Curtmiester:

Wow. So now your backing down after you just got a few pieces of opinions that disagree with you?

Nope, he's backing down because he's realised that you can't create discussion when the discussion in point is what he believes is someone elses flawed arguement, discussing a flaw in a book would create discussion. Pointing out a flaw in a rant creates a dead end, its like argueing over the internet.

CMon:

odubya23:
*snippets*

I love how you just made a four-paragraph post about robot-testicles.

On a more serious note, yes, maybe that was a pretty tasteless move. As where the leg humping scene by Wheelie or whatever his name was. (Dogs humping legs are hardly funny, intelligent creatures less funny.)

Never be afraid to expound at length about something you believe in, I always say. You're telling me Wheelie humps someones leg? Gah! Now I know I'm right. And MovieBob was right, too.

odubya23:
Never be afraid to expound at length about something you believe in, I always say. You're telling me Wheelie humps someones leg? Gah! Now I know I'm right. And MovieBob was right, too.

There's also a scene where the Twins drive around in a combined ice cream truck hybrid, yelling for a hidden decepticon to come out and "suck on their cones".

mjhhiv:
Your opinion of Transformers 2 is fine, loads of people like it. You've failed to realize that most self-respecting critics have lambasted Transformers as horrible. MovieBob's was just one of the MANY negative reviews of the movie. You're in the minority here. Not MovieBob. Basically, just get over it.

Two words : Blair Witch. Respected critics gave that movie great reviews. Was it good? Did it make sense? Was there even a plot? That's what I thought. Don't use the respected critics argument; critics are bought and paid for pal.

soulsabr:

Two words : Blair Witch. Respected critics gave that movie great reviews. Was it good? Did it make sense? Was there even a plot? That's what I thought. Don't use the respected critics argument; critics are bought and paid for pal.

Is Blair Witch a good example of the corruptibility of critics, considering its apparently minuscule budget?

I agree with OP. Unless I'm wrong, MovieBob is a film reviewere/critic. What he did however was not a review, but a bashing of the guy who made the movie. If he had said from the start "This is not a review, I just wanna bitch and moan for five minutes" The it would have been alright, but he didn't. This means he threw away his professionalism and thus his credibility.

I think most of the people giving negative feedback to the OP are missing the point that he presents.

Edit: I saw the movie, and whenever anyone asks wether it's good I tell them that it is a bad movie, and it is, but it's still entertaining. But when people ask why I don't say that it's because Michael Bay did it, I'll tell them what it was that made it a bad movie instead. Which is what MovieBob failed to do in his review.

I agree with everything you said. I really liked Transformers 2 (except the story) and I am never watching/reading anything by MovieBob again.

soulsabr:

mjhhiv:
Your opinion of Transformers 2 is fine, loads of people like it. You've failed to realize that most self-respecting critics have lambasted Transformers as horrible. MovieBob's was just one of the MANY negative reviews of the movie. You're in the minority here. Not MovieBob. Basically, just get over it.

Two words : Blair Witch. Respected critics gave that movie great reviews. Was it good? Did it make sense? Was there even a plot? That's what I thought. Don't use the respected critics argument; critics are bought and paid for pal.

Not the point. I guess critics are also paid to give negative reviews movies? It couldn't be that Transformers 2 is bad? Obviously critics get it wrong; their opinions don't always match up with the public. Frankly, I don't know many people (forget critics) who enjoyed Transformers 2.

And I don't think Blair Witch isn't the best example, anyways. Some critics gave it favorable reviews, others said what you did. Some regular viewers liked it (like me), some didn't. It was a black and white thing. It's not like everyone gave it a great review.

The thing we are all forgetting is: we all have our own opinions. It doesn't matter what I say, you say, or MovieBob says. If you like the movie, great. It just seemed unjust that MovieBob should be labeled a bad critic because you disagree with his opinion.

MBFCPresident:
I agree with everything you said. I really liked Transformers 2 (except the story) and I am never watching/reading anything by MovieBob again.

I find that funny considering that your name is MBFCPresident, as in Micheal Bay Fan Club President. Your avatar is Micheal Bay, for christs sake. If you hadn't joined over a month ago, I would swear you created that account as a joke for this thread.

I feel that Moviebob had a point. The movie was Transformers in name only. If it had been called Invasion of the Ninja-bots (with Optimus renamed to Sir Carsalot and Megatron to Lord Cogface), I don't think people would have a problem with it. It'd still be declared pointless drivel by critics and considered a mediocre action-fest by viewers, but at least it wouldn't drag the beloved Transformers name through the mud to sell a few more tickets.
Did Bay realise what he was doing? Debatable. I don't entirely blame him for doing what he knows. He wasn't the best fit for a Transformers movie, but I think he honestly tried. Plus, with Megan Fox, at least he knew to throw all subtlety out the window. Trying to convince us to treat her like a serious actress would have been stupid.
Did the studios that funded it realise? More than likely. They'd replace all the actors with mask-wearing puppies if they thought they could get a profit out of it.

