At the Movies With Peter Travers: “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “The Hurt Locker”
In this week’s At The Movies, it is Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers’ honor to review what he calls the potential Worst Movie of the Decade, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Somehow, director Michael Bay miraculously took his already-awful Transformers film and made a sequel that is worse, clocking in at a punishing two-and-a-half hours where moviegoers are subjected to metal just crashing into each other (and Megan Fox looking like Megan Fox, the film’s lone redeeming factor).
Still, despite how bad it is the blockbuster will likely make hundreds of millions at the box office. “I know it’s popular, so is junk food, it still rots your brain,” Travers says. In fact, going into your attic, excavating your old Transformers toys and playing with them for two-and-a-half hours would likely be a more rewarding intellectual experience. In other of Bay’s dud, Travers’ is transforming his Scum Bucket into the Transformers Scum Bucket, the measuring stick of terrible movie-making that all bad films must aspire to.
Fortunately, for your brain cells at least, there is one fantastic alternative in theaters this week, and it’s called The Hurt Locker.
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Rolling Stone contributor Mark Boal, the film tells the story of a bomb disposal unit during the Iraq War. It’s a film made by an artist and touched by human hands,” Travers says. Plus, for the Transformers fans, there are explosions. This ticking-bomb thriller will make you sweat and make you feel.
Read this week’s reviews: