Did Michael Bay kick Manohla Dargis’s kitten or something? I had to ask after reading the New York Times critic’s review Of Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Here are some of the “highlights”:
1. The very first sentence refers to the movie as “cretinous”.
2. Star Shia LaBeouf is described as a “professional doofus”.
3. Co-star John Turturro is labelled to be “embarrassing”.
4. The reviewer strongly intimates that the script is racist, due to the personalities of some of the new characters.
5. Finally, there are more than a few condescending comments directed at the film’s intended audience.
You need to read the entire review to get the full effect.
Now, you have to expect a certain amount of snottiness and arrogance from the Times. That’s just how they roll. Today, I was talking about the review to a rather educated friend who reads the Times on a daily basis, and he compared the review to a personal attack on Bay. Did Dargis go a little too far with some of the review’s negativity? At what point does a review cross from being merely scathing to outright venomous? What say you, gentle reader?
June 24th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
That the reviewer for the NYT is elistist is a fact. Was the reviewer going overboard? Yeah, probably. But Rob over at Topless Robot has been saying far worse stuff about Bay for weeks. Why should Dargis be prevented from having some fun?
June 24th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
That review is only shocking if it’s the only TF2 review that you’ve ever read. 22% on RT means that a lot of critics didn’t like the film and having read a lot of the reviews, this one was easily one of the more tame thrashings the film has gotten.
AE.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:01 am
“Star Shia LaBeouf is described as a “professional doofus”.” This fits my opinion of LaBeouf perfectly. Indiana Jones, Disturbia, Transformers… haven’t liked him in any role. I’ve seen bad movies with a good actor or two, but I can’t say I’ve felt that way about LaBeouf.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:47 am
I loved the movie. Although everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I’d have thought that The Times editors would have made the reviewer tone it down a bit as it does seem more of a personal attack on Bay rather than an actual review of the film.
The film was good clean fun from start to finish. Maybe Dargis just got out of bed on the wrong side or something.
June 25th, 2009 at 5:18 am
I enjoyed the film. Sure there were plot holes worthy of driving a semi through, and tons of sexual innuendo and coarse language (both of which do not belong in a film based upon children’s toys), but overall it was a decent summer popcorn flick. Light on story, heavy on cool special effects. Give Bay a break. LaBeouf was great, as he was in the first film.
And racism? It’s only there for people that try too hard to look for it. In other words, there’s none to be found.
June 25th, 2009 at 6:44 am
I don’t think Michael Bay kicked anyone’s kitten lately, but he has been responsible for a string of movies that are astoundingly consistent in that they’re all brutally terrible (I haven’t seen “Revenge of the Fallen,” but I’ve seen every other movie he’s directed). That will likely inspire some animosity in someone who sees movies for a living. Dargis’s review is no harsher than any number of others out there, and no more of a personal attack against Bay.
If anything, accusing the Times reviewers of snottiness and arrogance is a far more personal dismissal than anything Dargis levels at Bay. Since the summer movie season began, Dargis has given positive reviews to “Star Trek” and “Year One,” hardly the sort of films celebrated by some kneejerk elitist.
June 25th, 2009 at 6:59 am
you ever notice that people look for racism they find it? Also, it’s a Michael Bay film, WTF you get what you expect. Big robots, Big Explosions, that’s a Bay film
June 25th, 2009 at 7:28 am
tralfaz, the only people I ever hear that from are white people who have never had to deal with racism. As an Asian American immigrant, I can say without a doubt that those characters in Transformers 2 are indeed racist, just as Jar Jar Binks was in Star Wars. So please don’t dismiss racism as an invention or something that doesn’t happen today, because it does.
Unless you plan on living looking like a minority and live it for a month, please don’t make comments about things you clearly have no NOTHING about.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:50 am
A critic who name drops Lars von Trier and Jacques Rivette in a review of Transformers 2 is probably not going to like the movie anyway.
I kind of wish the Times had spent the time it took to review this on reviewing a smaller independent or foreign movie that I otherwise wouldn’t hear about.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:19 am
You have to review movies like TF2 a little differently than normal. It is a CGI explosion movie. One goes to see TF2 to watch CGI robots blow up other CGI robots. That is all. Even attempting to review stuff like acting ability and plot is pointless. Is the CGI well done? Did the CGI robots blow up the other CGI robots real good? If the answer to those two questions is yes, then it should get a good review.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:32 am
“The Le”, there’s nothing racist in Star Wars. That’s your own demented projection. Lucas is a big time San Francisco-area Obama-loving liberal and always has been.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:44 am
@Vin
Interestingly, one of the critics that hews closest to that idea is Roger Ebert. Though he does occasionally (and when he does, oddly humorlessly) stray from his guiding precept, he has always contended that dramas should be reviewed “against” dramas, comedies against comedies, etc. He explained this once when discussing how he could give Godfather II and Spider-Man 2 the same high rating; Godfather, he said, against all other dramas is a pinnacle, while Spidey2, against all other super-hero films, is likewise a pinnacle. That approach seems to me to be pretty sensible, and I try to stick with it when possible. It’s why I, for example, might give a great review to both, say, Box Office Poison and particularly fine issue of a mainstream super-hero comic. For the most part, Poison would also be the greater achievement because of the skill and ambition, but perhaps a super-hero book that’s the best of its ilk for the week also merits the same level of praise in its respective area.
On the subject of Transformers itself, I haven’t seen the sequel, but I thought that the first film was merely okay, and too reliant on all of Bay’s tired bag of tricks. Example: did we REALLY need slow-motion to show Jon Voight exiting a helicopter? No.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:21 am
“Lucas is a big time San Francisco-area Obama-loving liberal and always has been.”
