Transfomers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen review

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Last updated: 2010-04-10 20:54:04 by user01

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Review

I remember when I was a young kid one of my favorite cartoons on TV was the Transformers. They really were more than meets the eye! I was fortunate enough to have parents that could buy these toys for me. Of course this was also during a time when toys were relatively cheaper. I don’t have children, so I don’t buy a lot of toys these days, but I have noticed that they are pretty expensive, especially those name brand toys like Transformers. When I was growing up there were three types of Transformer toys: the cheap ones that were under $10, the mid-priced ones that were under $20 and the expensive ones that were over $20. I think I had all of the cheap ones and a few of the mid-priced ones and perhaps one or two expensive ones.

My parents would buy me one of the cheap ones almost every week when my stepfather was paid. The mid-priced ones, I would buy on my own by saving up my allowance. The expensive ones, well, I would get one or two for Christmas or maybe on my birthday. I remember one Christmas I hit the jackpot; I got several cheap ones, a few mid ones and three expensive ones. I loved those toys, they were great! I wonder what ever happened to them! Oh, that’s right, they were passed down to my little brother who disintegrated them!

I also loved watching the cartoons. I’d watch them religiously. I even had a few on VHS. When the movie came out in the ’86, I went crazy! Those of you who are doing the math right now and realize that I was in my early teens in ‘86, yes, I was a big geek! I had no interests in girls! I was more interested in my Transformers. When the movie came out, I went to see that all by myself. I told you I was a geek! In fact that was the only movie I have ever seen in the theaters by myself and more than once. However, if I remember correctly, it wasn’t a particularly good movie, but who cares, it was the Transformers and they even threw in a curse or two! How cool! I’ll always be that fat little kid!

He he, I’m all grown up now, but I still like the idea of robots changing into different vehicles and stuff like that. That’s just plain fun. When the live action movie came out a few years ago I didn’t hesitate for a second to go see it. I went to see it with a few friends and no matter how hokey it was I enjoyed it quite a bit. I thought they did a nice job and encompassing the spirit of the cartoon, but it was also sophisticated enough for us big kids who used to love the show, but now find such things uninteresting. I thought it was great, it was fun and pretty darn cool! And it brought back some nice memories.

Last year they came out with a second part and it all went down-hill like a Toyota with a prepubescent driver. For some reason, Michael Bay decided to consult ever single cliché encyclopedia out there and then he included the worst ones in the movie. We’re talking about stupid hot chicks, jive talking black stereotype transformers sporting gold teeth who couldn’t read, obnoxious American tourists that don’t like foreign food, and politicians who think they are above everything. The movie is just one cliché after another. After the clichés comes the non-stop action. I love action as much as the next guy, but there is such a thing as too much action. You need a story to balance things out. This movie had no balance; it was cliché, action and nothing more. The story was a joke and they knew it. The dialog was awful, it was worse than any of the cartoons that I remember.

Transformers 2 was a poor excuse for a movie. I’m told that Michael Bay was pressured to release this second film by the producers. They just wanted to hurry up and start making money. I am glad that they didn’t get my $10. It is a real shame when movie producers use a popular genre to make a buck. I often wonder, don’t they realize that if they put some thought into the story they might get more of an audience? I hated this movie from start to finish. I think my IQ dropped a hundred points after watching this heaping pile of metal rubble. Transformers, more than meets the eye—my balls!

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Recommendations: Avatar, The Proposal

- Victor Rodriguez

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

You should see this movie because the first one was good and this is the sequel!

One Word Review: ANTICIPATED

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the sequel to the surprising Transformers, released in 2007. The original grossed over $300 million at the box office and was actually a good movie, with a coming of age story (young Sam buying his first car) with the hots for a new female star (Megan Fox). Add in themachinery and mega-fights and you really had something.  Unfortunately, the sequel takes all the good bits from the first movie and tosses them away while adding mega-more explosions, machinery and stupid characters as if these were the keys to the first movie’s success.

The box office is huge, not because this is a good movie, but the result of a great marketing campaign building on the goodwill created by the first movie. This sequel is a technical tour de force with a heart as shiny and cold as the metal bots beating the hell out of each other for over two hours on screen. Worst of all, the stupidity of the characters is an insult to anyone who cares about a plot and a rationale for what goes on from scene to scene.

The Story

The story starts 17,000 years ago with the first arrival of bots on earth, a battle between super-bot Primes for control of our sun’s energy and the planting of a machine and matrix key which, if activated, will suck all the energy from our solar system and destroy all life on earth. The bad bots (Decepticons) want to activate the machine and wipe out Earth and the good bots (Autobots) want to stop them and preserve their alliance with humans, deeming us non-machine beings worthy of saving.

The noble Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots is fighting rogue Decepticons on Earth as part of a joint fighting force (code named NEST). The team is disbanded after a big explosive battle in China by a weasel NSA bureaucrat speaking for the President. Of course, disbanding NEST is exactly the wrong thing to do with the Decepticons gathering and breeding on a nearby planet, making plans for an invasion. Poor Optimus can’t even get his old buddy Sam to help out, because Sam wants a normal life and go to college, leaving his hot girl Mikaela behind in her auto repair business.

The Genre

The Action Fantasy genre is the gravy train for Hollywood. They dominate the list of the highest-grossing movies of all time. When done well, and the original Transformers is in that category (and #20 on the all-time list), they make millions for the studios and spin off millions more in toys and books and video games and so on.

The bottom line for MarketBOB is that this movie fails the genre by not offering anything new, no “wow” moments, nothing we haven’t seen before and very little of the previous movie that we liked. There are some amazing visuals like the destruction of an aircraft carrier or the collapse of the Eiffel Tower, but there is no reason why these events happen or why we should care.

