Two Movies in One Day

On Tuesday this past week I saw two movies. Because Tuesday is cheap movie day. I saw Transformers 2 in the morning and Funny People at night.

Obviously, these are two very different movies. The biggest difference being that one is actually good.

The fight scenes in this new Transformers are so much better than the first film. It is still not all that easy to tell who is who, but what they are doing to each other is easy to follow and just plain cool looking. These robots know kung fu.

But I don't know how much Michael Bay had to do with these scenes. It doesn't seem like his style. Not enough cuts, the camera is pulled back.

I have a theory about Michael Bay: he is not a very confident director. That explains the quick cuts. Hey look, this is cool, and so is this, and this is too, HEY LOOK OVER HERE AT THIS COOL THING, it goes BOOOOOOOOM. He is not sure what the audience might like, so he shows us everything all the time. No pace, no mood, just BOOM.

Everything boom, everything shiny or sweaty, everything either too fast or slowed down. And when there is something dramatic going on, put that camera low and circle it around whatever it is that is supposed to be dramatic.

And don't get me started on his comedy. Michael Bay has no clue when it comes to comedy, which is sad because he crammed this flick full of his shitty humour. It drips flop sweat. Going back to the confidence theory, he has no faith in the jokes so he has the actors say the lines louder and faster.

And he just shift in and out of comedy. He shifts in and out of everything. Character come and go as the script dictates. Notice that I did not say plot. People show up for no reason, people do stuff counter-intuitive to the plot, or their character or both.

Here is where I spoil the end of the film. There is a big scene between Sam and his parents where he tells his dad that he has to let go. He has to run away and let Sam do what he has to do. Which would be a call back to a scene earlier in the movie, except the earlier scene was played for laugh and it was about the mother having trouble letting go. So the parents flee. They run away. They let Sam go. Sam says the same thing to his hot girlfriend but she sez "nuh-uh" and he sez "okay" and then they run together in slow motion.

Then Sam dies. And his parents are right fucking there for some reason.

Then Sam comes back to life and then some Transformer sacrifices his life to give Optimus Prime a power-up. Optimus Prime kills the bad guys and then just shrugs off the power-up/fallen comrade without a second thought.

To recap: fight scenes good, everything else is absolute shit. And I don't even want to get started on the ghetto-bots.

Funny People is the good film, in case you were wondering. In this film funny people do funny things. And these same funny people are sometimes mean people or selfish people and they do selfish things or mean things.

Which is a nice change from most films. Like Apatow's previous films, this is a messy film. There are plot threads that fall by the wayside, others that go around and around in circles.

It's nice, but also sometimes frustrating. A "Why did they do this, instead of that?" kind of thing. For me, personally, I wanted more behind the scenes stuff. The craft of comedy. It's in there, but I wanted more. Could have done with less of the third act romance. Or have it better integrated into the rest of the film. Having it be it's own distinct chunk, and that chunk being the end of the film was not the best move.

But the funny stuff? Funny. The polar opposite of Transformers. Funny stuff is said off offhandedly, just floated out there into the conversation. Loved that.

Still, there was a good half hour of fat that could be trimmed from the running time. It could be worse, though, Transformers 2 could lose about 2 hours, easy.

Just one more thing. People who defend Transformers 2 with the old "What did you expect, it's based on a bunch of toys?" are stupid. Indiana Jones was based on Saturday morning serials. It doesn't matter that the Transformers films are basically commercials for the toys. All films are commercials: for themselves, for their DVDs, for the awards season. Just put some care into your work, some thought, some fucking craft. Don't hide behind bullshit excuses.