I just came back from Transformers, and all I have to say is this:
Fuck that shit.
Thanks for taking a perfectly good childhood memory about sci-fi robots that turn into cars and planes and dinosaurs and boomboxes, and mangling it into 2.5 hours of propaganda for the American military-industrial complex, peppered with advertisements for its fledgling auto industry.
Thanks on behalf of Oshawa, Ontario – my hometown and GM Canada headquarters – for so prominently featuring the 2009 model Camaro as “Bumblebee”. Canadian taxpayers thank you as well; you see, it was their $435-million in corporate welfare financial assistance from the Ontario and federal governments that kept the Oshawa plants open so that they could go on producing a revivalist product based on the ‘76 muscle car. Some estimates peg the new Camaro’s fuel efficiency at between 12-16 L/100km in the city (as compared to the 4 L/100km of the 2007 Prius). Oh, and by the way, Bumblebee was a Volkswagen Beetle in the original, but we wouldn’t want to ruin a good ‘ol red-blooded American movie by featuring Hitler’s car now, would we?
Thanks for leaving every single country on Earth (except for the United States) the hell out of the movie. After all, we know that when it comes to the fight between good and evil there’s only one country you can trust to get the job done right.
And after all, this isn’t a movie about robots saving the universe, it’s about how American military saved the robots’ asses in their time of need.
The New York Times puts it best:
The result is part car commercial, part military recruitment ad… The movie waves the flag equally for Detroit and the military, if to no coherent end.
“Transformers”…does offer chewy distraction for the bored viewer: the would-be suicide bomber, American soldiers tearing it up in the Middle East while American cars keep up the fight at home, along with plugs for Burger King, Lockheed Martin, Mountain Dew and the Department of Defense.
Needless to say, I want my $5 back.
