The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Michael Bay has never been one to embrace or even read film critics, and with the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, those aggrieved legions are returning the favor. And while the film is altogether review-proof, that's not going to stop some of its most determined foes from attempting to smother it in its crib. After the jump, have a look at some of the most amusingly vicious rebukes to the summer's biggest blockbuster to date.

9. "My son does not own any Transformer dolls. I'm sorry, make that Transformer action figures. But if he did, upon my return from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I would have taken these Hasbro toys outside, placed them under the wheels of the car and driven back and forth across them until they were ground into dust." -- Mary Pols, Time Magazine

8. "Michael Bay has once again transformed garbage into something resembling a film, at least in the loosest sense: it can be run through a projector and used to sell millions of tickets." -- Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

7. "At 149 minutes, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is six minutes longer than the 2007 noise machine from which this sequel sprang, but those six minutes are like dog minutes." -- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

6. "Fallen indulges Bay's excesses well past the point of reason to deliver the male teenage cinematic equivalent of snorting cocaine off a hooker's ass." -- Garth Franklin, Dark Horizons

5. "It finally occurred to me that pyrotechnics are Bay's pornography: massive, fiery money-shots. The bigger the fireball, the more he gets his rocks off. I hope he had a sufficient supply of tissues in the editing room." -- Marshall Fine, Hollywood and Fine

4. "This is the same man who directed The Rock in 1996. Now he has made Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Faust made a better deal." Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

3. "I don't have much nice to say about Transformers 2, but I'm happy to see my Park Slope neighbor John Turturro get another big paycheck." -- David Edelstein, New York Magazine

2. "I'm certain that someday it will be acknowledged that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is like the most totally awesome artifact ever of the end of the American empire. It's so us, a preposterously perfect reflection of who we are: loud, obnoxious, sexist, racist, juvenile, unthinking, visceral, and violent... and in love with ourselves for it. [...] What we have right here is the Easter Island statue of our legacy." -- MaryAnn Johanson, FlickFilosopher

1. "Terry Schiavo would have been bored by this bloated, ponderous piece of shit." -- Devin Faraci, CHUD

Sounds great! Feel free to protest or join the chorus below.



Comments

  • bunchofidiots says:

    this movie is not about america. It is about autobots and decepticons lolz

  • Pete B says:

    Are you by chance a male feminist? I'm pretty sure, TIM, that most chick-flicks treat males as objects of lust as well (even The Terminator did...three fucking times!), so don't go hating on Transformers because you think that it is being unjust and irrationally sexist.
    I bet that if Michael Bay decided to remake Forrest Gump and replace that tell-tale character with his female counter-part you'd blow a gasket...you'd wanna shit all over his face now wouldn't you? Maybe you liked the idea of an iconic male retard a.k.a Forrest Gump. Maybe this is
    "actually your view on how [men] should be. Its sad that for a large majority of Americans, something like this will go unnoticed, while [men] in this country are still stuck fighting social expectations that create a belief that its OK to treat [men] as nothing more than [retards], because that is how they were portrayed in this movie."
    That's right, I just used YOUR statement to prove MY point.

  • mematron says:

    I did not like the gangsta twins. Thought it was a bit racist. I liked the film other than that. I cringed every time the robotwins spoke. Why the F^%# does a robot need a gold tooth? But now that I think about it. They're have been a ton of stereo-types in cartoons and most of them I found funny. I guess that when it's live action then it seems to make a more impact-full statement. I think that if you saw Roadblock from GI Joe in live action speaking the way he did in the cartoon the whole thing would be shut down.

  • Vic says:

    "...like the most totally awesome artifact ever of the end of the American empire."
    Absolutly! Flushing money down the toilet would have been a better use of it than creating this movie. The scary part of it is that a lot of people LIKED it!

  • Maestro Sierra says:

