Posted on 06/29/2009 4:15:13 PM PDT by Artemis Webb
LOS ANGELES - After just five days, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is halfway to $400 million domestically, a box-office milestone only eight other movies have reached. If it climbs that high, the "Transformers" sequel will be by far the worst-reviewed movie ever to make the $400 million club.
Critics and mainstream crowds often disagree, but "Revenge of the Fallen" sets a new standard for the gulf between what reviewers and mass audiences like.
The movie pulled in $201.2 million since opening Wednesday, the second-best result for a movie in its first five days, just behind "The Dark Knight" with $203.8 million. Even after its whopping $60.6 million opening day, "Revenge of the Fallen" was packing theaters, a sign that unlike critics, who mostly hated the movie, audiences felt they were getting their money's worth and were giving the flick good word of mouth.
Critics "forget what the goal of the movie was. The goal of the movie is to entertain and have fun," said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount...
(snip)
Most of Hollywood's all-time biggest hits are accompanied by either good or at least passable reviews, and some can be among the year's most-acclaimed, such as this year's "Up" and "Star Trek" and last year's "The Dark Knight," "WALL-E" and "Iron Man."
Not so for the new "Transformers." On Rottentomatoes.com , a Web site that compiles critics' opinions, the sequel had only 38 positive reviews out of 187, a lowly 20 percent rating usually reserved for box-office duds.
The critical drubbing was a new low for "Transformers" director Michael Bay, never a favorite among professional movie reviewers. But he has long been a favorite among fans, scoring hits with the first "Transformers" and such flicks as "Armageddon," "Pearl Harbor," "Bad Boys II" and "The Rock."
(Excerpt) Read more at movies.yahoo.com ...
“Armageddon” is a great movie if you aren’t going in looking for high science fiction ala “2001”. As far as TF2, I think a lot of people just have it in for Bay. It’s giant robots fighting and American flag waving. It does that very well. I don’t understand why people are angry that it’s not Casablanca.
Saw it with my kids
They loved it
I thought it was designed to induce siezures. CGI on top of CGI-bouncing camera angles, flash from one thing to the other.
And toooooo damn long. They could have cut an hour off it and not lost anything.
It’s exactly what I expected. And everyone enjoyed it.
I think that the reason the critics were so hard on it is because they refer to Obama’s orders and they blatantly ignore them and continue to fight!
I really didn’t care for the 1st one. This is not my thing. However, I am going to see #2 tonight and will buy it. My son is in the Marine Corps and is driving one of the USMC Amphibious Assault Vehicle drivers!
They filmed him driving it last summer. I have been waiting for the past year for this to come out,and hoping that they didn’t cut his part out. My daughter saw it and said the scene is toward the end of the movie. It’s a mom thing, you see. LOL!
Supposedly Obama’s national security advisor in the film is depicted as a weasal and Obama is portrayed, lightly, as an appeaser. Wonder why the reviewers tried to pan it?
The article is right about the gulf between reviewer and movie-goer, though. I remember when Star Wars came out. The reviewer, obviously not a teenage boy, nor someone who could even identify with them (a mid-20's or even early 30's female!), panned the movie as only something passable to drop the kids off at the mall cinaplex while Mom shopped.
> I think that the reason the critics were so hard on it is because they refer to Obama’s orders and they blatantly ignore them and continue to fight!<
LOL! That sums it up. I agree with the other poster that this is NOT Casablanca nor Citizen Kane. This is a summer popcorn movie for everyone to enjoy.
Regarding Rotten Tomatoes, they’re mostly a bunch of libs who think they’re critics but imbeciles nonetheless. Check out their comments and I get the impression they’re still living in their Mom;s basements.
Armageddon????...Great
check your brains at the door and enjoy.
ya know one doesn’t have to get all serious and cerebral to be entertained by a movie....and a lot of time it just gets in the way.
The reason Transformers is a hit even though it has terrible reviews is because nobody gives a damn about the Tranformers franchise. A poorly reviewed Terminator movie will not do well, because people are offended. A poorly reviewed Transformers movie is just confirmation that the film is good, mindless, blow-em-up fun.
The only way Tranformers could bomb is if they go “Beyond the Thunderdome” and try to pretend to be something they are not.
They definitely portrayed Obama as an appeaser. The good guys won by disobeying orders to go back to their base.
Dang! Look all, when teenage boys in my Sunday school class pan it (and they did)— I know it stinks.
Loved the first TF. The second was a lot of fun, but not as good as the first.
And it does imply Obama wanting to deal with the Decepticons using diplomacy.
I didn’t see it but my son helped with it.Portions were shot in Philly and he was there in case anything went wrong.So that was cool.:)
I saw it yesterday and it was a great popcorn flick. It does not aspire to be nothing more. The critics don’t like it because it does not feature gay Transformers eating pudding during the Holocaust.
Actually, the sequel was closer to the original cartoon in the sense that Prime kicked butt all over the place and Megatron was kicking Starscream’s butt all over the place. The chick who plays the Pretender is hotter than Meagan Fox too.
True, and yet it still was the best of the six!
Obama is portrayed as an appeaser in the film. I could hear people laughing in the audience when the “diplomatic” solution was brought up. Someone of an urban persuasion yelled, “You can’t no deal with no Decepticons!”
Now with a movie a movie like “Transformers” the plot is basically giant fighting robots. If a person cannot suspend disbelief in order to enjoy it's probably best that they stay home.
Suspension of disbelieve though is dependent on the story itself. If I were to see “Superman” about a flying-superhero then everything is okay. I go into the theater knowing the movie is about a flying superhero. But let's say the movie I'm seeing is a James Bond movie and suddenly Bond is able to fly faster than a speeding bullet and leap tall buildings with a single bound. At that point my ability to suspend disbelief is shattered and I can no longer enjoy the movie as I'm stuck in “wtf mode”.
When I saw “Armageddon” and a space shuttle maneuvering like a jet fighter through an asteroid field, then trying to land on a moving asteroid covered with stalagmites I might just as well have been seeing James Bond using his X-Ray vision and superhuman strength to defeat the bad guys.
I remember seeing Prizzi's Honor in 1985. It got critical raves and I spent most of the movie counting ceiling panels and praying for a power outage. Still for the most part I tend to go more with professional critics than I do the public at large. I guess I'm a bit of a movie snob but I am what I am.
I’m not a fan of Bay (I want to kick him in the kneecaps for Pearl Harbor) but I don’t mind the Transformers films. I look at it the same way I looked at Independence Day: it’s corny, even a little schlocky, but it’s entertaining all the same.
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