pic from
paunchstevenson.com

It has been a while now that this movie has been out and I have this funny feeling, and it wont go away. For the past couple of years my cinema-going experience has had one massive and loud roller coaster of enjoyment standing head and shoulders among the crowd. Standing within this crowd of film – bigger, bolder and more brash – was a potentially lethal cocktail of hollywood. Made up of parts that many derided, and on their own could be overlooked, this monster was that perfect mix for me. The perfect combination of elements that for whatever cosmic reason seemed to just gel, connect and infuse within me. I talk of the behemoth that was Transformers..and I have a funny feeling that just wont go away.

What can be said about the sequel that hasn’t already been done to death? Cries of anger, repeated ad infinitum. Hyperbolic expressions of hatred have vomited forth from the frothing mouths of the thin-skinned, self-righteous and self-perceived victims of the film. But really, when the dust settles (and there is a lot of dust) something is preventing me from digesting it with much ease. Me, of all fucking people. Me, the one who saw the original more times at the movies than I have fingers. Me, the one who cherished the experience as the one thing in my life at the time that made me feel like a kid again, forgetting all the crap and stress and responsibility of being a ‘grown-up’. Me, the one who would get riled up inside when others attacked it, and put on the face of ‘who cares?’. I did care, because that first movie meant more to me than two hours and kilometres worth of celluloid. And that funny feeling it just wont fucking go away.

I went and saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF if I can be bothered) and planned on seeing it many a times, hoping the movie would whisk me away into thatchild-like glee and escape. As I watched the movie, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. I loved the fact it felt so similar to the first one, but there was something, an unknown at the time, different about this movie. For all of its genetic traits, passed down from its predecessor, something just didn’t seem right. It felt like I was seeing an old friend, an acquantance from times passed, someone who I missed. Yet when the reality of their life was presented, I didn’t feel as comfortable as I expected.

Transformers has always been what I tell people is my favourite guilty pleasure of cinema. The kind of movie and experience that I can wash down with a liberal dose of something somewhat more ’serious’. It would always leave a stain on me. A good stain, but there was always this itch too, inside me that I couldn’t scratch. The words I offer now seem so reflective upon the original, and there is a simple answer to that: I have a funny feeling and for the life of me, it wont go away.

For everything that people hated the original for, I must have subconsciously made a mental note and after the cedits rolled on ROTF (see? there I used it) my mind was racing with a shared chaos of trying to absorb what I had just seen and somehow fit it within the same enjoyment, the same framework, hold it up to the same feelings the original gave me. But I couldn’t. And it fucking pains me to say it, that after much reflection, and much internal struggle, much contemplation, that I just had a funny feeling that would not fucking go away.

And that feeling was I simply didn’t enjoy the movie as much as I wanted, craved, desired and in many ways needed. It was like seeing that friend of yours become a lifeless shell of what they once were – but the true horror was that they were no different. This time, their weaknesses were exposed, their deficiencies plain for all to see. Sure, many could already see it, but I couldn’t. Sure, many could not stomach the elemental cheese of the original, but I enjoyed and lapped it up and enjoyed scraping the sides of the bowl. But the sequel didn’t taste as I expected and was not what I thought it would be as it was rammed down my throat to the point of choking.

For every massive and intense and enjoyable forest fight, there was something following up that just seemed off. The action was perfect however the rest of the film just seemed phoned in – my friend just didnt seem to care anymore. It was, to completely overuse the analogy, as if this friend didn’t care anymore about what it meant to me. As much as I wanted to love it, as much as I tried to defend it inside, I knew I had just lost a friend and was left with a really funny feeling.

And that funny fucking feeling absolutely fucking sucks.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 8:58 pm and is filed under movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.