Now this isn't the first time this has happened. I've been initially disappointed in sequels before. 'Two Towers', for instance, was very disappointing to me the first time I saw it- mostly because I had hyped up this movie in my mind to levels that it could not possibly attain. When I saw it again, I realized that it was, in fact, a great move. And I haven't had a chance to do is get a second viewing of these movies, so maybe I'll be wrong. Unfortunately, I don't think a second viewing is going to help.
I'll focus mostly on Transformers 2, because a) I saw that movie last night, so it is still fresh, and b) it has the best chance to actually rank as a good movie in my eyes.
Thinking back on it, Transformers 2 reminds me of a 1980's sequel. You remember those, right?
Only the 80's would have taken a movie revolving around two guys pretending their dead boss was still alive...and then made it into a sequel. Really? No one realized he was dead? In the second movie? Wow. Can we just retcon the 80's from existence?
80's sequels sucked- basically all they did was rehash the same jokes from the first movie, maybe change the wording a little bit- it was the Decade of the Disney sequel- straight-to-video quality stuff. This was why I hated Waynes World 2 (although technically I guess that was a 90's movie) initially- it ruined the magic of the first movie. I realize how hard it is to write a script for a great movie, but I'd rather they try to be original and fail than to copy and fail.
This was the format of Transformers 2. It's like they took everything that was great from the first movie and tried to make it bigger and still the same.
Funny parents, sexy Megan Fox, tiny appliance/transformers, jive-talking transformer, John Turturro in underwear, Linkin Park song at the end- all of these things were done in the right amount in the first movie and served to enhance the greatness of both the story and the special effects. Everything was in balance, nothing was out of place. It was a great movie.
The second movie tried to take these things and making them ginormously bigger than they were before- imagining going in for some minor cosmetic surgery and then coming out with a Bobblehead:
SPOILERS START HERE
Funny parents of first one leads to mom scoring a marijuana brownie at the college amongst other ridiculosities. Sexy Megan Fox leads to extremely gratuitous shot of her (basically)humping a motorcycle in her first scene. Really? Was that necessary? Jive-talking transformer is now two jive-talking transformers- twins to boot! John Turturro in underwear is now John Turturro in a jock strap (and yes, they went there). The Linkin Park song at the end? Not nearly as epic as 'What I've Done'.
This movie suffered from a serious case of identity crisis. It couldn't tell whether it wanted to be a comedy or an action or a drama. Maybe it wanted to be a coctioma. Or a dromedtion. Or something else entirely.
I counted no less than eight (8!) characters/units whose sole or primary purpose was to elicit guffaws, or 'laughs'. Let's see, there was: The parents, John Turturro, the Transformer twins, the butt-humping dogs, the hacker-roommate, the president's assistant, the little Decepticon, the old robot. That's a lot of laught eliciters. And it wasn't that they weren't funny- for the most part they were funny. That was the problem- they really disrupted the flow of the story at times.
Ah, the story. I won't go too much into detail (I have a sucky memory and I don't want to spoil too much anyway), but suffice it to say that I thought the story was somewhat weak and that perhaps all these laughs and special effects were in place to cover up that fact. I'll definitely have to give it another viewing (unlike Wolverine, which cannot possibly experience storyline redemption). The special effects were amazing, but I was hoping that Hollywood would have learned from Lord of the Rings or the first Transformer movie that you could indeed have a good story AND good effects in the same movie. Alas, maybe G.I. Joe will prove different. Probably not though.
By the way, Peter Cullen, who does the voice of Optimus Prime, is also the voice of Eeyore. So....take that for what it is worth...
This was the format of Transformers 2. It's like they took everything that was great from the first movie and tried to make it bigger and still the same.
Funny parents, sexy Megan Fox, tiny appliance/transformers, jive-talking transformer, John Turturro in underwear, Linkin Park song at the end- all of these things were done in the right amount in the first movie and served to enhance the greatness of both the story and the special effects. Everything was in balance, nothing was out of place. It was a great movie.
The second movie tried to take these things and making them ginormously bigger than they were before- imagining going in for some minor cosmetic surgery and then coming out with a Bobblehead:
SPOILERS START HERE
Funny parents of first one leads to mom scoring a marijuana brownie at the college amongst other ridiculosities. Sexy Megan Fox leads to extremely gratuitous shot of her (basically)humping a motorcycle in her first scene. Really? Was that necessary? Jive-talking transformer is now two jive-talking transformers- twins to boot! John Turturro in underwear is now John Turturro in a jock strap (and yes, they went there). The Linkin Park song at the end? Not nearly as epic as 'What I've Done'.
This movie suffered from a serious case of identity crisis. It couldn't tell whether it wanted to be a comedy or an action or a drama. Maybe it wanted to be a coctioma. Or a dromedtion. Or something else entirely.
I counted no less than eight (8!) characters/units whose sole or primary purpose was to elicit guffaws, or 'laughs'. Let's see, there was: The parents, John Turturro, the Transformer twins, the butt-humping dogs, the hacker-roommate, the president's assistant, the little Decepticon, the old robot. That's a lot of laught eliciters. And it wasn't that they weren't funny- for the most part they were funny. That was the problem- they really disrupted the flow of the story at times.
Ah, the story. I won't go too much into detail (I have a sucky memory and I don't want to spoil too much anyway), but suffice it to say that I thought the story was somewhat weak and that perhaps all these laughs and special effects were in place to cover up that fact. I'll definitely have to give it another viewing (unlike Wolverine, which cannot possibly experience storyline redemption). The special effects were amazing, but I was hoping that Hollywood would have learned from Lord of the Rings or the first Transformer movie that you could indeed have a good story AND good effects in the same movie. Alas, maybe G.I. Joe will prove different. Probably not though.
By the way, Peter Cullen, who does the voice of Optimus Prime, is also the voice of Eeyore. So....take that for what it is worth...
PICS:
Weekend @ Bernies 2- http://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/16/A70-8099
Bobblehead- http://terminallaughter.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/office_space_bobbleheads.jpg
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