The Overall Quality

Within the constraints of story and special effects, the visual spectacle of robot battles across urban and historic landscapes is impressive. The acting is competent (Megan Fox can really run). The movie clips along from one explosion to another with minimal drag.  The attempts at comic relief are irritating and not funny, but at least they tried to break up the action with something. Somehow, having bots pretend to be bad-ass trash-talking dudes just doesn’t work.

The MarketBOB GQS Score: BEAR

Reviewing the Genre, Quality and Story, this movie is a big disappointment. The technical pyrotechnics and robotic snap and crackle action do not make up for a dumb story, unbelievable characters and fake stunts that would kill anyone except the heroes of this movie.

Finally, the previous sequel disappointments which topped the box office recently were all bear movies, dropping the DOW over 11% in total.

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Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

The Amazing Transformation of Money to Junk

It has been some eight months since Michael Bay’s Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen was released last summer. It was, as many the big studio films are these days, a box-office smash. It was not though, despite its financial success, particularly popular among those of us who enjoy coherent storytelling in their films—that group chiefly being critics. I could then, as many the critic humorously has before me, pan this movie to the extreme (I recommend Travers, Ebert, or Denby for a particularly funny trashing of it). But, unlike those critics, I recognize a valiant pacifistic effort when I see one. Perhaps a year ago, I might have  joined them in thinking Michael Bay a boyish a imbecile who likes to blow things up. But now I see the light: Michael Bay is a genius; possibly the greatest pacifist of our time. The man is on a mission to use up all the explosives on Earth. And judging from Transformers 2, he will succeed—and he’ll do it in slow motion! So who am I to stop Michael Bay from saving us from ourselves by making godawful, absurdest junk? Or is he just killing us more slowly? It’s a valid question, I think.

Because Transformers 2 is about as bad as I expected. It was long, fast cutting, full of slow-mo “running away from explosions” moments, had a sound track that mixed bad Green Day and Linkin Park songs with a blasting choir, and still managed to be a dull, uninteresting movie.  I don’t see any particular need to spell out all the specific awful attributes this movie contains. In short, it is a mess of all the negative tropes action and comic book films offer. In that sense, it is a masterpiece of bad. It almost seems that the movie was designed to suck. But no, I’m not that optimistic (I think it sucked, mostly, by virtue of Michael Bay’s miserable idea of what is good cinema).

But take heed my readers, for in writing this review (as I’ve made clear), I went in with a bias. Yes, I read other reviews (most of which very negative). Yes, I had heard from my friends that it sucked. But chiefly, yes, I knew this was a Michael Bay film. Our course, I had to see it for precisely those reasons! It sucked, it got panned, and it was by my favorite director to hate: The one and only Michael Bay. I smartly waited until I didn’t have to pay for it, but I still had to see it, and it was fun for what it was worth. That being a laughably absurd film (and admittedly, sometimes genuinely funny). But still, ultimately it was a dull affair, even sadness invoking from a certain perspective. I hate to think that 6 directors far more talented than Michael Bay could have split up this film’s budget and made 6 far superior films. If only!

1.5/4

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Recommendations:

Last updated: 2010-03-25 22:01:15 by sbjamo

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I give the movie: 3.0/5

Although the above poster rocks, the movie didn't really rock as much as I expected.

Not really a continuation of the first movie, T2 did bring back Megatron, though, but he's more of a sub-character to give way for the bigger, meaner, The Fallen. The titular villain is trying to eradicate the last of the Primes (you know, Optimus Prime) so that he can activate this gigantic machine hidden somewhere on Earth to destroy our Sun to harness some energy power source for the survival of their Decepticons race.

Of course, without our Sun, you know what will happen, and it is up to our hero, Sam (Shia Lebeouf) and his hot girlfriend (Megan Fox, who appears solely to add sex appeal to the picture) to locate the said machine before The Fallen does.

Amidst all these plots, there's the usual cheesy robot humour and metallic action to appease fanboys. Clocking in at two and a half hour (one hour too-long for me), the effects displayed in this movie are what's worth watching. The animators must have a hard-time morphing the robots from sleek cars to lean-mean fighting machines, and for the price of your ticket, the fighting scenes and some of the set pieces are well-worth.

FINAL SAY:
Enough robotic action to please the fans, but letdown by bad pacing and plot. But, that's the whole point of some blockbusters anyway.

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Wilson Ng - http://wilsoniscurious.blogspot.com/

Last updated: 2010-03-14 05:16:23 by wilsoniscurious

Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen

Starring:

Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, John Turturo, Tyrese Gibson

Director: Michael Bay

Genre: Action, Sci-Fi

Rated: PG-13

There really isn’t a lot of plot to Transformers the Decepticons are after Sam (Shia LaBeouf) to find a hidden tomb which holds the key to sucking the energy from the sun, the government thinks the Decepticons are only on earth to fight the Autobots and wants to shut down the NEST team and the Autobots.

You know the story is weak when after his family is attacked by appliances Sam is still willing to move cross country abandoning his car/robot BumbleBee and his hot girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) to try and feel normal. Sorry but it just wouldn’t happen.

Transformers is Big, its Loud and it’s not very good. Director Michael Bay who is unfamiliar with Subtlety or Story returns to direct the second installment. Bay with the sensibility of an 8 yr old excels at blowing things up and making loud noises; however he consistently fails at the most important aspect of a movie, making it enjoyable. With a running time of over two hours and 30 minutes, and a story that could have been told in a 30 minute cartoon; that leaves just over two hours for slow motion explosions. The action scenes last forever and soon become boring and repetitive, there is absolutely nothing engaging about this film.  Transformers is going to be a huge success despite the fact that it is not any good and proves that Hollywood is a business and will put out anything that makes money.

