Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Only Grows More Absurd With Every Passing Day

I’ll never in a million, bajillion years make an argument claiming that what Michael Bay does behind a movie camera can be called art; I’ll leave that to Criterion.  I will, however, always been willing to make the argument for Michael Bay as the Grand Poobah of Blowing Shit Up.  Plot frequently takes the back seat to absurdly choreographed, incoherently edited action sequences.  Of his oeuvre, Transformers is indubitably his masterpiece of exploding batshit insanity.  Any movie that involves giant robots blowing things up, screaming their names whenever possible, and peeing on John Turturro doesn’t even care to masquerade as a coherent narrative operating in a world governed by logical thought; it just wants to be the best at being awesome.  Mission accomplished, Mr. Bay.  

Now we have Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen heading to theaters this summer, and even the trailer shows off that Michael Bay obviously directed this movie in the most finely tailored pair of haute couture crazy pants that the world has to offer:

The distinct lack of any suggestion of a plot beyond robots fighting each other makes me think this is an extended teaser trailer, and the fact that Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox even speak dialogue in this thing just seems distracting and counterproductive to the goal of showing shit blow up.  There’ll be a (paper-thin) plot in this movie, but right now we’re just getting our appetites whet.  Of course, this trailer could also be indicative of the amount of plot the movie will feature; after all, do we really need narrative justification to put some totally ridiculous robot-on-robot fighting on screen?  Hell no, audience!  What do you do Michael Bay is?  French???

The latest news only further confirms that plot is likely not high on the agenda.

Given that Variety recently reported that there’ll be 60 robot characters to be featured in the film, there might not even be any time for plot.  I’m not complaining, just simply stating the obvious.  Two full hours of robots battling each other would be no more incoherent than the first movie, which had so many human characters with intersecting narratives that, were it not for the massive explosions and imbecilic story, you would’ve thought you were watching a Robert Altman movie.

But what will all of these robots do, y’all?  According to Variety, apparently lots of things:  

What’s more, this time the Transformers will interact much more with the world around them. Farrar highlights “the splashes and the hits and the fighting on dirt or moving, banging into trees,” explaining, “Things splinter and break, they spit, they outgas, they sweat, they snort.”

Well thank goodness for their versatility.  I’m particularly excited that Michael Bays robots will now be doing a bevy of biological processes traditionally associated with being an organism.  Because that’s not completely absurd when you’re talking about robots.  

Still, I shouldn’t complain.  Instead, I’ll cross my fingers that if they have snorting robots, one of these robots will be modeled after Lindsay Lohan.  The Lohanbot will be powered by Red Bull and, despite being constantly followed by cameras, do absolutely nothing of importance or relevance.  That would be the best.

Thanks to Ain’t It Cool News for picking up on the Variety story.