Transformers: Revenge of the Neocons

Sometimes the subtext is actually text. In the latest Transformers movie, President Obama reportedly runs to and hides in an undisclosed location while his ignorant and arrogant proxy works to ruin our national defensive capabilities and "negotiate" with the enemy, which the film equates to "surrender." In fact, every civilian in the movie (except of course for our hero) is a helpless whiner who gets in the way. There is nothing subtle about it.

By contrast, every member of the American military is a brave soldier with a heart of gold who understands what must be done. The latest aircraft, naval vessels, and automatic weapons--which magically harm only the bad guys--are given more screen time than Top Gun. Naturally, the movie ends in a desert battle that looks just like Iraq, except this time we win... the final scenes done in slow motion with angelic voices suspended over the battlefield. And for good measure, at some point the moviemakers destroy Paris.

Of course, Transformers is an adolescent fantasy franchise and pretends to be nothing else. The hero's parents are weak and clueless. The women are all unreasonably attractive and inexplicably attracted to the young hero. The seductress/dominatrix is, in fact, an evil alien in disguise who wants to kill the young hero. (Freud would have a field day.) And everyone else in the film is male... Even the alien robots.

All this aside, I still enjoyed the film because the action is quite well-paced, the sappy scenes are mostly kept to a minimum, and most of all because the Transformers are, as always, pretty cool to watch on the big screen. But you really have to ignore the swiss-cheese plot and try not to listen to the subtext. Even when it becomes actual text.