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transformers 2

okay, i tried to watch this thing when i got off work last night at 12:30 but i couldn’t make it through.  i had to leave at 2 am.  probably because i had already seen most of it in peices throughout the day.  we weren’t nearly as busy yesterday as i thought we would be.  it’s so weird.  on wednesday we sold out every show after 6 pm and on thursday we didn’t come close to selling out any of them.  i guess people just like to come on opening day.  i’m sure today, friday, will be hella busy again though.

i talked a lot of trash about this film yesterday and after having watched the majority of it i’d like to share some more of my thoughts with you.

transformers 2 = giant robots crashing through stuff and blowing shit up + little robots with funny voices that sound like they were stolen from the faggy ass droids from phantom menace + two kind of funny medium size robots that sound like the 2 big black brothers from that movie where jim carrey had two big black sons (one of them even had a gold tooth) + megan fox running.

and i’m okay with megan fox running.  for the whole movie.  that’s okay.  i can watch her run for 2 hours.  2 hours and 40 minutes though and it gets a little monotonous.  because that’s all she does.  that’s all any of them do.  giant robots smash though some shit and the humans run.  the robots turn into some cool looking cars and ride the humans around for a minute until they are attacked by more giant robots smashing though shit and it’s like super rock ‘em sock ‘em robots for a minute, then the humans run again.

wow, that’s some compelling story line.  i just have a couple questions for you michael bay.  first, didn’t they fix bumblebee’s voice at the end of the first one?  i mean, sure, it is kinda funny for him to communicate in movie clips spoken by tom hanks from some of steven speilburg’s other great films like forrest gump and apollo 13.  so that’s okay.

next, if the “primes” had only one rule about harvesting suns for energy and that one rule was to not destroy any sun that supported life, then why did they build the device on earth in the first place?

why do the robots look all roboty with thier car parts still visible when they are in robot form when that hot chick that tried to get with shia at the beginning of the movie was able to transform into a smooth, sexy looking woman?  why can i see optimus prime’s hood and grill when they apparently have the ability to transform into any form they wish?  sure optimus does look pretty cool, but i’m just confused by that.

also, did you let your kid brother be the continuity director?  one minute they were running, the next they were in the cars driving, the next they were running.  and i’m not sure i saw them get into or out of the cars.  at one point they were running in what looked like a run down industrial part of a huge city, the next they were in cars in the forest.  shia had just been rescued from megatron by several autobots, then shia was riding inside optimus and megan and that other dude were riding inside bumblebee.  then all of a sudden shia and optimus were in the forest all alone where they were attacked by megatron and a couple other decepticons but the other autobots who where just involved in the fighting and running were no where to be seen.  only to re-appear just in time to help shia escape once again.

maybe i blinked but i’m pretty sure i missed something there.

but whatever.  i’m sure this thing is going to make a gazillion dollars and if i take out all my movie snobbiness and don’t worry about plot, character development, continuity and common sense, then i guess this is a pretty fun summer movie.  just so long as my brain shuts off and i just ooohhh and aaaahhh over the pretty lights and big explosions.

for transformers 3 i’d like to suggest a make out scene with a sexy girl decepticon and megan fox though please.

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Cal Reed

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Premise:

Sam is off to college, but first he has to save the world with the help of his Autobot friends.

Review:

I want to see it again!!

It's too bad I have to do other stuff or I else I would definitely go see this again. Michael Bay is graduating from blowing up everything to only blowing up stuff ever so often. There's actually a story to go along with the giant fighting robots. There's drama and comedy and times when you want to smack your forehead. This sequel definitely outdid the original.

The only thing that brought the movie down was the Jar-Jar Binks factor times two. (That's all I'll say about that.) And the fact that there were too many robots and not enough time to do them justice. You saw them in their vehicle mode more than robot, so it felt like a car commercial. And some of the robots, when they were on camera, were always in movement so you couldn't get that good a look at them.

Parental Warning: They ran up to the very edge of the PG-13 rating and hawked a loogie at R. (Fun imagery, huh?) Laymen's terms - they use every curse word allowed by the PG-13 rating and there are some very overtly sexualized scenes. There's also violence too, but you were expecting that (I hope).

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Recommendations: Star Trek (2009), Avatar, 300

D. Renee Bagby<br />
Building New Realms of Passion<br />
http://dreneebagby.com

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen definitely shows that Michael Bay put a lot of time, effort, and money into the visual effects of the movie. However, several essential aspects of a great film were sadly missing in this sorry attempt at a movie. This includes, but certainly is not limited to script, directing, acting, and pacing. The movie was an excruciatingly painful 2 hours and 30 minutes long, but feels so much longer. The plot never develops and what little plot that is there feels like it could have been settled in about 80 minutes.

The movie goes a little like this...Sam Witwicky goes off to college and has to leave his girlfriend Mikaela Banes. This leads to lots of chemistry-less scenes and extremely agrivating cameras spinning around them as they embrace one another and try to convince the audience that they are a believable couple and that the audience should have an interest in them. While at college Sam gets seduced by a blonde girl and his car follows him and this leads to Sam and the Autobots fighting against the Decepticons. This leads to the longest Transformers battle, which gets tiring unbelievably quickly. Interest gets lost in the movie about half way through when you look at your watch and realize that its just barely half over.

It's really should be no surprise to anyone that in 2 weeks it has become the highest grossing movie of 2009. After all it has an attractive cast and plenty of special effects driven action. And apparently that what the masses want.

The two stars of the latest "Transformers", Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox give highly forgettable performances. It seems like LaBeouf has just gone from a typecasted Disney kid to a typecasted action star. He shows absolutely no depth to the character and there is simply no reason to care about him and his new college life and several transformers battles. Any young actor could have played Sam Witwicky. Megan Fox, who plays Sam's girlfriend, Mikaela, fared even worse. It is obvious that she was cast solely on looks. It appears that she should be modeling somewhere instead of trying to be an actress because the result is just embarassing. All of her line deliveries just feel unnatural and contrived. Actorwise the only performance that gets anywhere near good is John Turturro, who played Agent Simmons. He managed to take mediocre lines and make them seem not that bad.