One word. Opinions.

You see, while many people love Max Payne, I hated it. That's my one negative review so far on the Escapist, and it'll stay that way for a while (negativity is something I struggle at.) I also loved Terminator Salvation, while many others hated it.

Everyone has their opinion, and as such many of them will be different. That is all.

You could have called it uncle beaver's magical space adventures staring Truckity Beatass and it would still have been an hour too long. Hell, my beef with the film is that it didn't have enough robots beating the crap out of each other. I loved the action sequences, Optimus's 3 way fight left me amazed, but the 80 minutes of so in the middle of the movie where they play treasure hunters and so on are boring as sin except for when Jetfire comes into the scene and then it takes a dip again during the army shooting the sunset moments of the desert battle.

I mean, is it really that hard to throw Sam out of the window, put him in minor character status and tell me a story where the robots are the real main characters? I mean, the autobots are cardboard cutouts (literally, they are in the background throwing a phrase or 2) except for Optimus, a bit of bumblebee and the twins which are plain horrible and whose voice actors should be shot. And please don't use the bullshit argument that I cannot sympathize with a character that isn't human. Disney has made me sympathize with most animals and I sympathized with a frigging toaster once, so it's perfectly doable if your writers aren't mediocre.

As for the review itself, it felt too much like an angry nerd rage rant, doesn't mean I don't agree to an extent, I mean, I had a good time when I wasn't bored thinking why it was so long, but Michale Bay still doesn't know what the hell he's doing with the franchise.

And as an answer to Cmon, well, MovieBob gets paid to do this sort of thing, so as long as he brings people to the site, I think nobody realistically gives a damn.

I liked Death Race...

MovieBob, you know you've truely arrived when someone accuses you of being a jerkass sellout with no credibility. Congradulations!

I'm just going to chip in a few points here and be done with it:

1. Transformers 2 is a $200 million USD catastrophe that I steadfastly refuse to review.

2. Blair Witch Project is remarkable for it's "accidentally unique" cinematography and the fact that it has the highest budget:cost ratio. The only film more successful in those terms before it was Mad Max, and it may still be #1 in that criteria.

3. True, critics are bought and sold on whims. This is why it's necessary to find people who seem to be level headed, reliable, and who appear to criticize as a hobby first and obligation second. Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli spring to mind for me. As does Peter Travers and Richard Corliss.

4. There are universal criticisms of Transformers 2, largely stemming from the absurdly long running time for a movie of its genre.

5. Wall-to-wall action is impossible to effectively sustain. There's no climax in Transformers 2; it starts off juiced up on steroids and pixies sticks and then spends 150 minutes crashing and burning. The "overstayed welcome" phrase leaps to mind.

6. I enjoy senseless action as much as the next guy, but those films are ideal coming in short, neat, cohesive packages, and not pseudo-epic macho dick flailing.

7. Noah Antwiler (The Spoony One) is legendary. I will not tolerate anyone speaking ill of him.

8. Just so this isn't lost, point seven is largely facetious.

EDIT -- Apparently, it took only 5 days for Transformers 2 to regain losses and turn a profit.

CMon:
Being an "official" critic doesn't make you more 'right' than anyone else.

I hate to reply without reading the other 2 and 3/4 pages, but I felt the need to reply to this nagging away at me like a small mexican child.
Film Critics get paid to do what they do because they know what they're talking about a tad more than your average kid who wants to see explosions for two hours.
Until The Escapist are hiring you to review films for them, your opinion matters far less than you'd like to think it does.

TsunamiWombat:
MovieBob, you know you've truely arrived when someone accuses you of being a jerkass sellout with no credibility. Congradulations!

^ This

Just because he prefers the cartoon to a high budget movie doesn't meant it's entirely nostalgia.
It means that they should have invested the money in the cartoons, they would have made heaps!

How could you go see Transformer 2: Revenge of the Fallen directed by Michael Bayhem, sequel to the 2007 ActionexplosionBOOMfest Transformers and actually expect there to be a legitimate story?

On the OP's topic, I do find it to be somewhat legitimate. I would think that a reviewer's job is to try and be as objective as possible, however their opinion is going to be there, and as such it should be accurately supported so it makes sense. I usually like Moviebob's reviews, and think he does this quite well, however it was seriously lacking in his review of Transformers. We all knew that he wasn't going to like it to begin with, and since he called the last Transformers the "worst movie of the century" it was again no surprise that he didn't. yet instead of focusing directly on the film's shortcomings he went into a detailed analysis of why he hates Michael Bay, and how only douchebags could enjoy this movie. He could definitely have done better with this review, which ended up being little more than a rant about how Michael Bay is ruining everything he loved in his childhood.

