Andrew O’Hehir at Salon.com has written a brilliant review of Michael Bay’s latest blockbuster, Transformers: Dark of the Moon. O’Hehir’s article is the Shakespearean drama of movie reviews – lyrical and inspired, both comedy and tragedy. It is a stunning critique of the cinematic logic of Summer blockbusters. The whole thing should be read, but let me simply quote the opening and closing paragraphs:
O’Hehir opens with:
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” is too much in every direction — too much action, too much plot, too much noise, too much destruction — which is exactly what makes it the Wagnerian fulfillment of the American summer-movie tradition. It’s a great and terrible film, in identical proportions and in all possible meanings of those words.
His last lines say it all; of the movie:
it’s a momentous achievement and it will make untold amounts of money and you should see it even though it’s hateful and empty and preaches the worst kind of reactionary violence without even really meaning it. Bay’s only true ideology is that of spectacle for its own sake, of anxious, self-reinforcing bigness.
Enough said.