    Men don't live in a world where they are raped, abused and harassed. At least not straight men are. By objectifying women, which btw goes beyond the movies, it makes it ok to treat women as such. Men don't go through this.
    Even Tom Hanks had his skills put to the test and his character glorified in Forest Gump and even won awards for it. He played a bigger part than what Megan Fox was put through for her part, so don't compare the two. As for Terminator, all I remember was Arnolds' great acting in the films and future robots killing humans. Sure Arnold wasn't as great as his other film, "Conan the Barbarian", but still faced great reviews and huge fanbase. Again can't compare men who are given greater and better roles than what women like Megan Fox were given. In all fairness she is a horrible actress, but it seemed that Hollywood is going back to the whole pretty dumb sexy girl shit again.
    Also using romantic comedies as a point to your argument is weak... super weak. Romantic comedies treat both men and women like crap. Women are viewed as nothing beings unless or until they have a man in their lives (why is Hollywood so anti-homosexual?)and the men are viewed like some trophy to win, who at first are either a tool/douchebag or an idiot (kind of like what Shia LeBouf character was in the two TFs movies). It's a disgusting genre that needs to be stopped at all cost.
    Personally Megan Fox was added for the men because Micheal Bay showed Agent Simmons in his underwear and Devastators balls (that offended me because they were so perfect. Damn him!) on the big screen, so I wouldn't bash on Bay for this film because he was being fair for both sexes and for all forms of sexuality. I just fear that little girls look up to characters like that and emulate her. :/ Overall, I rather have my daughter look up to Baroness than Mikaela.

  • Kevin (Ket) says:

    Why do people call something a "popcorn flick" like it's an excuse to be mindless drivel that warrants turning off your brain?
    Those days ended when "popcorn flicks" started being defined by things like Batman Begins/The Dark Knight, the Spider Man movies, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, James Bond, the Pixar movies, Iron Man, The Matrix...
    Many of these, believe it or not, were praised by the very critics that people accuse of being out of touch with audiences. Popcorn flicks are the films that people go on when summer vacation starts for students, for workers, and for well...almost everybody. People go to them because they count on it being the one that will have the most universal appeal. The Transformers movies are being panned across the internet...obviously it isn't living up to expectations.

  • Frank says:

    No, it's about an obnoxious, shrieking douchebag, his nonentity girlfriend, his roommate who is also an obnoxious shrieking douchebag, his humping dogs, his unbearably inane parents who never shut the hell up, some interchangeable soldiers with no personality, an over-the-top Jewish stereotype shouting incoherently and showing more ass than Megan Fox, two Minstrel-Bots that made me want to tear my ears off, a little piece of shit robot that humps Megan's leg, and a whiny, pointless bureaucrat.
    Then there are some piles of confusingly-designed scrap metal with almost no lines, personality, or motivation, who you sometimes see in a series of quick cuts that make it impossible to follow the action.
    You call this a faithful adaptation of the cartoon? More screen time is devoted to The Beef running in slow motion than to robots fighting.

  • Frank says:

    Understandable writing? You mean like NONONONONONONO and MOVEMOVEMOVE? Face it, half of the "writing" in this movie is incoherent babble, another quarter is horrible, out of place comedy, an eighth is a sickening attempt at romance, and the last eighth is convoluted plot exposition.
    And can't jobs be created... I don't know, building infrastructure in Africa or repairing Haiti and New Orleans, instead of a piece of shit movie? The money spent on this garbage could do a lot of good if it were spent elsewhere.

  • frank says:

    If this movie were as good as The Rock, or even The Island, I'd be perfectly content. But no, even for a Michael Bay film, this was unnaturally awful.

  • frank says:

    Wow. That must be it. The film critics are all too entranced by REALITY TV to appreciate fantasy films. That's why critics all hate The Wizard of Oz, 2001, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Pixar movies, and why Jersey Shore is the most critically acclaimed television out there.
    No, I'm sure you're correct. Your logic is simply flawless.

  • Frank says:

    You know, I would have loved a movie about robots fighting each other. This movie was about 1/8th that, and the rest was shitty comedy, annoying human characters, convoluted backstory, and people running in slow motion. And the robot fights were so confusingly shot, it was hard to see who was where and what was going on anyway.

  • Frank says:

    No, it's about an obnoxious, shrieking douchebag, his nonentity girlfriend, his roommate who is also an obnoxious shrieking douchebag, his humping dogs, his unbearably inane parents who never shut the hell up, some interchangeable soldiers with no personality, an over-the-top Jewish stereotype shouting incoherently and showing more ass than Megan Fox, two Minstrel-Bots that made me want to tear my ears off, a little piece of shit robot that humps Megan's leg, and a whiny, pointless bureaucrat.
    Then there are some piles of confusingly-designed scrap metal with almost no lines, personality, or motivation, who you sometimes see in a series of quick cuts that make it impossible to follow the action.
    You call this a faithful adaptation of the cartoon? More screen time is devoted to The Beef running in slow motion than to robots fighting.

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  • shahbaz says:

    Hello,created... I don't know, building infrastructure in Africa or repairing Haiti and New Orleans, instead of a piece of shit movie? The money spent on this garbage could do a lot of good if it were spent elsewhere.