Who Needs Words When Explosion Do

In the last of our short "flicks for the boys" season, we turn to the trailers for the big summer blockbusters now bounding around. After all, you don't get much more joyfully boyful than a good action movie.

And what could be more fitting than a film based on one of the more popular boys' toys ever invented – it's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

BOOM! CRASH! WHIZZ! POP! LOOK! THERE ARE SPORTS CARS AND ROBOTS! AND SPORTS CARS TURNING INTO ROBOTS! BOOM! KAPOW! WHEEEEEEE … KABOOOM!

And that pretty much sums it up. Some interesting points to note, though:

1. We'll always have Paris. Or WILL we?

The first thing we see is something flying through the air and smashing through a tower. In the background, we can see the Eiffel Tower.

Seriously, what HAVE the action directors of the world got against Paris? It used to be that if you needed a recognisable cityscape to destroy, the immediate go-to was New York. Needed to throw a tsunami over some skyscrapers? Need to fly an unlikely looking spacecraft into a skyline? Want a monster to chew on something recognisable? Manhattan was your friend.

But of course, after September 2001, bad things being done to the world's most famous skyline were tasteless and unpopular and just not going to happen. Other skylines are more difficult, city-shorthand-wise: LA only has that round thing, Washington's too flat, most of America already wishes something large would crash into uber-liberal San Francisco anyway (or that it would get eaten by monsters or aliens or preferably both), and everywhere else is too far inland.

So turning to the rest of the world was necessary and, sadly for Paris, it had the most recognisable landmark. Au revoir, Paris.

Yeah, Cairo has the pyramids. But seriously? A dozen dead camels and a few coachloads of tourists barely registers. Paris, though, is recognisably a city, and therefore full of millions of people. And now, Paris is toast. (See also GI Joe: also a boy-toy flick, also out this summer, also produces Cream of Paris soup).

2. Who needs dialogue?

It is, in so many ways, a trailer in which an explosion says a thousand words, but also says them very, very loudly, with the possibility of cool, debris-related decapitations. Which is something you are only ever promised with summer blockbusters; very rarely in Oscar-winners or boring chick-flicks – those are all about the talking, generally.

Is this about the talking? No. There is some grunting, some screaming, but not so much talking. It's a world where few words are required, if any. The only dialogue in evidence here, in fact, is one little exchange between the awesomely boysome Shia Labeouf and a sweaty older guy: "You don't stop, you don't hide, you run." And sweaty older guy yells, "We'll all go together!"

What? What does that mean, and where does that come from and … oh, who cares? Look! Robots!

3. Anything's possible when you're Shia LaBeouf

Apart from looking calm and in control. Looking panicky, clueless and yet somehow heroic? You betcha. Calm and collected? No, because that would be too mature and grown-up. What we have here is an active representative of what any 12-year-old wishes he would be like if placed in a situation of danger with car/robots. Maybe he wouldn't have a clue what to do, but he'd end up doing the right thing anyway. Hurray for 12-year-old-boy skill-sets!

4. The sequel sequel is already in pre-production

It's possibly called Transformers 3: Son of the Revenging Fallen, or something equally inspired.

The plot … well, I won't spoil it for you, though you can probably guess it. But the trailer? Well, that will involve shouting, and explosions, and cars turning into robots, and robots turning into cars, and … And I'm sorry, Paris: tu est la viande morte.

Source: Guardian

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