Some good special effects, a few relatively amusing lines, intense action, and Megan Fox do not make "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" worth the money or time to go and see it. Almost no plot, tiring action sequences, and no character development or believability makes this one of the worst movies to have such impressive ticket sales. I suggest avoiding the movie at all cost...or just watch the trailer 100 times...since thats the movie...just condensced. And knowing Hollywood a third installment is probably in talks as I am typing this.  0 stars.

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is an action-packed snooze fest with so much expository dialogue that, after awhile, starts to feel more like suppository dialogue. It is clear that the writers and director (Michael Bay, whose directorial credits include Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and Bad Boys II) did not strive for a movie that stands on its plot but rather a movie that tries to pack as much action clichés, sex appeal, and robot scrotum jokes as one can in 2 hours. Actually, the movie comes in at 142 minutes long, which is fairly long for an action picture. There is nothing wrong with a long movie – if it’s good. But sitting through 142 minutes of Transformers 2 was a feat of will and determination. It was unnecessarily long. There were entire scenes that could have (and should have) been removed and none would be the wiser. But that would have ruined Michael Bay’s desire to throw as many action sequences on the screen as is humanly possible.
There is a scene in which the heroes of the movie are driving through a desert in Egypt when out of the blue appear 3 cop cars, which are merely thrown in so Michael Bay can check “Car Chase” from his list of recycled action plots. The chase lasts roughly 10 seconds and in that 10 seconds we see the cars drive through a crowded alley Jason Bourne-style and ram through a fruit stand. Yes, a fruit stand. I was waiting for the men carrying the window to cross the street at any moment, but that scene must have been left on the cutting room floor.
The fight scenes, and there are a good many of them, are completely incomprehensible. It is impossible to differentiate between Autobots and Decepticons, but it’s even harder to tell how many robots are fighting at any one time because they are a mish-mash of metal, jump cuts, and queasy-cam shots.
The one major action sequence that had me feeling some suspense was during the last big battle of the film. Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox (whose other scenes seem inspired by a Maxim photo shoot) are trying to deliver the Matrix of Leadership (isn’t that a Six Sigma term?) to Optimus Prime and are attempting to hide from the Decepticons who are closing in from all sides. We know the inevitable is coming and they will be found, but Michael Bay slows down long enough for some suspense to build up.
The performances from the human characters are about as good as one can expect. Shia LaBeouf is proving himself to be a formidable action star while Megan Fox is proving herself to be a pair of legs (and, um, another pair of features) on the screen for teenage boys to ogle. The one performance that stands out, however, is by John Turturro. He will surely be nominated for a Razzie for his over-the-top performance of Agent Simmons. But honestly, how could he have salvaged a good performance with lines like “I’m directly beneath the robot’s scrotum.”
I knew going into the movie that I would be expected to make some leaps of logic. After all, it is a movie about giant alien robots. But there are some leaps that I just couldn’t make. One of the first scenes in the movie shows the Autobots and the U.S. Army special ops team, N.E.S.T., hunting down fugitive Decepticons which leads them to the city of Shanghai. After finding the rogue robot, they ensue in a battle that destroys a good chunk of the city and would surely have been captured by some iReporter and posted on CNN. But the writers soon have the gumption to introduce the most tired of characters in all action movies – the disgruntled and power hungry government agent, in this case the new National Security Adviser. He storms N.E.S.T. headquarters demanding to know what happened because he’s having a heck of a time covering the mess up. Richard Nixon couldn’t cover up Watergate and the writers want us to believe that they can cover up giant alien robots destroying part of Shanghai?
Oh, to be able to transform this movie into something more, but I suppose that would require an even bigger leap of logic. One that even the biggest robot scrotum couldn’t make.
 
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 142 Minutes
Starring: Shia LaBeouf (Sam Witwicky); Megan Fox (Mikaela Banes); Josh Duhamel (Capt. Lennox); Tyrese Gibson (Sgt. Epps); John Turturro (Agent Simmons); Ramon Rodriguez (Leo); Kevin Dunn (Ron Witwicky); Julie White (Judy Witwicky); Rainn Wilson (Professor Colan)
Directed by: Michael Bay; written by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, based on the Hasbro action figures; produced by Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Ian Bryce. A Paramount Pictures release.

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (review published July 2009)

Never before has a film that will gross so much been as incomprehensible as what Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is. I was engaged up until the Paramount logo faded to black. The prologue gave no real sense of direction and the inciting incident...well...er...I dont know if there was really an inciting incident. Everything just seemed to happen, one fight scene after another. Consequently you have the underlying issue: there is no build. Events simply take place without any indication of where it's all going. At some point Sam and company found themselves in the desert, and I paused to rack my brain as I tried to remember where the storyline that brought them there was going.
 
I would be interested in reading the treatment for this disastrous sequel. The basic idea seems rather epic, delving a bit into the origins of the autobots and decepticons and connecting those origins with a potentially apocalyptic device. But we don't find out about this eventual climax until we've been sitting around unnecessarily for 60-90 minutes... maybe even longer....the viewing experience was kind of a blur.
 
There is a great deal I could go on about on the absurdity of how the characters survived what they did and managed to look good in the process, but there is likely a great deal I could bring up from the first Transformers as well, and that film I enjoyed. The point is that this second installment failed to distract from that lack of realism with a decipherable plot.
 
The sound guys deserve their Oscar nomination, but there is so much rapidly cut robot-on-robot action that the visuals become a blur. There's no fascination toward the look and movement of the machines like there was in the original.