Yes, Lucas was an enormous Obama fan when Star Wars was released in 1977 and Obama was a teenager.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:05 am
I posted this the other day, but it’s worth sharing again:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/michael_bay_signs_50m_deal_to_fuck
June 25th, 2009 at 11:06 am
“Lucas is a big time San Francisco-area Obama-loving liberal and always has been.”
You say this like it’s a bad thing. Which it’s not.
That said, Jar Jar still sucked. Hard.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:10 am
The Le…one of the “supposed” racist characters (Mudflap) was portrayed as a ‘gansta by a BLACK actor. Also, please look at the first TF film and notice how Bay goes against stereotype and portrays not one but TWO important African-American characters as intelligent, patriotic individuals. Jar-Jar Binks was also voice acted by an African-American. Would you characterize those actors as racist? This shouldn’t even be an issue anymore. Should a Caucasian be offended by characters like Joe Dirt or Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber? Or how about all the “white trash” hillbillies seen countless times in film? Deliverance anyone? I say it again because it is worth mentioning, in the PC world in which we live it almost becomes a badge of honor to look for racism in everything whether it is real or imagined, and in doing so we twist and stain something innocent. To accuse somone of being a racist is easy, but imagine being on the other side being wrongfully accused when one is not. It stings equally as bad as being a victim of racism…it is a form of harassment and racism itself. I direct you to a post by Peter David: (Number 83 to be exact)
“So back in February I wrote an entry that I feel established a new identity for me as Captain Irony. The column, in response to comments from the new attorney general regarding what he saw as a reluctance by whites to discuss matters of race, opined that any honest endeavors to do so were invariably met by shouts of racism and calls for economic sanctions and boycotts.
“The blog entry was met by shouts of racism and calls for economic sanctions and boycotts.
“Thus was Captain Irony born!
“It gets better.
“See, around the same time, a columnist named Bill Maxwell wrote an Op-Ed piece that ran in a Florida newspaper that said much the same thing that I did.
“Seeing themselves as victims of racism, most blacks reject raw race talk from whites. After all, whites are viewed as being the perpetrators of racism. The perpetrator, therefore, should confess, shut up and listen. Because of this dynamic, far too many whites have learned to avoid direct matters of race.”
“In fact, he was even more extreme, saying—among other things—
“To mention the deleterious effects of hip-hop is to be attacked. The ugly truth is that this outlaw culture, with its anti-intellectualism, antiauthoritarianism and nihilism, will do more harm than virtually anything else to a generation of blacks. Fearing attack, too many blacks remain silent on this issue, and when whites bring it up, they are shouted down as racists. Holder should make a second speech on race, this time specifically taking blacks to task for keeping silent on the abandonment of their personal responsibilities.”
“Maxwell, as was I, was taken to task by the subjects of his column. The same sorts of folks, no doubt, who accused me of being clueless about the topic because of white privilege. It would be interesting if they accused Maxwell of the same, what with his being black.
“Oh…did I forget to mention that?
“Although black attacks against whites are harsh, our attacks against other blacks who tell the truth are downright vicious. I know from personal experience. You are tar-brushed with the stain of Uncle Tomism, and it sticks to you forever.”
“I wonder if Maxwell’s name was stuck on the same list mine was. Yes, apparently there’s a list floating around of authors who have been targeted as racists and are supposed to be condemned, ignored, and boycotted, and I’m on it.
“Funny: Fifty years ago, people were put on a similar such list, condemned, ignored and boycotted for ascribed attitudes whether true or not. Now what was that list called? Let me think…
“Oh. Right.
“A black list.
“Captain Irony away!
PAD”
June 25th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
That Peter David passage is barely pertinent to the conversation, even before you take into account that David generally seems to operate in a perpetual state of imagined persecution.
Based on what I’ve read about them, “racist” is probably too strong of a word for the characters in question from “Revenge,” but, from the sounds of it, “offensive” probably works. And “lazy.” But then noting that characterization is lazy in a Michael Bay effort is like noting that the film is in color or filled with special effects. You’re providing information should be automatic common knowledge.
Michael Bay owns whatever characterizations that exists in his films. Claiming it is just weak-kneed political correctness to find the choices he’s made in a film offensive is a weak defense. It doesn’t mean he’s a racist that he’s put problematic material out there, but it does indicate that he hasn’t put much thought into the subtext and impact of the work. Again, give the previous work of the director, that’s hardly surprising.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Not speaking about RotF here, because I haven’t seen the movie yet or the scenes with the two supposedly racist characters.
But saying that far-left-wing intellectual liberals can’t be racist just means that you haven’t met any far-left-wing intellectual liberals. They can be some of the strongest racists out there because of their incredibly patronizing tone that blacks (it’s mostly blacks from what I’ve seen) can’t take care of themselves and need to be helped.
While it’s true that some blacks need assistance in this area or that, many are doing just fine and want to be left alone.
And, by the way, the reason I’m not using the term African-American is because I know a number of blacks who can’t tie themselves directly to Africa.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
“even before you take into account that David generally seems to operate in a perpetual state of imagined persecution.”
Funny, it seems more like everybody enjoys persecuting PAD over the slights they themselves have imagined and attribute to him, as the quote above clearly shows.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
People who are actually “far-left-wing” have yet to be even mentioned, Mr W. I’ve only seen MOR wishy-washy moderates referred to by name in this discussion.
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:38 pm
no, being called a racist isn’t as bad as facing racism
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