There's a notion that some movies are so bad they are good. I'm down with that. However, I think that to achieve a level of the truly sublime, the filmmaker can not be tongue in cheek. The jests and japes that neuter 2012 might be useful for reminding audiences that the genocide on screen is just make believe, but it feels too much like market-driven odds-playing for my taste. For real bad-is-good, Ed Wood-style movies, you need to be in the hands of a true, clueless master.
2012 did $225 million dollars of worldwide business in its opening weekend. Of the millions who saw it, some, no doubt, truly were touched. (They probably ate at Applebee’s afterwards, but whatever.) Some may’ve felt duped. Some, like Matt Patches, got on their high horse about a movie like 2012 not being “fun” because tsunamis, unlike invading space aliens, are real.
Something stuck in my craw, though, when I read a review from Devin Faraci at CHUD. He didn’t love the film, but he thought it was a good, stupid time at the movies – and he liked it a lot more than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
The claim that one can dig 2012 but not Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on an ironic level seems like a paradox. If one revels in so-dumb-it-is-awesome, how can one then reject the largest, most exploding, cholesterol-ridden cheeseburger of a film made this year?
To that end, a scientific breakdown as to why Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a better stupid as hell movie for slackjawed idiots than 2012.
Who Has Better Explosions?
Define better. The destruction in 2012 may be on a more massive scale, but everyone in those scenes is dying. Dying isn’t fun. Transformers has loads of explosions – perhaps more than in 2012 - but, by and large, not too many people die. We support that. Emmerich’s key failure is trying to cram in pathos where it doesn’t belong. Michael Bay is smart enough to recognize human emotion is an unnecessary (and unpredictable) element for a work like this. We don't want to see the repercussions of the explosions, just the explosions themselves.
Are there hot girls?
2012, in this letch’s opinion, is virtually babeless. Amanda Peet is pretty and all, but she is playing a mom here. You know she's gonna' spend the entire dinner boring you with all the adoreable things her daughter said. The Russian’s girlfriend is far too siliconed and peroxided to take seriously. Thandie Newton is too smart and honorable. In Transformers, however, Megan Fox does her best work hunched over a motorcycle. Winner: Michael Bay.
Which plot makes less sense?
Whereas 2012 resorts to a flash video to explain its plot (and an entreaty to “download a blog,”) the John Turturro character in T: ROTF actually has to shout at Jetfire to speed up his exposition. He issues this demand as the camera swoops around him. In the desert he teleported to from the airfield that is actually behind the DC Air & Space Museum where the parking lot should be. The points for “I don’t care, this is my effing movie” clearly go to Bay here.
Which film has more racial character assassination?
Whereas 2012 only mocks the Brits (they love that old battle axe, The Queen!), the Russians (they love fake breasts!) and the Arabs (on two separate occasions a cutaway to an Arab is used to hammer home the notion of undeserved, “bought” sanctuary), there isn’t an ethnic group around that doesn’t get mocked in Transformers. Both films are tone deaf, but Bay is blind and dumb, too.
Which film has a more ridiculous prop for the final, final climax
It’s the end of the frickin’ world, Roland, and at the very end they have to. . .pull some Black And Decker girder remover out of a door? That’s the big finish?!!? No, no, no. Whereas 2012 has John Cusack fishing around for powertools, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen sends Shia LaBeouf to the afterlife, where a RoboGod tells him to “Merge the Matrix with his AllSpark – it is, and always has been, your destiny.” Yes! That’s how you end over two hours of ear-blasting, eye-bleeding, thought-numbing cinema!
Lastly - only Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has multiple scenes where sentient ball bearings are on screen.
Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Am I defending garbage and dismissing a decent movie? Are they both awesome? Do they both suck? Lemme know what you think.