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Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen

Good ideas for toys do not make good ideas for movies. TakeTransformers, for instance. As toys, they’re ingenious: robots (!) that turn into cars (!), planes (!) and guns (!!!). In one fell swoop you’ve itemised every pre-pubescent boys’ dreams. The robots divide into goodies and baddies (as they must, according to the Lore of the Playground) and they proceed to beat each other up (because what else would pre-teen boys’ want them to do? Get a mortgage?). If you’re lining up merchandizing for a big Hollywood movie: hallelujah! But where’s the movie in all this? Transformers: Revenge of the Fallendoes not provide a plausible answer.

In a brief, nonsensical prologue, we’re told that the Transformers have lived among us (and beaten us up) for eons. Sure, there’s no record of giant robots in human history, but that’s because the robotstransformed into wheels, and chariots and a whole host of other wooden objects (don’t even bother thinking: “aren’t they made of metal?”) to keep their existence secret. In the present day, the good robots are friends with a teenage boy and his hot-bodied girlfriend. They also seem well-disposed toward the U.S. military. Adopting a ten-year-old boy’s version of a healthy lifestyle; the good robots fight, die, come back to life and make engine noises.

Director Michael Bay was born to make this movie, but that doesn’t mean he can make it any good. Bay just doesn’t aim any higher than a ten-year-old. He’s quite content to concentrate on explosions and CGI robots doing awesome things. The characters in Transformers are on a par with pre-teens acting soldiers. So the girls play kiss chase while the boys shoot each other and throw themselves in the air. The robots have all the personality of can-openers, so it’s no use looking to them. When Bay is forced to slow down for a moment, he keeps his camera circling, like a kid playing musical chairs. There’s no suspense in a Michael Bay movie because suspense would mean waiting for something to happen. Instead, Bay opts for constant stimulus, givingTransformers a Pez dispenser pace.

The trouble for the actors is that they’re interacting with toys. Not Toy Story toys (i.e. toys with inner lives), but crappy plastic toys. Even in the 1980’s cartoon series, the robots were (albeit stereotypically) delineated. Here, they might as well transform into price tags. Not one robot is ever developed beyond the “I turn into this” stage; which is a shame, because – as WALL-E proved – it is possible to feel something for a CGI robot. Poor Shia LaBeouf spends most of the movie looking up (as though what’s above him matters). He’s not awed by the robots, he just reacts the way a ten-year-old thinks a ten-year-old would: part blasé, part he-man.

His co-star, Megan Fox, is out-acted by her lip gloss. Even the part of “hot-bodied girlfriend” defeats her. She’s in the movie to provide the sex, but she’s an air-brushed idea of what men want. The standard Fox scene has her draped over a motorcycle or running in slow motion (without a sports bra). She’s adrift most of the time, as if the boys she’s playing with didn’t know what to do with her. Since there is no sex in the movie, her role is superfluous unless she’s required to jiggle. But then again, what part is there for a girl in giant robot movie?Transformers is like the men’s equivalent of one those movies where Sandra Bullock gets hitched.

Transformers: The Movie came out in 1986 (the year Megan Fox was born). For any boy under twelve, it was mind-blowing. Almost half your favourite robots died. The leader of the heroic Autobots, the legend (admit it: your surrogate father figure) Optimus Prime, died. To you, it was awesome. But you were ten. You thought The Garbage Pail Kidshad artistic worth. If you watch Transformers: The Movie today, you realise it’s just a bunch of robots shooting each other to a soft rock soundtrack. Half of them die because Hasbro wanted you to buy new toys. It’s good marketing, not a good movie. This was never a premise anyone over ten was supposed to care about.

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TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009)

BOTTOM LINE: All of the fun, cool components of the first Transformers film are completely absent in this bloated, stupid, offensive, over-the-top, and messy atrocity of a sequel.

THE GOOD: “Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen” does have a few workable elements. The film manages to expand the thin story-line of the original to include the idea of ancient transformers who came to Earth in the past to enslave the human race. This is put to good effect in certain sequences such as the climactic battle on the pyramids of Egypt. Shia LaBeouf has progressed quite a lot as a lead, appearing much more mature in this film and carrying more cinematic weight than in his previous efforts; a strong character actor may be in the making here. And if nothing else, the film would make a great advertisement for the US Army; they look sensational in the film between the troops and the equipment.

THE BAD: You could write an essay which picks apart just how many things are wrong with this film, but at the end of the day, this is director Michael Bay of old, showing utter contempt for the audience by just laying on as many special effects, quick-cutting, bumpy camera shots, noise and explosions as possible in order to cover up for the fact he has made an atrocious film. Not bad for a two hundred million dollar spend by the film’s distributors. Perhaps the first film was a directorial fluke; Bay was able to create very cool, fun action sequences that had dramatic focus, not just within the sequences themselves but in the overall story while clearly differentiating between each of the Transformer characters. The comedy worked as well. It almost seemed Bay had progressed as a filmmaker. In the first film you really felt the titanic nature of the battle scenes between the robots giving you the very satisfying “that’s so cool” feeling. In this sequel, not only has the titanic nature of the battle scenes disappeared, there is so much action going on that not only can you not tell which robots are fighting who half the time but it becomes all too noisy and undramatic, leaving you with nothing but a headache. However, Bay manages to top all of this with a number of other ill-advised touches. The film has numerous sexist and misogynistic jokes that are down-right offensive, done with so much bad taste that even an easy-going audience will take exception to them. There are also some racist touches as well, with some of the robots developing heavy ethnic accents with Bay then portraying them as dumb characters. How can an advanced robot be dumb anyway? The absolutely ridiculous treatment of Sam’s mother is embarrassing to watch, between seeing her go nuts after eating a clump of weed or trying to break up her two dogs from humping each other (twice I might add!). The moment where John Turturro takes off his pants to show a close-up of his ass is absolutely woeful and embarrassing for everyone. And of course, Bay could not help being self-referential with a “Bad Boys II” poster blatantly pictured in one sequence. Despite there being three writers on this film, you would be hard pressed to find anything that could have been based on a written script here. This is Michael Bay on steroids and is entirely all his making; an absolute travesty of a film that should be avoided at all costs.

