I should never ever look at the comments people post on Rotten Tomatoes, but sometimes I simply cannot help myself. Here’s a delicious sampling of what RTers are saying in response to my review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen… or, more likely, in response to the tiny excerpt from my review that appears at RT, which is:
[L]ike the most totally awesome artifact ever of the end of the American empire… loud, obnoxious, sexist, racist, juvenile, unthinking, visceral, and violent… and in love with ourselves for it. [More]
The most awesome feedback so far:
Leave it to a douchey movie critic to use Transformers to make an idiotic political statement.
You, my dear, are the epitome of high horse riding trash…. You, madam, are a complete idiot. I can’t believe that I even gave you the benefit of a stupid comment on rotten tomatoes.
Its amazing how all of these bad reviews come from people who are too old to be even reviewing movies, the target audience was for people in their 20’s who were fans of the original show. Not crusty old hags who shouldn’t be reviewing movies anyway.
I don’t mind being called names. I actually find it hilarious that anyone thinks name-calling is constructive feedback. What really rankles me is the thought that so few people seem to understand that it’s Michael Bay who is using Transformers to make political statements, even if he doesn’t realize it or it’s accidental, or that even a movie aimed at children and meant to be “mere” entertainment certainly reflects the larger society.
I wish I found it funnier that these commenters clearly do not realize that they are confirming, at least, my characterization of us as obnoxious, juvenile, sexist, and unthinking.
A crusty old hag who shouldn’t be reviewing movies anyway! That needs to be up in your little gray bar at the top of the site. :)
Well to be fair, you posted your review on the internet where anyone could read it. It was inevitable that you would get pilloried by screaming fanboys, even if your review was spot on in every single way.
This film is worse than most Uwe Boll films. It’s reminds me of Battlefield Earth.
Look on the bright side, at least he (Michael Bay) isn’t trying to make ‘historically accurate’ films anymore. I don’t think I could have watched another Pearl Harbor without throwing myself off the Leaning Tower if Pisa due to the shame of being the same species as Michael Bay.
I thought the review was spot on. Kudos to you, hag or not.
As a fan of the original G1 show, Beast Wars/Machines and the recent Animated series, I found both Transformers movies to be horrible. These movies were not made for the fans.
MaryAnn–who is at least eight years younger than me–is considered too old to have a decent opinion on movies.
Please excuse me while I go pound my forehead on the desk for a while….
Mary Ann…how the devil does this guy know how old you are? If anything this movie was made for GenXers that watched this in the mid-80s. And I hate to break it to him but people in their 20s weren’t old enough to watch the original series. Some of them wouldn’t have been born when the cartoon movie came out.
Gosh, I’m so envious! Apparently that one commenter is going to stay young forever! Wow, he really must be smarter than the rest of us to have that little trick figured out, and therefore his opinion matters more than those of us who are – gasp! – aging.
All I gotta say, little man, is: tick tock.
How dare you, MaryAnn, how dare you express your opinion?!
;)
As a guy in his mid-20s who was a fan of the original series, along with G.I. Joe which also has an upcoming live action movie, I don’t get it. I have no interest in seeing something just because I was a fan as a kid. I liked Sesame Street a whole lot, but I’m not waiting for that movie. I’m not going to puree my dinner tonight because I once ate baby food every day. If Transformers 2 seemed like a good movie, I’d see it. But nostalgia alone is a poor reason for making/seeing a POS film.
For what it’s worth, the review also has fans. It was quoted yesterday in a Movieline post called “The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” Your review was # 2 on the list.
Revenge of missing the point on an epic scale.
Perhaps, Sir Michael, but this is much funnier than the usual examples of screaming fanboyism. This response is similar to the case of the infamous cartoons about Muhammad from several years back. The fanatics in that instance went a bit beyond the “fanboy” descriptor, but the parallel element of clueless self-refuting tactics remains the same.
Cartoon incident: “Your cartoons unfairly imply that Muslims are violent, and to prove you wrong, we’re now going to chant that you must be killed!”
Current incident: “Your review unfairly calls this movie loud, crass, sexist, and insulting; and to prove you wrong, now we’ll try to shout you down with crass and sexist insults!”
The one bright spot is that this idiocy over the review has far fewer threats of direct violence than that idiocy over the cartoons.
“What really rankles me is the thought that so few people seem to understand that it’s Michael Bay who is using Transformers to make political statements, even if he doesn’t realize it or it’s accidental”
you didn’t undertand that until the sequel
I gotta admit MaryAnn, Doa’s got a point.
All the things you find offensive about this film is apparent in the 2007 film too. You know, the one you recommended as brainless entertainment?
Yeah, I have to agree with the last two comments. I found the original to be incredibly racist and sexist–i haven’t seen it in a while, but I remember Spanish speaking guys being yelled at to “speak English or shut up,” and then Jazz, the gang-sign throwing Transformer, who I believe was the only Autobot to die in that film. Megan Fox’s body received the same leering, creepy attention from Bay’s lens–and her character was underage and in high school, if I remember correctly.
What is below is truly a great block of prose. It shows a depth of understanding of modern America that I rarely see printed anywhere.
Crusty old hag? What are you, 37?
I haven’t researched the issue, but I’m pretty sure that MaryAnn’s younger than Michael Bay, too. So this idea that MaryAnn’s too old to ‘get’ it, but Michael Bay’s not old enough to make it? Not making sense.
Whoops, that should be “…not too old to make it”. Point remains the same.
MaryAnn’s 39 and Bay’s 45.
Hardly a case of conflicting generational tastes.
Most online comments threads are worth the paper they’re printed on. I’m always impressed that things here remain sane for the most part; any female writing regularly online sooner or later runs into one or two of the absolutely rabid type who see a female face and can’t stop ranting — and usually in a weirdly pompous tone a la comment #2. “My dear” indeed. Gah.
Though you haven’t explained, MaryAnn, why you’d first put yourself through Transformers Deux and then up the pain level with a trip the RT comments thread. Glutton for punishment much this week?
Clearly, the proper response to being called “obnoxious, sexist, juvenile, unthinking, visceral, and violent” is to refer to call the writer a stupid bitch and crusty old hag. It unequivocally disproves all of the allegations being leveled.
The bigger question, obviously, is why does MAJ hate America? Why does she make little blonde babies cry with her interweb? Why does she despise our freedom?
Are you kidding? First, my traffic has been through the roof on that review. Second, I knew it would either be fun to rip the film, or fun to discover that here was another Bay film I didn’t want to rip.
I don’t just want to see movies I think I’m going to like. I want to see as many movies as I can — particularly the ones that are going to be popular — and figure out what that popularity says about us. My entire reason for being here as a critic is connected to movies like *Transformers,* whether I end up liking them or not.
But Bay is a boy, and therefore normal. I am a girl, and therefore suspicious and weird.