On the surface, it seems like the perfect action-packed double feature: the summer blockbusters--both based on Hasbro toy lines GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra and the second Transformers movie, Revenge of the Fallen. In actual viewing? Well...not so much.
Let's start with GI Joe, which is a nonsensical, bloated piece of crap. They at least went for a little star power on this, including Dennis Quaid as the Joe's leader, the jug-eared and mumbling Channing Tatum as the lead Joe, one of the Wayans Brothers (they're pretty much all interchangeable), Joseph Gordon-Levitt, clearly slumming for a paycheck from his recent run of indie flicks, and Sienna Miller as the evil Baroness Sarah Palin (pictured at left). The action is non-stop, relentless and never-ending. Seriously: This film is so action-filled, you want to just take a break and go read on the toilet for 15 minutes or so. Just don't take the DVD with you to flush when finished.
There is some kind of plot about a set of bombs that once detonated use nanobots to eat everything they touch. The best scene is when they destroy the Eiffel Tower. That's pretty much the only best scene. Oh, and you might want to turn on the subtitles to try and understand what Channing Tatum is saying most of the time. His mumbling, slurry diction proves he was better off as a male stripper.
If GI Joe is bloated, the second Transformers movie is that big fat guy from the Monty Python movie, The Meaning of Life, who eats until he bursts. Clocking in at 2 hours and 27 minutes ROTF (wait...where those initials intentional? Revenge Of The Fallen? Rolling On The Floor? Is that what Michael Bay is doing, except in piles and piles of money?) is the true epitome of "Action Porn," a term I'm sure I'm not clever enough to have coined (but I'll take credit for, thank you very much). I'm so glad I didn't watch this in Blu-ray, because the screen is so busy most of the time, I think my eyeballs would have exploded. That and the sad, horrible objectification of that young, talented actress Megan Fox, who is subjected to long lingering camera shots while she airbrushes a motorcycle in skin-tight cut-offs. (Fox, not the motorcycle.) One day, Ms. Fox will win an Oscar for an adaptation of Shakespeare, no doubt, even if it is performed in skin-tight cut-offs. (Fox, not Shakespeare.) But I digress...although I can't seem to remember what from...
Oh, yeah! So these giant robots are so busy and filled with doohickeys and moving parts and stuff that in Blu-Ray I think my TV set would overheat and start smoking. And then there's the part where suddenly Shia LeBeouf has his hand all bandaged up. No explanation (unless I was looking at Ms. Fox's skin-tight jeans), just the price he paid for rolling his truck during shooting (albeit off the set). He may have been hoping for a coma, at least until shooting ended.
For your own protection, I strongly urge you to NOT watch these two films on the same day. I didn't, and I'm thankful for that one small bit of simple common sense on my part. Otherwise my head would have exploded, and I hate when that happens.
In the immortal words of the (not late at all) Jack Bauer: "dammit!!"
Posted by: Shell | November 12, 2009 at 06:51 AM
No, Shel...that's "disaster porn," a genre director Roland Emmerich has all to himself.
Posted by: Gary | November 11, 2009 at 09:39 AM
Apparently the new movie 2012 is action porn to the nth degree.
Posted by: Shell | November 11, 2009 at 04:25 AM