Betting on the Wrong Horse

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" opens this week and director Michael Bay received "more than a year" of Defense Department support on the project. According to the Armed Forces Press Service, "the film uses hundreds of military members from all the services and from throughout the country to make the film feel more realistic." Unfortunately, all those resources seem to have been expended in the services of a real dog. 

Reviews are brutal across the board, but longtime "At the Movies" critic Roger Ebert takes special exception to the film:

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

Ouch. 

Michael Bay has worked with military advisers since he directed "Pearl Harbor" in 2001. While the DoD obviously has an interest in making sure movies about real historical battles portray the military in an accurate and positive light, it's unclear how lending military support to an imagined threat from the Decepticons advances our national security agenda.

Read the story about military advisers at DefenseLink and read Roger Ebert's full review at the Chicago Sun-Times.