While I was staying at Vero's place outside Claira, one of the things that struck me was how much the surroundings reminded me of my hometown in northern Colorado.
Not the hotel itself, my you. Rather it was the flat plain near the sea around Perpignan that leads westward to the mountains. When the sun was setting, the Pyrenees would turn deep blue, and against the backdrop of the flat countryside, it looked exactly like the Front Range looming above the valley of Poudre.
The difference of course was readily visible when I walked the twenty minutes or so along the one-lane road towards the Carrefour Centre, where the Mega CGR cineplex stands. Instead of cattle ranches or wheat fields, there are acres upon acres of vineyards---very un-Colorado.
Still I couldn't help being reminded so strongly of being back in Fort Collins when I walked to the movies. I reminded me of walking along the dirt paths from my parents place to the nearby multiplex. The Carrefour Centre in Claira was very American in this respect: it was right off a highway exit, and full of big box retailers. In addition to fast food outlets and family dining chains, there seemed to be a French version of every single American big box---a French Lowe's, a French Home Depot, a French Best Buy, a French T.J.Maxx, a French Sports Authority, a French Toys R Us, etc., right on down to the Carrefour itself, which is the French Wal-Mart.
It highlighted to me how strongly European and American cultures have converged over the last couple decades, especially compared to my first visit to France in the 1980s. Back then there was hardly any French television to speak of. Now Vero's two youngest sons, ages ten and fourteen, watch WWE wrestling on French satellite tv, dubbed into French.
They were very excited when I told them I was going to see Transformers 2 la revanche (the revenge). The movie premiered on the same day as in the States, and their was a lot of hoopla. The Mega CGR had a special event on the release day. It was truly a worldwide phenomenon.
By the time I saw it, a couple days after the release, the word had gotten out about how terrible a movie it was. Still I was determined to give it a chance. I thought the first one was decent enough, although highly fascist in its endorsement of the War on Terror.
How bad could it be really?
Well, I could tell you, but you probably already know by now. It's not worth going into great detail about it, so I will try to encapsulate it this way: about two hours into the movie, I found myself seriously wondering whether or not it was time to abandon this entire quest, and to give up watching new Hollywood movies forever.
I'm not exaggerating here. It was all I could do not to walk out and save myself. In a perverse way, I was glad I stayed, just so I could see how bad it got at the end.
Mind you, I didn't even have to suffer through the ghetto accents of the two "African-American" robots, because I was watching the dubbed French version.
I was certainly offended from nearly the start, with the explicit endorsement of the War on Terror that made the first movie look tame by comparison. The USA is evidently nowcompletely fused into the British Empire, among other things.
Moreover, the story was not easy to follow in French. Compare this to Drag Me to Hell, where I could follow it very well by images and the parts of the dialogue I could understand. Transformers 2 la revanche didn't pass that paticular test, storywise.
I think it was near the mid-point of the movie when I started to get nauseated. It was during the scene in the library. I've written before about the Law of Library Destruction, which states that in contemporary cinema, anytime a library appears in a movie, it must be desecrated, and either partially or totally destroyed. Leave it to Michael Bay to produce perhaps the best and most thorough library desecration to date.
But, oh my, that was only the beginning. Only the wee beginning...
Parallel to the barbaric Law of Library Destruction is the Law of Destruction of Archaeological Ruins, which states, not surprisingly that anytime archaeological ruins appear in a movie, they must be either partially or totally destroyed. This destruction is usually accomplished not by the bad guys, but by the good guys, as part of the fulfillment of the quest of the movie. There is usually no remorse at all about such actions in the story, which are presented as the necessary consequences of whatever goal they were pursuing.
Towards the beginning of the third act, when the good charactes show up at an archaeological ruins in Egypt, I knew there had to be some of this. When Shia LaBouef (the hero) wantonly smashes open a panel in an ancient temple, I thought, well the Law is fulfilled.
But, oh my. I had no idea what was about to happen.
What followed was the climactic fight scene between the good robots and the bad robots. At one point, one of the good robots (of course) smashes against the Great Pyramid, sending some of the stones cascading down its side. That's not very nice, I thought. Bay just had one of his charactes desecrate the oldest and most well-known human monument on Earth.
How naive I was. I should have seen it coming. I quaintly thought that this was the destruction that fulfilled the law. Nope. In the last few minutes of the movie, we get to see one of the good robots rip the entire top of the Great Pyramid into smithereens.
Perhaps I could rate J.J. Abrams' annihilation of the entire plante Vulcan higher on the scale of cultural barbarism, but the Star Trek world is fictional. The pyramids are actually real. On that scale, I never seen anything like the rapacious climax of Bay's movie. My jaw was hanging open by the end.
Of course none of the characters express any remorse or regret. They might as well have been tearing down a nondescript barn. It was just "what had to be done" to satsify a story full of plot holes (some bullshit thing having to do with the sun---who the fuck cares). It was all done basically as a backdrop for seeing the slow-motion bouncing of the sacred tits of Megan Fox, the most perfect ghastly, undesirable, cold, sterile Postmodern actress yet to appear on screen.
There were about twenty people in the audience that afternoon, and when the credits finally rolled, I couldn't help actually flipping off the movie screen. I felt like hunting down Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg (the executive producer) and beating the shit out of them.
Although I relented from my impulse to stop going to movies forever, I decided right then and there to inaugurate a new rule, called the Michael Bay Exception. I will never pay to see one of his movies again in a theater---ever.
The worst part is that Michael Bay is exactly my age---forty-four years old. He's now the most succesful Hollywood director in my cohort. Put him alongside Sarah Palin (also my exact age), and you pretty much have to arrive at the conclusion that those of us born in 1964 may well represent the nadir of western civilization. I shudder to think that it could get any worse. God help us if it does.
The perversity that the movie is going to shatter box office records is a horrible, horrible sign for the future of Hollywood. I would say this reflects how much America has fallen, but the movie is a huge hit around the world, including it France. Vero's two young sons were very eager to hear my report. Even though I told them that it was like eating a "merde" sandwich for two and half hourse, I'm sure they will wind up seeing it, at least once.
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