RATING: 2/10

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Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Michael Bay blows even more shit up this time round

I know, its a late review, but i saw the film on the spur of the moment, and, well, was it worth it? Yes is the answer, and only because i like to see stuff get blown to shit.
This time, we see the Decepticons try and get their hands on a piece of Macguffin called the 'Matrix of Leadership'...so yes the plot is once again a load of nonsense, as we see an entity called 'The fallen' team up with the Decepticons and fight Optimus Prime and his rag-tag bunch of misfits.
We are introduced to some new Autobots this time, 'The Twins' a couple of cars who squabble most of the time, and speak in the same accent as 50 cent.
But the film begins well, as we see Sam Witwicki (Shia Labeouf) attend College. Of course this doesn't go quite to plan and soon he's running for his life in slow motion ,hand in hand with his girlfriend Mikaila (Megan Fox).
The CGI in this film is mind blowing. We see tanks roll down pyramids, buildings reduced to rubble, and a whole new bunch of Autobots and Decepticons transform in perfect animation. If this film got one thing right, it was the eye candy. Talking of which Megan Fox doesn't really have much to do in this film apart from run all over the place, the camera ogling her perfect body as if operated by a 13 year-old boy.


After about the half way point, the film begins to drag. The protagonists find themselves in Egypt, looking for the Matrix thingy, and it all just seems like padding from there on in until the final battle. Half an hour could have very easily been cut out of the film all together without sacrificing plot (plot? Yes, there's a little bit of that in there somewhere).
In terms of script, there are some really terrible jokes thrown in there. Yes, Michael Bay, the man who brought us cyber-micturition in this movie’s predecessor, has one-upped himself: Decepticon testicles.
Its a weary watching experience, but the special effects just about save it, as we see Bumblebee take on a couple of Decepticons and tear them to pieces, and the spectacular beginning chase sequence in Shanghai, Optimus yelling at a Decepticon to 'Pull over!'.
All in all, good, but not great, too long, and not as good as the first one. But with double the amount of explosions. Which is always good.

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Recommendations: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

Last updated: 2010-01-21 04:42:39 by richincolour

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Plot: The Autobots remain on Earth to help the Government search and destroy Decepticons.  Eventually they learn of an ancient enemy leader that plans to arrive on Earth and is in search of an energy source in which Sam Witwicky holds the key to finding.

When I walk into a Michael Bay film, I understand that the basic elements of plot and character development are flushed down the toilet, but one thing I don’t expect is to be completely and utterly bored out of my mind.  That’s what happened when I saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  The first movie is decent.  It’s solid action and the humor was tolerable and even sometimes funny.  But this sequel…it’s just atrocious.  Its elementary school humor, it’s cluttered with robots, but the worst part is that it moves so damn slow!  I wanted to take a nap. 

So what made the first Transformers work?  The robots were handled very well.  They are eased into the story and we get a sense of who they are.  There are a few choice Autobots and Decepticons and we accepted them as an audience.  This made us appreciate the battles.  In this one, it’s just a complete mess of robots from each side and I don’t even know what the hell is going on.  Who’s fighting who!  The only one I know for sure who I’m looking at is Optimus Prime, the Autobot leader.  So as good as the battles are in this movie, it doesn’t fricking matter, because I had to focus all my energy concentrating on who everyone was.  This is a Michael Bay movie, stop making me think. 

Another major problem is the damn jokes.  Oh my God.  I’m serious; it gets close to Batman and Robin territory.  What also made the first movie acceptable was that the robots didn’t talk that much except for Optimus Prime who should talk a lot.  And their voices are so annoying.  Especially annoying are these twin characters that are bright green and red.  They talk in stereotypes, and just to give you a real clear picture of these characters, one of them has a gold tooth.  But they weren’t even the worst robots for me.  That prize goes to an ancient Decepticon robot who talks in kind of a British accent.  There is this scene where he just rambles on and on, and you have no idea what he’s saying while the human characters are just screaming back incoherently.  I felt like I was at the fucking dentist.  I hated this character.  The only reason he’s not worse then Jar Jar Binks is because he doesn’t have many scenes. 

As far as the human characters go, they are tolerable.  But really, all they do is run around screaming.  “Optimus!!!!!!!!!!” “Sam!!!!!!!!” “Bumblebee!!!!!!!!”  Oh vey.  I like Shia LaBeouff.  I think he’s a good actor, I just wish he would do better movies.  I also think Megan Fox in the first movie was more than just eye candy and actually showed potential, but in this movie…yea, she’s just eye candy.  There isn’t one human character I can say I liked, but I didn’t hate any of them.  I guess that’s somewhat of a positive. 

The prime issue with this film is the pacing.  The first half was passable.  It was stupid, but I wasn’t bored and was somewhat entertained.  But the second half was horrible.  You have no clue what’s going on.  At one point its just Shia LaBeouff’s character Sam Witwicky running for 45 minutes shouting “Optimus” while the over the top and horrible score blasts in your ears.  You can’t even see any fighting as the screen is covered with sand and explosions.  It’s so grueling to get to the big final fight that we’re all waiting for, but even that was a huge letdown!  It’s like Michael Bay said, “Oooops, I guess I ran out of budget.”  Unbelievable. 

