No, no...the inclusion of the above shot from "500 Days of Summer" doesn't mean I thought it was a bad film. But that scene is a nice metaphor for my film experience this year: Expectations not met.
It's almost pointless to make a "worst" list isn't it? I usually don't even bother because I try to avoid the bad ones. But my personal criteria for a bad film is simply wasted potential and disappointment and this year I found an unusual amount of those two things.
Most of the previous year’s best films were provided by giant Hollywood blockbusters. The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Wall-E, Tropic Thunder..... but look how far we have fallen in only a year. This summer’s blockbusters were excruciatingly bad. These films make me want to punch myself in the face. These films are Hollywood’s best case for illegal downloading. All I was looking for this summer was some escapism that didn’t make me feel like an idiot and it was nowhere to be found. Lets start with the worst of the worst:
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen may very well be the worst film in the history of cinema. Sure, there are no-budget amateur films that are worse, but we are talking about a multi-million dollar Hollywood production that was seen by almost everyone. I will admit that my inner eight-year-old was excited about this one and I happily paid $9 for the chance to see it. Unfortunately, this film’s intelligence level is below that of an eight-year-old. It should be entertaining to watch giant robots blow shit up, yet somehow Michael Bay makes it a chore. Bay is responsible for what I see to be the worst trend in modern action movies: quick cutting. No shot lasts more than a few seconds, rendering the action incomprehensible. Combine that with vapid, one-dimensional characters, talentless acting, a story that makes no sense and means nothing and you have a film that combines all of Hollywood’s worst aspects into an incredibly painful two hours.
I have a theory that in about 20 years The Criterion Collection will release a Michael Bay retrospective. His films will be significant in that they started the decline of cinema.
The best praise I can give to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, or Terminator: Salvation is that none of them were as bad as Transformers. I really wish I had something nice to say about them because they are all based on franchises that I loved as a kid. Unlike The Dark Knight they have not grown up with us. I came out of all of these somewhat depressed about not being able to recapture the magic I felt as a child and fearing for the future of a human race that actually enjoys this crap.
I'll have another post soon about some of the trends I saw this year, as well as the annual "best of" list.
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