Friday 6 June 2008

Wackiness Alert! Transformers 2!



By all accounts, the above is the combined form of two transformers in Michael Bay's rush-it-out-quick sequel to last years summer blockbuster. Is that shit or good? I can't tell anymore. Not the film I mean, I assure you that's going to be shit, rather the idea of two intergalactic soldiers entrenched in a four million year long civil war choosing a dilapidated early 70s ice-hawker as their alternative spy-mode. Is it funny? Or is it pathological psychosis?

I can't decide. If the two were akin to Decepticon yes-man Soundwave's slave heavies: Frenzy and Rumble, and the hide mode was played as a genuine attempt at deep cover infiltration, I could climb aboard.



Imagine! Holographic moustache man hands out non-existent ice cones to a harassed crowd of confused children. Suddenly the van erupts into two psychotic robo-thugs! The children scatter! Rumble and Frenzy have spotted an Autobot! Time to trash him up. This approach has real appeal for me. Imagine pinky gliding around in the back of the frame being menacing - tracking Bot-cars with a faintly run-down, sinister jingle. Perhaps even some sniggering too. We'd sit there on the edge of our seats waiting for them to morph out of tramp van mode and pounce some punishing pile driving violence. They'd tease and stalk. We'd edge out further. It'd be like a pink Michael Myers.

This is unlikely to happen.

Although a few sources are reporting the duo as Decepticons, most have them pegged as Autobots - going by the tentative title of 'The Twins'. Imaginative no? If I had to guess, I'd side with the 'they're-Autobots!' camp. I think irony's too insidious a concept for a Bay popcorn shifter. Hark at me eh? It's lovely up here.

If they really do have to be goody two-shoes Autobots, hopefully the twins moniker will reflect the dream casting of the two Venezuelan teenagers - The Crazy Babysitter Twins - from Robert Rodriguez's recent Planet Terror. Elise and Electra Avellan play a pair of impatient vengeful (crazy) babysitters. They bicker and fight throughout. They are charming and funny. They don't fawn about waiting to be rescued, they tool up and fall-in, exterminating the rot-cannibals. All the while working out some twin-envy thing by constantly berating each other.



Picture that. Two argumentative, stroppy little girl robots constantly bitching and fighting and generally being a thousand times more charming than the soppy Arcee fem-bot they've got lined up instead. They could trail behind the other Autobots punching and kicking each other, and arguing over which of them Optimus Prime is actually talking to. Come epic climatic throw-down they would be a right little pair of no nonsense shitkickers.

This is unlikely to happen.

Instead it is most likely two 'comedians' will voice two insipid cute bots created specifically to appeal to the very very young and retards. "Huh huh. That one fell over!"

Someone give me a job writing something. I promise 50% less grammatical errors.

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