Popular belief posits that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. This isn’t actually true, mind you – kinda like the whole “left brain vs. right brain” thing – as the true definition of insanity can be found throughout Donald Trump’s twitter feed.
In a weird way, Transformers: The Last Knight proves that this long-held definition of insanity is a fallacy:
- Director Michael Bay makes the same Transformers movie over and over again.
- The audience willingly pays to see the same Transformers movie over and over again.
- Michael Bay expects to get much richer from making gigantic robots with celebrity voices glint and spark and look cool. (He does).
- The audience walks into the theater wanting to see gigantic robots with celebrity voices glint and spark and look cool. (They do).
- Everyone gets what they want while doing and expecting, respectively, nothing at all different, and this on top of the most important part: that this series has never been within cannon-fire distance of “good.”
That’s insanity.
The Transformers series:
Sometimes Shia Lebeouf is there. Sometimes Mark Wahlberg is there. John Turturro is there all the time. They are all there, looking up at the robots and talking to them, and being their friend. The robots are cars sometimes, but sometimes they are robots. If the robots are dancing, they are in robot form. If they are going very fast, they are probably cars.
Robots are aliens. From space. The planets. Transformers.
I think I’m losing my grip on reality.
Focus, me. Focus.
The Transformers movies are bad. All of them. If you want to be that person who defends the first one, have at it. You’d be the person defending the one good Hot Pocket you’ve eaten in your life.
By now the Transformers series has become a punchline on Internet whenever someone wants to put down someone else. “You didn’t adore Inherent Vice? I bet you like Transformers.” Even the people who bravely defend their enjoyment of Transformers don’t have that much kindness to share toward it. “What’s wrong with turning your brain off once in a while?” asks the guy whose brain has been left on the charger since birth.
In Transformers: The Last Knight, John Goodman plays a fat robot because he is fat, and Stanley Tucci plays Merlin because he is magical. Mark Wahlberg’s character name is Cade Yeager. There are puppy dinosaur robots that shoot fire from their mouths and also take naps, even though they are nonliving mechanics that shouldn’t suffer from fatigue. Sir Anthony Hopkins is there, for some reason, putting the words “Optimus Prime” and “Cybertron” in his mouth.
Robots. America. Transformers. American flag. Bumblebee. Car. America! Cars go very fast in Transformers when they are the robots, the transformers.
Stop.
No.
Pull back.
Cybertron! The moon! The knights and transformers!
The robots look and sound really cool. The humans look and sound really cool. The music stirs, we hear it, it sounds good and cool. The things explode, the buildings fall, the humans look stoic, the robots look cool. (America.) It all looks really good and cool here in Cool Shots, U.S.A. The men and the women of America who like the transformers will be very happy with how the transformers look and sound.
Okay, I’m losing it. Time to bail.
After Transformers 3, Michael Bay said he was done making Transformers movies.
Then he made Transformers 4.
After Transformers 4, Michael Bay said he was done making Transformers movies.
Then he made Transformers 5.
After Transformers 5 made a buttload of money, Michael Bay said he was done making Transformers movies and Paramount said they were going to make a bunch of Transformers spinoffs to continue this money-printing franchise of theirs long into the future.
If you think Michael Bay is done making Transformers movies, you’re insane.
Listen, you’ll have to excuse me. I have a lunch meeting with Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons in twenty minutes.
I feel so guilty enjoying this review so much when it's causing someone so much pain to write it...but this shit funny.
ReplyDelete"There are puppy dinosaur robots that shoot fire from their mouths and also take naps, even though they are nonliving mechanics that shouldn’t suffer from fatigue." My favorite.
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