"Transformers" Gets A Good Opening Overseas But Reviews Are Not Great

[JamesG]

Transformers Gets Off To A Solid Start Overseas
22 June 2009 12:51 PM, PDT

The opening of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in Japan and the U.K. raked in an estimated $20 million -- beating the opening take for the original movie by 71 percent, according to Britain's Empire magazine.

Reviewing the film in the London Independent, critic Nicholas Barber wrote that the movie "is the pretentious, nonsensical, sexist, jingoistic, militaristic, CGI-dependent, product-placement-packed, hectically edited, punishingly loud, wearyingly long, eye-wateringly expensive, and, I predict, phenomenally profitable exemplar of everything that is most repulsive about Hollywood today."

In the Mirror, David Edwards wrote similarly, "Big, loud and definitely not clever, it's a giant, lumbering idiot of a movie that, were it not for all the explosions, would send the most devoted action fans to sleep."


The movie, which opens domestically on Wednesday, had been greenlit by John Lesher and Brad Weston, who were ousted from their positions on Friday and replaced by Adam Goodman.

Moreover, Paramount's Transformers release came at about the same time it was reported that director Michael Bay had sent a hotly worded letter to top Paramount executives, including Lesher and Weston, complaining about the publicity campaign for the movie. "I cannot figure if this is a cash issue with your company? Is there some clever idea why we are not spending? I'm not sure," he said.

Meanwhile, Viacom, the corporate parent of Paramount, has denied increasing speculation that it is negotiating a sale of the studio -- possibly to competitor Universal.

"Paramount is not for sale," a Viacom spokesman told the New York Post.

-IMDB News

[comedyfreak]

You can't please everybody, especially the stupid movie critics. I'm going to enjoy the movie when I see it hopefully Sunday.

[JamesG]

Movie Reviews: Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
23 June 2009 11:33 AM, PDT

Reviews rarely come more caustic than the early ones for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen -- even from critics who had had nice things to say about the original.

For example, Claudia Puig in USA Today comments: "Bigger, louder, longer and more metallic is definitely not better. Where the first movie was a happy surprise, a comedy with engaging characters and spectacular action-filled escapades, the sequel lacks wit, charm, subtlety, restraint, humanity and clever dialogue. It has loads of spectacle but no soul."

Saying that he wished he "could explain the plot," Lou Lumenick in the New York Post remarks that the movie is "squarely aimed at 8-year-old boys and men who never quite matured past that stage."

Peter Howell in the Toronto Star says it's a movie filled with "booms and boobage" that is so noisy, it's "akin to lying on the tarmac at Pearson International while a revving Airbus A 380 rolls over you."

Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel asks: "Is it the worst movie of the summer? Possibly. Will everybody see it? Probably."

But Rafer Guzmán in Newsday concludes: "The battles between giant robots are astoundingly detailed, and cleverly set in organic places like forests and deserts that add to the realism. Like its predecessor, this Transformers is a terrific guilty pleasure."

-IMDB News

[JamesG]

Movie Reviews: Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2)
24 June 2009 12:15 PM, PDT


A second round of reviews for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen turned up in major newspapers today (Wednesday), and, by and large, they were no less negative than the ones that turned up a day before.

As if sensing that his review will largely go unread by the people seeing the movie, Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune mentions a scene in which an aged Autobot utters the line "I'm too old for this crap."
Comments Phillips: "No matter, pal. You're not in the target demographic."

In the Boston Globe, Ty Burr calls the sequel "2 1/2 hours of tumescence disguised as a motion picture."

To Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times it’s “a horrible experience of unbearable length.”

John Anderson in the Washington Post brands it "simply despicable."

Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times concludes that the movie "is in-your-face, ear-splitting and unrelenting. It's easy to walk away feeling like you've spent 2 1/2 hours in the mad, wild hydraulic embrace of a car compactor."


Several critics do applaud the astounding effects from San Francisco-based Ilm.

"But without dynamic contrasts," writes Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe & Mail, "even the destruction of internationally famous landmarks begins to feel like staring at wallpaper after a couple of hours."

But Manohla Dargis’s review in the New York Times seems surprisingly complimentary to director Michael Bay. "Despite the tediousness of his stories and inanity of his visual ideas, he always manages to keep you laughing and shaking your head in disbelief at the outlandishness of his cinematic spectacles," she writes.

-IMDB News

[TJL]

I really have no interest in seeing Transformers 2. I'll wait for the DVD.

[waichingliu81]

i wasn't impressed by the first movie, besides the 80s cartoon version was and is much better. oh and i don't have any intention in seeing this sequel either.