Lenny Vs. A Masterpiece

So, I was watching something I had recorded about two weeks ago, skipping through commercials as usual, until something caught my eye. Apparently there’s been a new (at least as of two weeks ago) Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen TV spot airing here in Los Angeles. It’s of your typical “#1 Movie in America” blah blah blah variety, where they include key buzzword quotes extracted from various reviews.

Now remember, we’re talking Transformers 2 here.

First quote - “Astonishing”. Fine, whatever I guess.

Next quote - “Thrilling”. Um, okay.

Third and final quote - “A Masterpiece”.

Yeah, “a masterpiece”. You don’t believe me do you? I didn’t think you would. I wouldn’t have believed me either. That’s why I took this:

See! I told you I wasn’t bullshitting. And I pinky swear that I didn’t Photoshop it.

Let me get this out of the way right now, I’m no Bay basher. I actually like and own many of his movies. But Revenge of the Fallen, while possibly his biggest endeavor, was by no means his greatest. Or great. Or even good.

So when I saw that – “a masterpiece” – I thought for sure it was a work of trickery at the hands of some weasely marketing exec.

I knew, without a doubt, that they must have spliced out the two words (“of shit”) that “a masterpiece” proceeded.

Go ahead, take a moment to put it together.

Yep, there it is.

Who the fuck would call it a masterpiece?!

I had to know where they got this quote from…wait, Cinematical? No, that can’t be right. I read Cinematical. Often. They’ve got good stuff on their site.

Well then maybe it was another case of a fake critic, like what happened with The Animal (Google it). Todd Gilchrist though? I know that name. I recognize it from the site. He’s a real person as far as I know.

I had to see this review for myself, so I headed over to Cinematical.com, typed “Transformers” in the search box and hit enter.

First result - “Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”.

Click.

By Todd Gilchrist.

Bingo!

Ctrl F

m-a-s-t-e-r-p-i-e-c-e

And there it was right there. Towards the end of the second paragraph. “…(A)ction masterpiece…” I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was no “of shit” following it.

What the hell? Was this guy for real? So then I read that second paragraph.

“Michael Bay, condensing the cumulative total of the spectacle from all of his seven previous films into one unwieldy, gargantuan opus, has exceeded even the possibilities of sequel-driven "moreness," combining his own muscular, high-gloss sensibility with the conventions of blockbusters past, present, and probably future to create a monolithic action masterpiece that feels destined to be the biggest movie of all time.”

Hold on, he just called the thing “unwieldy” in the same breath as “masterpiece”. And yet the “masterpiece” remark is written without an inkling of sarcasm. Great! Now I gotta read the whole thing.

…And done!

Okay, so I think I know what happened, but more on that later.

Having now read the review, it’s plainly obvious that Todd doesn’t believe this movie to be a masterpiece, at least not in the traditional sense, but instead he considers it to be…

“…exhilarating, idiotic escapism.”

I fully concur, save for the “exhilarating” part.

He goes on to admit that,

“(e)ven for a sequel, there seems to be precious little originality in any of the film's ideas, relationships, characterizations, or plot developments.”

Amen to that brother!

“…much of the film still feels like an assault on the senses…”

Well actually, only five of the six get assaulted. Yes, there’s a sixth sense, and no it’s got nothing to do with ghosts. The real sixth sense, in my opinion is the most sacred. It is the Common sense and it can’t get assaulted, because if you watched Transformers, then you obviously don’t possess it.

“…it's important to note that these are only shortcomings if you're going into Revenge of the Fallen expecting something other than a movie about Transformers.”

No no, not entirely true. While yes, we expect escapism, preferably non-idiotic, and sensory assault from a movie about giant robots, we can still at least hope for a smidgen of originality, or you know, at least a decipherable fight scene that wasn’t cut to keep the attention of a kid whose Ritalin ran out.

Todd takes his craft seriously, not like some people I know (ahem*Lenny*ahem), providing details of the convoluted mess they were passing off as a plot, and even thoughtfully commenting on the cinematography. In fact, not only does “of shit” not appear after “masterpiece”, “shit” is absent from the entirety of his review.

That praise notwithstanding, “masterpiece” was an egregious choice of words.

Here’s what I think happened (told you I’d come back to it)…I think Todd meant that it was not a masterpiece as in being a masterful film, but rather he limited the term strictly to the film’s grandiosity (a word I chose quite deliberately as I most certainly didn’t mean to say “grandness”).

And with that meaning behind it, I wholeheartedly agree – Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, is, without question, a masterpiece of a spectacle. (Don’t tell nobody I told you, but the real reason Michael Bay made this movie was so that he could check another item off his To Do List by destroying a Pyramid.)

But because Todd failed to expressly state to his readership the limits of the word’s usage, and also because most marketing exec’s aren’t as thorough as yours truly, they took (my belief of) the meaning of the phrase, in letter only, rather than in the spirit with which it was intended.

Personally, I would have chosen “idiotic escapism” or “precious little originality” for the ads. I mean it did work for Gossip Girl, but that’s just me.

- Lenny

*Can you believe it? An entire discussion about Transformers without a single mention of Megan Fox?