I never saw the first Transformers movie, and I never had any plans to see the second one, but I’ve come across three separate reviews for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that have left me somewhat breathless. I can’t think of another movie that was so thoroughly reviled as completely worthless:
- Michael Bay Finally Made An Art Movie: "...the movie's id overload reaches such crazy levels that the fabric of reality itself starts to break down. ... After a few hours of this assault, you feel the chair melt and the floor of the movie theater becomes an angry mirror into your soul. Nothing is solid, nothing is real, everything Transforms."
- Roger Ebert's review: "The plot is incomprehensible. The dialog of the Autobots®, Decepticons® and Otherbots® is meaningless word flap. Their accents are Brooklyese, British and hip-hop, as befits a race from the distant stars. Their appearance looks like junkyard throw-up. They are dumb as a rock. They share the film with human characters who are much more interesting, and that is very faint praise indeed."
- Trans-Coon-ers: "Skids and Mudflap seem to be everywhere, bantering, fighting each other... sheesh. The only thing they don’t do is shoot craps and eat chicken with watermelon. At one moment, even, LaBeouf’s character asks the two if they can read a robotic script that will reveal crucial information. 'Uh, we don’t do too much readin,' one drawls."
Now the only question is: Does this clinch my plans to never see this movie? Or do I need to rent something this hideous, just to be able to say I looked at the face of cinematic death and didn’t blink?