Just my 2 cents.

Every single other review I have seen agrees with moviebob, are you going pointlessly to attack all of them as well?

I like his reviews, and because of what you have done here I respect him even more.

If this were worth the time i would copy pasta it substituting references to Moviebob to Cmon instead, whilst taking the time to point out that many of the sentences don't make sense, they are called "douchebag movies" not "clueless, evil art-terrorism of extreme viciousness and mass-destruction" (!?!?!?!?) and that some reviews are designed to entertain more than inform.

Transformers 2 was a boring drudge of epic length, featuring needless characters, drawn-out pointless fight scenes, down right stupid humor and robot characters who all looked the same.

The viewing public must have low standards.

MBFCPresident:
I agree with everything you said. I really liked Transformers 2 (except the story) and I am never watching/reading anything by MovieBob again.

How can you like a movie but not like its story? A movie is just an animated book.

*sniff*
Ah... I love the smell of flame wars in the morning..

CMon:
I've never seen the series, never owned an action figure...

This explains why you don't understand MovieBob's hatred of the movie, nor mine.

"If this is a forum where one can't in a humorously satiric and sardonic manner be relieved of your opinion without having truckloads of people like Jingermanoo verbally running you over for it, I'm not sure I should hold it in such high regard anymore."

But...but that's what Moviebob and Yahtzee are doing... And they're much funnier than you...

Stop verbally running all over moviebob for (see your own words)

captain awesome 12:
How could you go see Transformer 2: Revenge of the Fallen directed by Michael Bayhem, sequel to the 2007 ActionexplosionBOOMfest Transformers and actually expect there to be a legitimate story?

Because it's a narrative film, and thus HAS a story, and thus the worth (or lack thereof) of said story has to be taken into account. If this was a non-narrative film, some sort of FX showcase-reel set to music, I'd review it as such. But it's not - it has a story, which is trite, cliche-ridden, full of holes and poorly-executed, and so it has to be taken into account. There ARE films that "make up for" a weak story by being lots of fun or by having personality; see: pretty much anything with Jason Statham, and some would argue that the recent "Star Trek" revamp was in the same boat. "Transformers 2" is not one of those films. It's a badly-made film that only highlights a bad script (one which is hack writers are ALREADY trying to distance themselves from.)

yet instead of focusing directly on the film's shortcomings he went into a detailed analysis of why he hates Michael Bay, and how only douchebags could enjoy this movie. He could definitely have done better with this review, which ended up being little more than a rant about how Michael Bay is ruining everything he loved in his childhood.

As a rule, I don't "defend" my reviews, because for better or worse they have to stand on their own. Even on the web, it's published, it's done, it is whatever it is. But on this point, I'll take the opportunity to at least "elaborate" on some critical-philosophy.

Firstly: Some filmmakers, particularly since the birth of so-called "Auteur Theory" film-scholarship, tend to have a unifying style, series of themes or favorite visual-quirks that continually occur in their work - in my opinion, this makes identifying their occurance and context often a key part of forming a proper regard of their individual films (see: Steven Spielberg's reccuring fixation on troubled or fractured sets of parents and his love of light-shafts stabbing through the darkness.) For good or ill, Bay is that sort of director. He goes back to the same themes and motifs (such as they are) again and again. That, plus the fact that his participation is such a massive part of the promotion ("A FILM BY MICHAEL BAY!!!!") makes trying to place this one individual film into the context of his larger ouvre something of a necessity for a well-rounded critique.

Secondly: As to the prior incarnations of the franchise... well, thats kind of the key word: Franchise. Obviously the final and most important aspect of ANY film or criticism of a film is it's own overall quality; but when you're dealing with something thats an adaptation it's my feeling that one is A.) obligated out of intellectual honesty to disclose one's prior "relationship" to the material if there is any (i.e. if I'm reviewing Spider-Man, I'm probably going to mention or make it otherwise clear that as a child I was memorably obsessive about Spidey) and B.) obligated out of intellectual curiousity to give some mention to what the film has to "say" about the material it's based on.

For example, shouldn't a critic reviewing "The Passion of The Christ" give at least some time to how the film interprets it's rather well-known source? If I'm looking at "Public Enemies" next week, should I not give attention to the 'real' story of John Dillinger versus whatever manner the film elects to present it? Obviously, questions of where this particular film diverges from the original mythos (whatever the hell that even means in this case) or visual motifs are secondary to it's actual quality. But they're relevant questions, even moreso when their answers tie back to the broaders critique (i.e. badly designed robots in a film that otherwise treats them as an afterthought.)

