DISQUS

Reebee7 · 4 months ago

I like the theme, and the point, but there's something else here: critics gave films like Iron Man and Star Trek fantastic reviews. Transformers has been panned.

Now I'm not saying you can't enjoy the movie. But I think it's clear it lacks intelligence present in even most summer blockbusters. Star Trek and Iron Man were blockbusters, but they weren't just 'dumb entertainment.'

Now, part of the critics problem is that they do have a thing for Michael Bay. I'm not a fan of transformers, but I like a lot of his other movies. Pearl Harbor aside, he's put out some entertaining movies. The Island actually looked like a break from the mold as well, until the second half started.

I still think that it takes some intelligence to make dumb entertainment. Most people think Transformers lacks that, and it bothers them that it's making more money than God. But the cash votes are in, and as you say people just wanted to watch some explosions. But critics have shown they don't hate the blockbuster (Iron Man, Star Trek, The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2, Casino Royale, etc. etc.), they just hate THIS blockbuster.

Peter Donohue · 4 months ago

Agreed. Fure, I think that you're being a little too hard on critics here. On the other hand, I was one of the people who saw Away We Go (my verdict: nothing special, but their were some good moments) instead of ROTF, so maybe I'm being too apologetic.

Kangaroo Be Stoned · 4 months ago

The problem with critics is that you have people like Ebert, who are inconsistent with reviews of films in a series, who make factual errors, and use logic when reviewing for some films but not with others. I know people are probably getting tired of me bagging on Ebert, but the man is no longer a great reviewer. He ruined his credibility as a reviewer to me when he made a factual error in his review of ROTF, edited the review to remove it, then edited it again to fix the mistake. That's dishonest. He should have left the error in his review. I would have respected him more if he had done that.

Ape Tooth · 4 months ago

Great rant, this is exactly what i've been arguing.

Mack41 · 4 months ago

Nice rant. I love mindless entertainment and blockbusters but have been pretty dissappoinyed so far. I didn't like star trek though the screen I saw it on was quite old and blurry, terminator was too serious, and as much as I was looking forward to transformers, and I loved the first one, it felt bloated, long, an boring. I like Bay but felt this Transformers lacked the urgency of the first one. A tighter, maybe not even too much shorter, film would have been awesome.

ERoBB · 4 months ago

Shame on people for expecting a film site to differentiate from popcorn flicks and smart pictures. Come on man. Feel free to do your thing, but the reason this comment section exists is for the readers to give their feedback. Well, they gave it.

RobertFure · 4 months ago

Anyone can say whatever they want in the comments section - that's my favorite part of the site to read (take that, Neil!). And I'm not aiming at anyone fan or Transformers hater. I'm aiming at the critics who criticized not only Transformers but the summer blockbuster institution and then, further, called anyone who liked this movie an idiot.

John Strickland · 4 months ago

I love summer blockbusters. These are the kind of movies people remember from their childhood. I remember sitting in the theater on July 4, 1996, watching Independence Day and being amazed. You don't hear anybody reminiscing about how blown away they were when they saw The English Patient that same year.

That being said, Transformers 2 was a piece of shit. It was stupid, banal, insulting, pointlessly crass, and emotionally devoid. There are many summer blockbusters that aren't any of those things, and are proof that you can bring more to the table than explosions and robot dick-n-fart jokes.

Kangaroo Be Stoned · 4 months ago

I am currently in a debate with some retarded film student (no offense to the film student graduates here. You guys have shown that there can be good non-arthouse films) on a forum I visit. He made the claim that because of films like ROTF, indie films, films that are "truly good", will never receive the recognition they deserve and won't receive wide release. People like this film student are delusional. As long as Scorsese, Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, etc are around, excellent films will be made and they do stand a chance at the box office.

RobertFure · 4 months ago

Just point him towards the Academy Awards. Movies like Transformers or Iron Man won't get nominated for Best Picture or Screenplay, while lots of smaller films will be - and the exposure gets them tons of cash.

Kangaroo Be Stoned · 4 months ago

Exactly. "Slumdog" made a lot of money after it won Best Picture.

DrChicago · 4 months ago

No critic is out to get Michael Bay, that is beyond stupid and at most a conspiracy theory. Every critic/movie lover goes into every film hoping for a good one and not a bad one, why would they hope to sit through a bad movie for 2 1/2 hours? There is no bias opinion (except Armond White) and most critics criticisms are valid here i.e. stupid, incoherent, unfunny, bloated, and thinking the action is incomprehensible. Just about every single critic loves movies and are always hoping to have a good time like general audiences. The only difference between a critic and the average joe on the street is that they just get to writer their opinion.

