Transformers and Michael Bay

We have Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon movie tickets purchased for Wednesday evening, and we also have another set for Thursday lunchtime.

'Thursday lunchtime?', you ask. Don't you work fulltime? Of course, but I took the day off in anticipation of its release. It's just how I roll.

As a home theatre enthusiast, I fucking love Michael Bay. Really, I do. I've seen the shit people say about him, all the no-plot gags about his movies, but I've gotta tell ya; I've spent as much time watching his movies on my theatre's big screen as I have any other director's movies. Without a doubt. Or do you think I dropped a little under $3000AU on a subwoofer to watch dramas?

Hell no.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a movie I often enjoy discussing. It has an average IMDB rating of a low 5.9 from over 114,000 voters. Ouch. It's also absolutely dripping with special effects, and sports one of the most intense, jaw-dropping fight scenes, that I've ever seen in my life.

In other words, you may argue that as brilliant as it is, it is also as flawed.

I won't sugar coat the issue, I've criticised the movie in the past. Some of the things that were added to it demonstrate nothing short of an adolescent sense of humour. Autonomous robots from another planet shouldn't be talking like those twins, they certainly should never be sporting a pair of testicles, and they shouldn't ever hump an attractive human female's leg.

I'll be honest, part of what made the first Transformers great for me, particularly when I saw it for the first time, was the mystery surrounding them. The Decepticons, particularly, used their own language, which was translated for us on-screen and everything. The secret and covert can be very cool like that, and it's something that was sadly lost with the sequel.

I didn't start this blog with the intention of bashing Revenge of the Fallen though; if anything, quite the contrary. It's a movie I was able to watch straight through from start to finish on my big screen barely a couple of months ago, which is saying something. Yes, I know, I mentioned there's a lot of crap in it, and a plot that just about falls apart, but sometimes I just want to be wowed with dazzling special effects and plenty of explosions. And for that, it does not disappoint.

I don't know why, too, but I find them a lot more re-watchable than most other action flicks released at around this time. Avatar, 2012, Terminator Salvation, Inception, The A-Team, I've got Blu Rays of them all, and yet... I so often find myself coming back to the Transformers franchise.

I will watch both of them again on the big screen in anticipation of Dark of the Moon's release next week, and then when it hits and I've seen it twice, I will no doubt show back up here to post my impressions.