Transformers: Revenge of The Onion

Here's the best one-paragraph summary of Michael Bay's Transformers I've ever come across (while reading the A.V. Club):

Everyone complaining that Michael Bay's 2007 blockbuster Transformers had inappropriate sexual contact with their childhoods is forgetting one thing: The original '80s cartoon had an awful lot of problems too, starting with wildly inconsistent animation and some pretty basic '80s cartoon plots, in which the bad guys engaged in generally harebrained schemes unworthy of titanic alien-robot forces of destruction. That said, Bay's movie should have been a slam-dunk in the "scary robots" department, simply by virtue of introducing giant, homicidal, heavily armed metal men to Earth. Instead, much like Lucas in Phantom Menace, Bay went for goofy designs and goofier behavior. His Autobots and Decepticons look like unassembled, building-sized Erector sets, and their use of already-dated human slang and contemporary references, plus the generally insipid, adolescent tone of the movie, robbed them of all majesty and menace. And hey, more of them are on the way this summer.

It's as if the A.V. Club read my mind. The '80s Transformers cartoon's animation was choppier than whatever the ShamWow guy does to his nuts.

The Palace: Photographed in Single-Panelvision 70, Chapter 6

My snarky movie summaries (Part 2)

Previously: Part 1.

The Hills Have Eyes II
Somebody should feed Larry the Cable Guy to these redneck mutants.


The Host
This popular monster movie from South Korea has a deleted scene in which the mutated sea creature snacks on that Korean-bashing douchebag Rex Reed. Then the monster pukes up his remains because it can't stand the taste of washed-up movie critic.

The Illusionist
Edward Norton stars as a magician who comes to Jessica Biel's rescue. He makes her memories of Stealth disappear.

The Invisible
¿Quien es mas emo? ¿Justin Chatwin de The Invisible o Milo Ventimiglia de Heroes?

Killer of Sheep
You know African American cinema is in trouble when Soul Plane gets better treatment than this long-buried Charles Burnett cult favorite.

Lady in the Water
The much-maligned M. Night Shyamalan based his latest film on a bedtime story he told to his kids. It could have been worse, like Uwe Boll grabbing a pile of his own feces and calling it a movie. Oh wait--that was BloodRayne.

The Lake House
The MPAA has rated it PG for "some language and a disturbing image." A disturbing image of what? Keanu Reeves attempting to emote?

The Last Mimzy
Aliens befriend a couple of kids by giving them toys. Isn't that how Michael Jackson preys on little boys?

Lemming
Another one of those movies where you're left wondering which part of it is a hallucination and which part is real. Unfortunately, those lame car commercials before the feature presentation are not a hallucination.

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
The acclaimed Canadian singer/songwriter is the subject of a new doc. Once upon a time, Cohen's "Hallelujah" wasn't a bad song. Now thanks to repetitive airplay on prime-time drama shows, "Hallelujah" has turned into the depressed white person's "Macarena."

Letters From Iwo Jima
Clint Eastwood depicts Iwo Jima from the Japanese POV in the second of two Iwo Jima movies. A third Iwo Jima movie will be produced by the people behind the Look Who's Talking movies. This time, it'll be told from the POV of babies whose thoughts are voiced by Bruce Willis ("Do tanks tank? Do rifles rifle?").

License to Wed
We always cry at wedding movies that suck.

Lions for Lambs
Meryl Streep, you don't know the history of U.S. military strategy in the Middle East. Tom Cruise does. You're being glib.

Little Miss Sunshine
The Ryan Seacrest story.

Live Free or Die Hard
John McClane has been described more than once as "an analog man in a digital world." Nah, he's more like "an R man neutered by a PG-13 movie."

The Lookout
The title character is a man who suffers from brain damage and amnesia after a traumatic accident. You would want to also if you saw that horrifying White House Correspondents Dinner clip of Karl Rove trying to rap and dance.

Manda Bala
Errol Morris called this documentary about corruption and frog farming in Brazil "powerful," while Vomiting Kermit from Late Night with Conan O'Brien gave it two out of four oatmeal raisiny heaves.

Meet the Robinsons
That dinosaur in the movie complains about having a big head and little arms. Yeah, he does look a little tyrannorexic, like those other creatures with big heads and little arms, the Olsen twins.

Miami Vice
Where the hell is Elvis the alligator? Did he want too much money?

Miss Potter
Renee Zellweger is so squinty-eyed she makes Clint Eastwood look like Astro Boy.

Next: Parts 3 and 4.