Well, was there anything I liked?  There was one fight early on in the forest that was pretty cool.  Why was it cool?  Because it was set in an area where you could clearly see what was going on.  Also, it was a clear one-on-two battle – you knew who was fighting and why.  So that was enjoyable.  I am impressed with the robot special effects.  These are big giant machines, but they don’t look too fake and are interwoven pretty well into the film.  Also there is a scene where one of the Decepticon leaders ties Sam Witwicky down to a car that got kind of dark and had some good voice acting.  I’m actually pissed because the teaser trailer gave me the impression that they were going to go a bit dark in this one and step it up from the previous entry.  Boy was I wrong. 

So all in all, for a movie about robots fighting, it’s excruciatingly boring.  If they cut 45 minutes to an hour, it would have been decent entertainment.  A lot people gave X-Men Origins: Wolverine a hard time, but that was an okay film for two reasons.  First, it moved at a quick pace.  It was in and out.  Secondly, it never hampered down into juvenile humor territory like this one did.  So please, stay away from this one and don’t fuel its success.

Rating. 3.5 out of 10.

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Last updated: 2010-02-01 18:38:38 by danjewish

Movie Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

I’ll tell you a conversation I heard in the men’s room straight after the film between two young boys (that probably just hit puberty) that sums it up pretty well:
“Man, what an awesome movie!”
“Yeah!  But what I didn’t get was why they had to [spoilers].”
“I didn’t get that either.  And who was the robot that [spoilers] and the one that [spoilers] in the end?”
“I’m not sure.  I think it was [spoilers] and [spoilers].”
“Really?  I thought it was [spoilers].”
“Who cares?  Megan Fox was hot though.”
“And the cars and robot fights were really cool.”
“Yeah, what an awesome movie!”

Overview

The second film (there will inevitably be more) of Michael Bay’s Transformers series is bigger, louder, longer and dumber than the original.  So if you’ve seen the first, expect more of the same except with everything magnified.  For some, like the teenage boys described above, that’s awesome.  For most others, it’s downright unbearable.

As for me, I went into the film with sub-zero expectations because everything I’ve come across about the film shreds it to pieces.  And while the film does fail miserably in most departments, it is not a complete waste of time and money.  Some parts were exciting.  Some were a little funny.  So if you can put up with the rest of the parts that weren’t (and those were in the clear majority), then you might find it okay.

What’s it about?

Next.

The good

There were 2 things in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (let’s just call it Transformers II) that improved on the first film: (1) robot fight scenes; and (2) special effects.

One of my gripes about the original Transformers movie was that you couldn’t tell what was going on in a lot of the fight scenes between the Autobots and the Decepticons.  All you could see were some quick flashes and giant balls of metal rolling around before one of them would stand victorious.

Transformers II rectifies the problem in a big way.  The camera pans back this time and stays on the robots long enough for audiences to see and appreciate the action.  So much so that kids can probably recreate the battles with their licensed Hasbro toys afterwards.

Seriously, the robot action was a lot smoother and more fluid this time.

Less noticeably, perhaps, were the special effects, which also improved from the original.  Apart from the robots themselves, many of the fight scenes involved destroying well-known landmarks.  This was done with amazing realism.  Further, the robot transformations were even more intricate and visually impressive than last time.

The bad

Yep, there was a lot of bad.

For starters, the movie was way too long, clocking in at 2 hours and X minutes.  I wouldn’t have had a problem had the film felt shorter, but it didn’t.  It felt like a really long movie.

Secondly, the plot.  It’s hard to know where to start with it so I won’t even try.  I hadn’t expected it to be original but this was derivative to the point that you couldn’t simply ignore it.  Let’s just say they could have put a little more effort into disguising it better.

Even the jokes were bad this time.  There were some decent laughs too, but many of jokes in Transformers II fell flat.  Like bad ‘Scary Movie’ jokes flat.  Especially when it tried to be ‘cool’, it turned out to be lame.  The twin Autobots were the prime culprits.

The film took a turn for the better when John Turturro arrived.  Like the first film, he was the comic highlight, but although he had some good lines he had limited screen time and dare I say even some of his antics wore a little thin at times.

The ugly

Transformers II has some of the worst editing of any film I have seen in recent times.  It’s not bad to the extent that you don’t know what’s going on, but it provides plenty of ‘WTFs?’.  For a major blockbuster like this, there’s no excuse.  To me, it reeks of laziness.  It’s as though the makers only cared about the cars, the action and the girls, and forgot about everything else.

Case in point – you know how when lead actor Shia LaBeouf injured his hand in a motor accident in real life and Bay said that they would work that into the movie?  Not really.  They just kind of fudged it – the idea wasn’t awful, but the execution was.  If you’ve seen the film you’ll know what I mean.

The performers

The majority of the main cast from the original returned.  Shia LaBeouf is getting over exposed these days, so he may be losing his charm, but he still does a reasonable job as the hero.  There were a few scenes where he demonstrates that his head hasn’t gotten so big that he’s unwilling to be ridiculed.

Megan Fox returns to play another sexy role as his girlfriend and doesn’t do much other than trying to look and sound appealing.  She’s actually not bad, but for some reason really looks like she could use a nice long bath.

The key new addition is the new roommate, Leo Spitz, played by Ramon Rodriguez, who is the primary comic relief until John Turturro returns.  Both men provide a spark to an often sagging film, though their jokes can be uneven.

On the military side, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson return to their rather useless roles.  If they wanted to trim the fat off this movie then these guys should have gone first.

Final word

Michael Bay didn’t try to cater for all audiences like say JJ Abrams did with Star Trek – it’s very clear from the first few minutes that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is nothing more than a bit of brainless fun targeted at overly excited teenagers.  However, even if you accept the film for what it is, it doesn’t necessarily succeed.  It’s still far too long and disjointed, and everything other than the special effects and action sequences feel extraordinarily lazy, as though they didn’t think anyone would notice or care if they put no effort into it.  That said, if you can put all of that aside…

2.5 stars out of 5!