Transformers doesn't need to have a tear-jerking or emotional story, nobody is asking that but why can't it be good? Raiders of The Lost Arc and Star Wars were both summer blockbusters that delivered good stories and characters. There stories weren't really complex, but they were good. Both those films were meant to be summer entertainment like Transformers and yet they knew its Ok to have a good story. Nobody is asking for an emotional experience, that is such a bad excuse (not a defense), they want to have a fun time at the movies. Also critics DO like dumb action movies, look up the rotten tomatoes ratings for Wanted, Shoote'm Up, and hell even the Crank movies. Those films are proof that a good percent of critics do enjoy dumb action movies.

Just because Michael Bay's films make a lot of money doesn't mean they are good, so do you think Tyler Perry movies are good because they are successful? All of his films generally have big star power which is usually the real pull for generally audiences. Would anyone have seen Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, or even the Bad Boys films if they had cast unknowns but Michael Bay's name was on the film? Doubtful.

If anything I would say more of the general audience are bashing critics then critics bashing them. With articles like these, all the comments on rotten tomatoes critic reviews, and also from just the casual movie goers who hear about most critics not liking this film. Is it stupid to think that this is the end of good sumer blockbusters because carbon copies of Transformers will be made? Yeah, unless you count all the toy based films being made now. Is it stupid to think critics didn't like this film because they are not fans of Michael Bay and they don't like fun dumb action movies? Definitely yes.

***Also New York and Away We Go actually were not loved at all by critics, except a few, but they weren't looked upon greatly by most.***

***This article actually kind of scares me that someone would think this, is this a parody defense like the io9 review?***

RobertFure · 4 months ago

I didn't think the action was incomprehensible. I, like many others, also enjoyed the movie. For the record, I also hated Shoot 'Em Up and Crank and thought Wanted was average at best. But if you really think a lot of critics don't have a target on Michael Bay's back, you're not reading a lot of reviews. Plenty of them flat out state they dislike Bay or it can easily be gleaned through the reading of the review.

As for the audience bashing critics, that's kind of the point of the article. The critics are out to crucify this movie and, unlike a Tyler Perry movie (which makes money, but doesn't have nearly as wide an audience) the audience is there to support it. It just shows the disconnect between many critics and the audience. And when the critic has his back against the wall, stating he hates this film while the massive majority of people watching it love it, they resort to calling the audience idiots. Go read a few more reviews of "Revenge of the Fallen" from sites like CHUD or LatinoReview and they flat out insult the audience for enjoying the film.

DrChicago · 4 months ago

But how does that make critics bias towards his films though? I mean I hate Stephen Sommers but I'm not going to go in wanting to hate GI: Joe even though I do think it will be bad. Its understandable for critics to write about their distain for a director when writing about his or her film, is it called for? Not really, but that doesn't mean they have a vendetta to hate his films. As for the "incomprehensible action", I didn't really have that problem except for the last 30 minutes which I hated- all the slow motion was kind of funny and so was the autobot heaven sequence. I'm not trying to point out that Shoot'em Up, Wanted, or the Crank films were actually good, but I think they are proof that a good amount of critics like dumb action movies. I agree that it is unprofessional to bash the audience who likes this film, but I honestly think that general audiences are bashing more critics then the other way around. I didn't mean to imply that Tyler Perry's films are as big as Bays, which of course they are not, but his films make money but that doesn't make them good just like Bay's films. Again critics didn't go into this movie wanting to crucify, they wanted to like it, but most ended up hating it which is pretty understandable based on their criticisms.

Back to one question I raised, did most of Bay's films in the past do big because his name was on it or was it because he had big stars to sell the movie>

RobertFure · 4 months ago

I think most of his movies did well for a variety of reasons. Clearly Bad Boys (his first) wasn't based on his name - he wasn't a name yet. But neither were Will Smith or Martin Lawrence - each were TV stars known for comedies and Bay turned Smith into an action star and Lawrence into a movie star. The Rock had a great cast, though Nic Cage wasn't an action star yet - he was after. ScarJo wasn't huge before The Island, having only been in a few things (and was decidedly not a sex symbol) and Shia LeBeouf before Transformers was the kid from Even Stevens.

So at the time, he wasn't working with big stars, just recognizable faces. As for why they were successful I would say the following in rough order: Great trailers, Great Word of Mouth, Great Producers, Recognizable Faces. Later, and now, I think Bay's name does sell movies.

And I also still maintain that some critics (on-line guys) hate Bay and will go out of their way to dump on him.

DrChicago · 4 months ago

Didn't Cage win an oscar before The Rock? And it also had Sean Connery. Plus Will Smith before Bad Boys was a well known star, not nearly as big as he is today, but he had box office pull. Obviously The Island and Scarlett Joe can't be used as an argument since The Island tanked. Also Bay didn't make Shia a star, Spielberg did. He already had Disturbia as a hit and he was going to get that role in Indy with or without Transformers. The robots sold Transformers, if any other director did these movies they still would have been big hits. Very few general audience members went to go see Transformers because Bay's name was on it, they were more convinced by the robots and Spielberg being a producer on it. Armageddon had Bruce Willis! Ben Affleck was already well know and it had a bunch of other well known actors, they sold that movie. His films make bank not because of his name but the other aspects you brought up i.e. well known actors, good producers, and good trailers.

