Cyrus the Virus and Guido the Ferrari Join Transformers 3

By Miscellaneous | | March 22, 2010 |

By Miscellaneous | | March 22, 2010 |

It’s a pretty slow news day, enough that most blogs appear to be focused on new ways to take care of our health or something. But that’s the boring part of the web that doesn’t concentrate on movies. The cool blogs are all about one topic today: Michael Bay’s personal casting update on Transformers 3: Just Kill Us All Now and Take Over Our Planet Already So We Don’t Have to See Anymore of These Movies.

Basically there are two trends involved. One is the shock some people have to the idea that an actor who starred in Con Air and an actress who starred in AEon Flux are stooping to the level of Michael Bay. As for John Malkovich, it’s definitely an improvement working with Bay over Simon West. And for Frances McDormand: the Oscar aside, she’s probably thankful to be cast by someone other than her husband. Paycheck roles? Maybe, but don’t forget these kinds of thespians sometimes make a bad movie a little more tolerable. It also helps them make better stuff later on.

The other trend involves the casting of a Ferrari 458 Italia as one of the sequel’s Autobots. The jokes about this character likely being named Guido, talking like he’s in the mob, getting an orange paint job, enjoying a plate of wires that look like spaghetti and residing at the Jersey Shore beach house are hilarious and all, but the sad thing is that Bay is probably taking notes on all of this. Of course, with Ken Jeong cast in the film, the most racist part of Transformers 3 might not actually be the robot voices this time around.

Here are some choice responses to the news from around the blogosphere:

• Patrick Goldstein at The Big Picture:

  Michael Bay has managed to lure John Malkovich and Frances McDormand into joining his noisy robot blockbuster sequel, which is sort of like getting Rupert Wainwright and Neko Case to sing a couple of duets with Taylor Swift.

• Monika Bartyzel at Cinematical:
  

  That’s right — 2-time* Oscar nominee Malkovich, Oscar-winning McDormand, and not-as-surprising funnyman Jeong. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised, since big-league actors entering crapfests is nothing new. If Peter O’Toole and Michael Caine can do it, why not these guys? Nevertheless, it’s a shocker. Transformers 3? Malkovich and McDormand? My world is going all askew.

• Brad Brevet at Rope of Silicon:
  

  I would love to be a fly on the wall when McDormand tells her husband, Joel Coen, she is taking a role in Transformers 3. The idea of such talent taking on a role in a film franchise so obviously not interested in acting as much spectacle just seems funny to me.

• Matt Holmes at Obsessed with Film:
  

  John Malkovich must need some cash to buy a new home, or maybe a hair transplant or, well; maybe he spent a fortune on Christmas presents for Tiny Tim last year when it looked like a big money deal was coming his way to play The Vulture in Spider-Man 4. […] Malkovich has never shied away from a paycheck he didn’t like, right? (He’s got Jonah Hex upcoming as we mentioned, Eragon, Beowulf, Mutant Chronicles, Johnny English) and his diary formerly read “Summer 2010: Make tons of money as superhero villain for Sony”, but Transformers 3? Really?

• Wookie Johnson at Screen Junkies:
  

  Though his Spiderman 4 role never became a reality, it looks like John Malkovich won’t be missing out on a blockbuster payday. Deadline reports that Oscar nominee and Oscar winner Frances McDormand will slum it for Michael Bay in Transformers 3. I guess Malkovich wants something worse than Con-Air on his resume.

• Adam Rosenberg at MTV Movies Blog:
  

  Personally, I love this casting news. The series’ key players have long since been established, but the newcomers bring with them a varied mix of colorful acting backgrounds. Between that and the frequent word we’ve been hearing that Bay is looking back into the depths of the franchise’s mythology for the third movie’s story, and I’m having a hard time not being excited even though last summer’s sequel didn’t manage to measure up to the original.

S.T. VanAirsdale at Movieline (introducing a list of memorable “paycheck roles”):


Today’s news of John Malkovich and Frances McDormand joining Transformers 3 inducts a new duo into this distinguished subculture. But there’s also a chance they know that for every Robin Williams cash-grab or Robert De Niro slum job, there are a tiny handful of actors who have actually established milestones of one sort or another while pulling down big salaries in bad, misconceived, underwritten and/or otherwise ill-advised films.

• Mark at I Watch Stuff:
  

  Well, at least he’s figured out a way to add a hilarious Jersey guido caricature to his Transformers-as-racial-stereotypes arsenal. I’m pretty sure if we give him a few more movies—some time to add a greedy Jewish Decepticon, a transforming boat named “Wetback,” a Chinabot—we’ll finally start to understand that all those robots clanging around are actually thoughtful allegory about race relations.

Ben Pearson at ScreenRant:


No word yet about a stereotypical racist Italian voiceover, or if the Ferrari will attempt to cook spaghetti. (For those who don’t pick up on the sarcasm, please remember the Mudflap and Skids fiasco from Revenge of the Fallen.)

• Kevin Jagernauth at The Playlist:
  

  Also joining the cast is ubiquitous funnyman Ken Jeong. Seemingly everywhere these days, we just hope the material he’s given is a bit more tasteful than the stuff those jive-talking robots were given to speak in “Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen.” In fact, it’s probably just better if he makes up his lines himself.

• Vince Mancini at FilmDrunk:
  

  I think I have an idea how that will turn out…
  
  MUDFLAP and SKIDS, pants sagging, loudly talking jive, wheel into Korean grocery store and begin reading Black Tail Magazine.

  KEN JEONG walks out from behind counter

  KEN JEONG

  How many time I tew you, my store not ribrary! No read magazine! You buy or you reave!

  MUDFLAP and SKIDS are forced to tearfully admit that they cannot read. MEGAN FOX gets fingered by a robot. MUDFLAP and SKIDS masturbate.

  Fin.