“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” (2011)
A lot of passionate declarations of the “Fuck Michael Bay” and “I’m NEVER going to another ‘Transformers’ film” variety were made as we exited the theater after ‘Revenge of the Fallen,’ but damned if the trailer and high-concept premise for ‘Dark of the Moon‘ didn’t actually pique our interest: knitting real history (moon landing) into the daft Autobot/Decepticon war seemed a brave and at least partially intriguing move. Of course we were disappointed by the noisy and largely graceless, long-winded film that resulted, but if only because it clears the low watermark of the second entry with some ease, we have to say we didn’t feel quite as much vitriol towards it. And the main reason for that is that if you can make it through its absurdly turgid first two-thirds, which is just a lot of people saying things we already know (often in strange, affected accents) as though if they repeat the plot points often enough they will stop being so ridiculous (doesn’t work), leering cheesecake photography of replacement eye candy Rosie Huntington-Whitely and Shia LaBoeuf being unable to get a decent job although he’s saved the world a couple of times, the last act does reward you with a cookie: an all-out, balls-to-the-wall 30 minutes plus of the kind of OTT action that Bay can do so inimitably well. Chicago is evacuated and then gleefully destroyed as skyscrapers topple over, elite troops skydive in and a big metal snake thing bores through entire buildings. Plus Tyrese Gibson plays the exact same gung-ho-till-he-suddenly-turns-chickenshit character he plays in the “Fast & Furious” movies. In fact, the Chicago sequence is so brash and bold that it acts like a mind-wipe of the first two hours of exposition and sexism, and you’re in danger of leaving this time thinking “Huh, that wasn’t so bad…” [C]
“Pain & Gain” (2012)
Budgeted at a lithe $26m, based on a true story, and featuring no non-human characters (OK, there’s a dog), “Pain & Gain” might be the mom-and-pop store to “Transformers” ‘ Wal-Mart in Bay’s empire, but that doesn’t mean that watching it doesn’t also feel like repeatedly shotgunning Bud Lights and intermittently smashing the cans into your forehead. Brash, trashy and apparently attempting to make a virtue of its utter brainlessness, “Pain & Gain” ‘s main issue is that it wants to be a satire, but is itself not smart enough for that, and then unfortunately assumes its audience, too, is as stupid as its dumb-as-fuck characters. And so it goes on way too long as Bay over-explains everything, throwing in every expositionary trick (voice-over narration, occasional titles, interrogation scenes, courtroom testimonies, flashbacks/forwards) to adorn a plot so ruthlessly simplistic three dunderheads could (and did) come up with it (and let’s not even get into the film’s rocky basis in fact, because that’s a whole other ball of wax). Mark Wahlberg is ideally cast as the musclebound meathead whose muddled philosophy of being a “doer” but also “America! Fuck yeah!” leads him to “mastermind” a plot to kidnap a rich client, into which endeavor he brings his even dimmer-bulb friend played by Anthony Mackie, who makes a handy receptacle into which to put a lot of “black men like fat girls” cliches. Sadder still, the charisma and genuine comic chops of Dwayne Johnson, the U.S.’ greatest natural resource, remain largely untapped by Bay, who trusts his actors to act even less than he trusts his audiences to follow what’s going on, and the whole thing becomes simply wearying as it goes on, no matter the day-glo production design and occasional burst of really-quite-nasty violence. Here, Bay’s talent for action, his clear way with cutting around a fistfight and of finding a moment of visual humor within a car crash pointedly contradicts his completely tone-deaf ear for story, dialogue or performance and so “Pain & Gain” provides the most compelling proof yet that the blockbuster director has built a billion-dollar career out of being the greatest second-unit director of all time. [C-]
“Transformers: Age of Extinction” opens Friday. — Jessica Kiang, Drew Taylor, Gabe Toro, Katie Walsh, Mark Zhuravsky, Oli Lyttelton.