Corey · 4 months ago

Yup, summer blockbusters tend to be good fun. I really enjoyed UP, Star Trek... but yeah, I'm not defending Transformers 2. That movie was retarded even by retarded movie standards...

Seriously, remember Die Hard and the Bourne movies? You know, when summer action films weren't deficient in everything but the action?

DonaldDuck · 4 months ago

Yeah, except Iron Man and Star Trek were great 'summer blockbusters'. Transformers is just terrible. I don't mind explosions and girls in hotpants, but the movie has to have substance aswell. Something good in between the action. Transformers doesn't have that.

Yaanu · 4 months ago

I just thought it was dumb that they dumped all the new Autobots on us without even plastering their names on the screen. They did it for TMNT, and we already knew their names!

deltavoyage · 4 months ago

Why are we still talking about this a week and a half after ROTF came out? I'm pretty sure we covered everything there is to cover about ROTF. The public loved it, the critics despised it.

Can we move on with our lives now?

RRoD · 4 months ago

Well, the public didn't love it that much... I mean it's only rated a 6.5 at IMDB. Not a bad grade but franchise/established movies usually come out of the gate with much higher grades and we all know IMDB is the nadir of movie discussion sites, so it's reception is definitely mixed among the public.

Kangaroo Be Stoned · 4 months ago

IMDb is not good for ratings. It's highly probable that people spam votes for films they don't like and films they do like.

terrifictwilight · 4 months ago

I respect your position and your position, but I positioning it as some paragon of Summer Blockbusters is insulting to quality summer blockbusters that other commenters have mentioned (TDK, Spider-Man, Iron Man, etc.,) It doesn't take much to think otside the box and make something clever and creative and I don't believe Bay and his crew did that. They took the easy bet(make no mistake there was very little gamble involved with this flick; it was a guaranteed moneymaker out the gate) and made something that didn't remotely challenge the audience's expectations. I also think its a very real concern that mindless movies like ROTF will become, as if they aren't already, the dominant template for genre filmmaking. Hollywood is a business and ROTF just proved it, and movies of its ilk, will always be big business. If you don't believe that this phenomenon jeopardizes smaller, more creative films then your entitled to that opinion, but I see the writing on the wall. Let's see if you feel the same after Transformers 5: Rise of the Revenge of the Last Stand of the Fallen Predacons.

terrifictwilight · 4 months ago

Sorry about the crappy grammar. I meant:
I respect your position and passion, but positioning ROTF as some paragon....

Anon · 4 months ago

see the problem is with the new transformers flick isn't that it's a mindless action flick.

it's an action flick with absoulutely zero synapses firing at all. it's completely brain dead.

the 1st one was watchable. wasn't the best but it looks like gold next to Transformers 2.

you can have an action flick/popcorn flick whatever you wanna call it. that STILL has a coherent plot and not just random 'shiny explosions' that make no sense in wtf is going on in the movie. (Iron man being a great example of this. great action scenes, check. great acting, check. great plot/storyline check.)

transformers 2. had only one of these. great action scenes. and by great i mean CGI. :P

anyways i dont want the transformer 2/bayformers to come beating down my door so i'll stop now.

I'm all for summer blockbusters but we need BETTER movies (yes i know the $500 billion that transformers 2 made says it's good enuff but sorry it's not. not IMO). Oh well summers not over yet maybe we'll get a few good ones in july/august.

Nick DeNife · 4 months ago

AMEN!!!

awillftw · 4 months ago

There's nothing wrong with summer blockbusters. I love summer blockbusters, but is it so much to ask for a little fucking quality in our summer movies? Transformers was a steaming pile of shit, pure and simple. It was overwrought, filled with retarded comic relief and clumsy exposition. Not to mention, it's a two and a half hour movie about ROBOTS FIGHTING, and there's only THREE major fight scenes in the whole goddamn thing. It's ridiculous.

But despite Transformers being weak, there's nothing wrong with summer blockbusters. Star Trek, Up, Iron Man, The Dark Knight are all fantastic examples of blockbusters that didn't sacrifice quality in being fun. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Every critic trashing Transformers is doing so because it's fucking retarded, not because it's not a $15 million indie movie. Stop classifying everyone who can realize that Transformers sucked as a latte-sipping elitist simply because they can recognize quality in a movie. Summer blockbusters are not the enemy, shitty movies are the enemy, just as they always have been.

pretty_weird · 4 months ago

It sucks that people who went to see Transformers get called idiots or are told they have poor taste in movies. Was anyone really expecting a deep, introspective movie full of meaning and wisdom?
Great article, Mr. Fure