For 2.5 hours, Transformers was my favorite film of 2007...

I kinda hated the first Transformers.  Yes, it was a more disciplined and coherent picture than the Revenge of the Fallen, but it had many of the same problems that critics and fans only seemed to notice two years later.  It was chock-full not with robot-smashing action, but with half-hearted attempts at character development, first-grade humor, and ungodly of 'plot' that had no pay off and never really mattered by the time the third act rolled around.  I didn't care about whether or not Sam Witwicky would 'man up' and win the heart/vagina of Mikaela Banes (the same 'Can the nerd get the hot girl next door?' plot was frankly done far better in LeBeouf's Disturbia just two months earlier).  I didn't care about the campy antics of hackers Glen Whitmman (Anthony Anderson again proving that he's a good dramatic actor but a terrible comic one) and Maggie Madsen.  And most importantly, I was stunned by the lack of actual robot-on-robot action sequences.  Optimus Prime doesn't show up until 70 minutes into the film, Megatron doesn't appear until about 100 minutes in, and the first Optimus Prime action scene goes down a full 110 minutes into the 140 minute picture.  I spent most of the film waiting for the actual Autobots vs. Decepticons action.  And even when it came in act three, the film spent more time showing Jon Voight blasting bugs with a shotgun than showing Optimus Prime and Megatron going at it.  But then, I had my first child...

Random footnote as we head into the opening weekend for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

For what it's worth, the $114.7 million Fri-Sun opening for the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End still holds the record for the biggest Fri-Sun opening for a film with a long weekend. It did $25 million on Memorial Day Monday and $13 million worth of 8pm-12am Thursday sneaks.  It actually did $153 million in its first 4.25 days.  Out of eighteen the films that have pulled down $100m Fri-Sun weekends (seventeen if you don't count Iron Man, which had $3.5 million worth of advance-night Thursday screenings for its $102 million 3.25 day total), only eleven of them actually came from standalone Fri-Sun three day weekends.  Six of them (a third) pulled in $100 million despite having extra opened days to pull moviegoers away from the Fri-Sun prime real estate.  For the record, they are the above-mentioned Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($114.7m Fri-Sun/$153m 4.25 day total), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($108.9m/$200m 5-day total), Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ($108.4m/$158.4m 4-day total), Shrek 2 ($108m/$128.9 5-day total), X-Men: The Last Stand ($102.7m/$122.8m 4-day total), and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($100.1m/$151.9m 5-day total).  I have no real wisdom to offer here, I just wanted to play around with the numbers.

Scott Mendelson

The Michael Bay mystery - why so much plot?

The biggest puzzle when dealing with the critical fall out of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen involves the oft-repeated mantra that Michael Bay is only interested in his toys and gimmicks. It's allegedly all about fast cars, big guns, hot chicks, and explosions; all filmed in a saturated glow that makes everything look uber-shiny. Fair enough, but that isn't the big problem with either of the Transformers films. If Bay is only concerned with his fantasies and his toys (probably true), why must his films be filled with so much useless plot and failed character interaction? The fatal flaw with Transformers 2 wasn't the poor attempt at humor, the simplistic right-wing politics, the useless supporting characters, the poorly defined villain, or the often-incomprehensible action. The thing that killed the movie was the fact that there was an entire second act (post woods-fight scene and pre-Egypt) where absolutely nothing happens. The whole middle of the film is just plot and exposition.

For a movie that's just supposed to be giant robots killing each other, the movie has more plot than The Dark Knight or State of Play. We have the story arc of Sam and Michela unwilling to tell each other that they love each other, we have the military vs. bureaucrats plot line, we have the origin of the Fallen, the expansion of Transformers mythology, we have the protracted globe-trotting attempts to basically rewrite a story mistake (whoops... we killed Optimus Prime, how can we bring him back?). And none of the plot and none of the character interplay is the least bit entertaining (just why does Sam's college roommate stick around for the entire film?). Maybe it was a writers strike issue. Maybe Bay was just overcompensating; overdosing on plot to pretend like the movie actually has a reason outside of the robots killing robots spectacle. The tragedy is there's probably a pretty entertaining piece of crap 105-minute movie stuck inside that 149 minute bloat.

That's the irony. Michael Bay gets both praised and criticized for basically making bigscreen guy's fantasy pictures. But it's the inexplicable need to stuff his films with pointless asides that kills them. I'm guessing that he still wants to be taken seriously as a filmmaker. I'm sure the (unfair) reception of The Island still stings, as it was a brutal rebuke that told him to just go back to making Maxim: The Movie. Some free advice (because Bay of course cares what is said about him on Mendelson's Memos): if you want to make a real movie, make a real movie. You've done it before with The Rock. But don't wreck popcorn trash like Transformers by filling it with misguided attempts at respectability.

Scott Mendelson

Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen teaser is now online...

I hated the first Transformers the first time I saw it. I hated the campy tone, the over-the-top acting, preschool humor, and ridiculous romantic subplot ('hey, I only want you cause you're super hot... wait, you have a juvenile record and your father was a car thief... you're a whore!'). Me, my wife, and my ex-roommate seemed to be the only ones who despised the film during summer 2007 (my wife was sure that we had seen a different cut than our peers).

Even my unborn child violently kicked my wife's womb in protest on opening night (she did the same when forced to watch Grease 2) However, when I saw the picture a second time on HD-DVD (to give it a second chance), my colicky newborn daughter slept through the entire 140 minute feature, thus temporarily making Transformers my favorite film of 2007.

The biggest problem was that the issues mentioned above disguised the fact that there was very little robot action in the film. What was there was quite exciting and stunning (the FX were peerless), but at the end of the day, there was far more humans bickering than robots smashing. Hell, Optimus Prime doesn't even engage in robot combat until the 110 minute mark.

That doesn't seem to be the problem here. Of course, this is just a Super Bowl teaser, but, my god... the size of everything! That last shot of the Optimus Prime leaping from the collapsing bridge (and the sheer size of his opponent) is just the kind of thing I wanted to see in the first film. Michael Bay will be shooting several scenes in IMAX and I may just see this one just to drink in the visuals. I may hate myself in the morning, and I'll have no qualms complaining about being fooled twice, but here's hoping that this is the Transformers movie that I wanted in the first place (where the robots are the stars and not the comic relief supporting characters).

Scott Mendelson