Maet:
I'm just going to chip in a few points here and be done with it:

1. Transformers 2 is a $200 million USD catastrophe that I steadfastly refuse to review.

Well, that's a pity. I enjoy reading your reviews.

3. True, critics are bought and sold on whims. This is why it's necessary to find people who seem to be level headed, reliable, and who appear to criticize as a hobby first and obligation second.

No arguments there. Being unbiased is hard unless you have a certain mindset. Which I think I have.

4. There are universal criticisms of Transformers 2, largely stemming from the absurdly long running time for a movie of its genre.

I wonder why all the people saying "it's only a few minutes longer than the previous one" don't get this. I have yet to see it (I will, and I WILL review it), but I have the feeling that it's going to be a balls-first action flick. Nothing wrong with that, but you need to keep it brief or it feels like it's being dragged out.

6. I enjoy senseless action as much as the next guy, but those films are ideal coming in short, neat, cohesive packages, and not pseudo-epic macho dick flailing.

This is likely to be my worst problem. I hated the juvenile humor from the first film, and by the sounds of it this one has the same stuff without remorse. I hear phrases like "giant robo-testicles" and fear for my brain cells.

I've had a theory about the Transformers movies: that the intelligence level present will decrease according to the amount of skin that the female lead shows. Hopefully I am mistaken.

pantsoffdanceoff:
So because someone disagrees with you they have no merit? Wow it must be nice to have the world revolve around your opinion.

This ^

scotth266:

Maet:
I'm just going to chip in a few points here and be done with it:

1. Transformers 2 is a $200 million USD catastrophe that I steadfastly refuse to review.

Well, that's a pity. I enjoy reading your reviews.

I normally would review it, and indeed I had planned to, but it's a movie so bad, it's soul crushing. My review would have to be thousands of words long in order to cover everything, which is time I can't exactly devote since I'm going back to class in about... nine hours.

On the bright side, Public Enemies comes out on Wednesday.

I like how everyone is getting all bent out of shape over Transformers 2...

Maet:

scotth266:

Maet:
I'm just going to chip in a few points here and be done with it:

1. Transformers 2 is a $200 million USD catastrophe that I steadfastly refuse to review.

Well, that's a pity. I enjoy reading your reviews.

I normally would review it, and indeed I had planned to, but it's a movie so bad, it's soul crushing. My review would have to be thousands of words long in order to cover everything, which is time I can't exactly devote since I'm going back to class in about... nine hours.

On the bright side, Public Enemies comes out on Wednesday.

Well, I guess the duty of writing a review falls to me then. I'm not afraid to write thousands of words, that's for sure. It'll be my first movie review (yay!?) On that note, I have not heard of Public Enemies. Wikipedia ahoy!

scotth266:
On that note, I have not heard of Public Enemies. Wikipedia ahoy!

How's the rent on that rock you've been living under?

Nah, I'm joking. It's not that big of a deal. I think you'd have to be a certain type of person to appreciate Depp and Bale in the depressing '30's as directed by Michael Mann.

I look forward to your review of Transformers 2 though. At least someone in this reviewing community will be able to give it the vasectomy it so richly deserves.

I find it funny how your review of Moviebob sounds very similar to Yahtzee. Are you perhaps plagiarizing him?

Maet:

How's the rent on that rock you've been living under?

Nah, I'm joking. It's not that big of a deal. I think you'd have to be a certain type of person to appreciate Depp and Bale in the depressing '30's as directed by Michael Mann.

I look forward to your review of Transformers 2 though. At least someone in this reviewing community will be able to give it the vasectomy it so richly deserves.

Actually I HAVE heard of this... but I dismissed it. Not my type of flick, though I said the same thing about Benjamin Button until I watched it. It's just that I've had a little too much of Depp recently: the man should be taken in small doses.

I'm sort of puzzled as to why there hasn't been a good review of Transformers 2 here. The majority of the ones I saw were either rants, or too short. Well, I shall correct that and then some! Perhaps I will write a review of the first while I'm at it, make it a double whammy.

CMon, all I read from your post is that you disagree with MovieBob's review, and that you apparently didn't like his previous review ("Recalling his previous review of Drag Me To Hell as something average-decent-'meh'"). That's your opinion, and that's just fine. I personally love his reviews, the fact that he knows his classics and that he does a thorough background check, and I completely agree that Drag Me To Hell was a fantastic movie (I haven't seen any of the Transformer movies). However I don't think it's up to you to say anything about his credibility, just because you don't agree with his reviews.

Both his Game Overthinker and his Movie Review series are intelligent, have depth and they have strong opinions. I for one appreciate that.