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Firstly, go read Roger’s completely ignorant review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Then come back and tell me what’s wrong with it. Ya know what? How about I just tell you myself.

Before I rip his review apart, let me explain why transformers is a franchise of low expectations. Transformers is at it’s core, a cartoon. But not just a cartoon, it’s a cartoon that was animated and written for children who prefer their heroes in the robotic form. Transformers is also a very old cartoon, the writing styles of it’s time are almost a night and day difference from the writing styles found in cartoons today. All in all Transformers is a very shallow cartoon meant to please ages 5 and up.

But it’s age is not the only issue. Let’s talk about story lines. Cartoons like the Transformers and even G.I. Joe (which by the way has movie coming out soon) aired for years! When I was kid watching these cartoons, the older I got, the more trivial and depthless they seemed. The story lines were often exhausting and completely unrealistic and for me to expect any more or less would be ignorant and totally ill-respective to what cartoons are about. Besides, I was a kid and I enjoyed cheap thrills that came in the form of cartoons.

Now lets fast-forward Transformers into a live action film for both children and adults to see. The expectations are different since now we’re pushing to a wider audience (as opposed to just a bunch of kids eating cereal on a saturday morning). But let’s keep in mind that the story, the plot and the depth of Transformers itself has not seen any change before Michael Bay decided to make a film of it. I give Michael Bay credit for even attempting to take such a shallow franchise and make it into a film that adults and children can enjoy. But apparently grumpy old Roger doesn’t feel that way.

Oh Mr. Ebert…

In Roger’s review, he puts a hit out on the plot and goes on to say that it is “incomprehensible”. It’s a damn 1980’s cartoon made into a live action film. First of all, most cartoons (and some films) are incomprehensible. Isn’t that the whole point of cinema? To make incomprehensible something that can be comprehended? Secondly Transformers is a summation of alien robots from another planet that have taken the shape of earthly machinery in a plot to take over the earth and destroy the humans and the good alien robots that commit to protect them. I guess you can say Roger is right on the nail with this one. But what made me laugh the most was his comment about the accents coming from the Transformers.

Their accents are Brooklyese, British and hip-hop, as befits a race from the distant stars.

First off, it’s pretty clear that the accents are meant to delineate the personalities of each transformer. But since they’re aliens from another planet, what accent should they have that humans understand? Oh I get it, maybe they should have accents of non-regional diction! Then Roger goes for the jugular with “hip-hop accents”. I hate to say, but “hip-hop” is not an accent. I would have proudly accepted ebonics or snoop-ese. Ya know?! fo-rizzle my nizzle (translation => “For real, my nigga”).

The human actors are in a witless sitcom part of the time, and lot of the rest of their time is spent running in slo-mo away from explosions, although–hello!–you can’t outrun an explosion. They also make speeches like this one by John Turturro: “Oh, no! The machine is buried in the pyramid! If they turn it on, it will destroy the sun! Not on my watch!” The humans, including lots of U.S. troops, shoot at the Transformers a lot, although never in the history of science fiction has an alien been harmed by gunfire.

That makes me wonder if he even saw the first film. I’m also positive 70% of the action and science-fiction films made over the last 5 years have unrealistic escapes from explosions and alien weaknesses that are eventually penetrated by human aresenal *cough* Independence Day *cough*. Hell, some of them even have bare-skinned humans running through pools of towering flames and living to tell the story. Generally I have tons of respect for Roger’s reviews as they have often been insightful and useful. But this is just grotesque.

Roger goes on and on about how shallow the movie is. If you have ever seen the first movie, you will know what to expect. And I repeat, it’s an old cartoon with unrealistic plots and somewhat shallow characters. It is what it is as Michael Bay chose not to reinvent the franchise. Unfortunately that is exactly what Roger was seemingly expecting.

For this review, Ebert was an idiot. He has been reviewing movies for a long time and I must say that his knack for the field has drifted some over the years. Considering Roger is the gold standard of movie reviewers, plenty of other reviewers follow in his footsteps like echoes of a really annoying chorus in a Jonas Brothers song.

But tonight, I’m going to enjoy this new installment Transformers and I hope you will as well.