The Beefcake and I jaunted up to The Arclight Saturday night, braving the bazillions of cars and the Transformers display with the gas-guzzling trucks and all the people lined up to give $200 million to Michael Bay, and we confidently stepped up to the ticket counter and ordered our tickets for The Hurt Locker.
And wouldn't you know it? They were sold out.
So we went over to Amoeba and I bought a copy of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie then we went home and watched a marathon of Lockup on MSNBC.
Scott the Reader had a good point. This movie made a shitton of money. Imagine how much it would have made if it had gotten good reviews.
So the big question is, why does a movie that even its fans admit isn't particularly good make so much money?
How is it that Terminator Salvation, which had every bit the explosion quantity and robot destruction of Transformers, didn't do nearly so well?
I'll tell you how. Fun. After reading the plot and the reviews of Transformers, I can tell the story makes no sense. But where McG was all serious and sad, Michael Bay just really loves to blow shit up. He may not be the world's greatest story teller, but his love of cgi violence is evident with every shot in his films, and I do respect him for that at least. And when people think of Transformers they think of toys and a cartoon, and that makes them think of fun.
What bothers me is how many people think it's completely okay for an action movie to have a shit plot. I talked to a girl the other day who said she rolled her eyes a bit and shook her head at some of the more ridiculous plot points, but since she went in with low expectations she ended up thinking it was okay.
Ooooh what an endorsement. Let's throw another $250 million at Michael Bay and see just how mediocre we can get.
Just because a film has explosions in it, does not mean the story gets to suck. Imagine if Bay insisted on a solid story, how incredible would he be? He had the clout and the financing to elevate action films to a whole new level. He could be a truly great director, one who finally makes people realize that action films can be art films too. Explosions can have subtext.
But why should he? We're willing to give money to a movie we know isn't very good just because it has explosions. Why should he bother making a great film?
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