to the the midnight show

Mistake 3: thinking that I have the energy or patience to sit through 2 and half hours of drivel at midnight.

Do you know that old cliche that when it comes to action movies, the sequel just ramps up whatever made the first film successful by 10 and hopes the profits will multiply by 100? Was there a big action sequence in the first film that was really popular? Okay, then let us add 43.2 big action sequences. Was there a mildly humorous (or annoying or both) character, well if people occasionally laughed at the antics of that character, imagine the hilarity that will ensue if we add 5 more such characters. And was their an aesthetically pleasing bombshell damsel? Okay lets add another one.

Michael Bay has pretty much give us every single one of those cliches in the sequel. The man who once almost gave me an aneurysm when he criticized a would be film maker for making a film that felt like retread has provided exactly what you would expect him to provide. There are an uncountable number of over the top action sequences, there are four or five "humorous" characters adding comic relief and a fair amount of backhanded racism. And of course we get more of lithe Megan Fox but also another scantily clad young woman.

The fan boy in me and the one, who grew up playing with plastic transformers and watching the 30 minute commercial that was the cartoon series, admittedly had one moment of pure glee when Optimus Prime took on three Decepticons at once. I couldn't resist smiling. But the rest of the time was painful, long and exhausting. You can be pretty much of two types when it comes to this movie, you want to see it and nothing I say will change your mind or you have no desire to see it and nothing I can say can change your mind.

The plot isn't worth repeating even if I pretended I was paying attention or that I understood it. But what struck me as odd and I don't care whether this was intentional or not, is the blatant conservative rhetoric of the film. Much like 300 was so easy to read as a neo-conservative statement of freedom and democracy, the new Transformers movie smacks you in the face with the Dick Cheney rhetoric that America is less safe thanks to Barack Obama.

Since the first film, the transformers have been allied with humans fighting terrorist acts by the decepticons. Then enter a new president (specifically referenced twice as being Barack Obama). This new president as represented by his sniveling, bureaucratic liaison to the military suggests that it is the tools of fighting the terrorists that may be causing more terrorism. Suggesting that Obama's foreign policy is simply if we stop antagonizing the enemy and get rid of our best way of defending against them then the whole thing will work out peacefully.

It was insulting to say nothing else. And I'm sure more than one person will say I'm reading to much into it but what reason does the film have to make reference to the president as being Barack Obama? Its a fantasy world where giant sentient robots exist, can't it have a fantasy president? The fact that the asshole suit who wants to get rid of the Autobots represents the president seems to me pretty clear. Why does a mindless action film have to not so subtly suggest a real president is ineffectual? I don't care for it.