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PJM

Last updated: 2010-01-23 03:34:09 by pacejmiller

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen — 5

I went into this movie not expecting nearly the masterpiece that Michael Bay threw at us last time. I KNEW it was not going to be nearly as good as Transformers 1. With that in mind I sat down with an open mind trying my damndest to not expect much from this movie. With that in mind I will do my best to avoid references to the first Transformers.

First off Michael Bay to me is good for 2 things. Making a great well balanced movie, or making a shitfest with so many explosions it actually gets boring to watch things blow up after a while. Well, he chose options number 2 here and I think it was his biggest mistake. He should have stuck with a damn strong story with a pace that just would not let up. Instead he tried to put too much fan service into it by throwing out a ton of different Autobots and Decepticons. Most of which were on the screen without names. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against fan service, but the ENTIRE movie was this way. I had to go look up a ton of the names of the Transformers in this movie and even then I was confused on whom half of them were and I watched the cartoon all the time growing up. It was just too many.

Now the other thing that bothered me was the massive amount of slo-mo scenes. I got so bored of them I actually was watching my fishtank while they were going on because there was so many of them that the last 20 minutes of the movie could have been cut out just due to slo-mo scenes alone.

The Music was epic and fitting, just like the first Movie. There was never a place when the song choice was even questioned. It was solid and fitting through and through.

The other thing that I completely loved is that they kept all of the original voices from the original cartoon series; Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream and Soundwave just to name a few. It actually brings me to a little giggle everytime I hear Optimus (he was my #1 idol when I was growing up, no joke). I will be sad the day that Peter Cullen passes away because there will never be anyone with nearly the same voice ever again.

All in all it was not NEARLY as good as the original Transformers. It can hold its own, but if you are going to watch this movie then go into it with an open mind like I did and it won’t actually be terrible. It will just be bad.

Base Score = 4
+1 for Optimus Prime/Peter Cullen
+1 for using the original voices from the cartoon
+1 for the music
-1 for slo-mo excessiveness
-1 for a bad choice for Michael Bay to use his bad style of directing
= 5/10

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Last updated: 2010-01-02 22:33:45 by user03

Michael Bay has made a mess of the franchise

With more characters, one would expect a diversity of relationships and sub-plots, like some robotic romance between Ironhide and Arcee. Instead, Bay's favourites, the Autobot twins, were given too much screen time for their usefulness. They were the worst characters ever to make it to the big screen since "Star Wars"' Jar Jar Binks.

Alas, for a "Transformers" movie, the robots were just pitiful. It seemed like after two punches, the Fallen just basically, well, fell before Optimus Prime. What the...?! Even Devastator, the mother-of-all-bad-ass robots, was reduced to a bumbling gorilla for the most part. Where was the menacing robot who terrified the $#!+ out of the Autobots in the cartoon movie?

See my full review here: http://bit.ly/zaa4E

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Last updated: 2009-08-31 09:47:19 by yuhui

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I had colossal expectations for this movie given the impressive first Michael Bay Transformers movie. I am all praises for the first movie, though I am not sure I could say the same this time.

First, I need to establish that the movie falls into the science fiction/action category; this is not the kind of movie that will merit an award in the acting division. What it is however, is a CGI masterpiece, very different from whence Transformers first came out 20 odd years ago. The special effects and the action scenes are one of the best. It features two of the hottest stars today. It also boasts the best sound effects and soundtrack ever.

The sequel has more robots than you can possibly remember (unless you are a huge fan). Some will draw your attention, but because of the sheer number of characters, quite a few are forgettable. Decepticon Wheelie (the remote control toy) is hilarious. He provided the most needed comedy relief on an otherwise almost dry movie. Autobots Skids and Mudflap however are not funny at all. The fight scenes are awesome but there are a couple of head-scratchers like the seemingly invincible Megatron (he just won’t die) and Alice, the university stalker, who turns out to be a robot (what the…?).

High point of the movie is the Constructicons. I know it is a tall order translating them from cartoons to the big screen, but they did it, quite well if I may add. Five huge robots, joining into a one huge robot is… well… huge. Decepticon Shockwave is a welcome addition to the cast, but I prefer him to be an Earth-based character. 

The movie is quite long, approximately two and a half hours. Some parts are bit dragging to be honest. Scenes with Sam’s mom and roommate are too long and unnecessary, not to mention cheesy. Agent Simmons became boring in the sequel. Megan Fox however is still Megan Fox (nuff said).

It is disappointing to note that horrendous plot holes almost cripple the movie. If you have seen the movie, you would know what I mean. However, if you have not yet seen the movie, I would suggest leaving you brain outside the theatres and enjoy the movie as it is.

As a bonus, the movie soundtrack is worth checking as well. It features rocking tunes from the most popular bands of today. Most notable on the collection is Linkin Park’s rocking new single, New Divide and Green Days’s 21 Guns.

Overall, i would recommend the movie.  Autobots, roll out.

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Last updated: 2009-08-07 09:55:00 by edthehead

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Shorties)

This review will be the first of what I'm calling "Shorties". Every now and then, if I want to post a review but simply do not have the time to devote a full length article to it, or if I want to get it out of the way for another review, I'll write a Shorty. These will be far less detailed than full length reviews, but it will still get my point across (hopefully).

With Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Michael Bay has once again dominated the summer box office. This second installment has been a smash hit, raking in $672 million worldwide in 3 weeks. But is all this attention really necessary? In 2007, Transformers delivered the high octane adrenaline rush a summer movie-goer craves. It's story took a back seat to flashy special effects and a very appealing Megan Fox. So what does Revenge really offer us in terms of originality? The answer is not much.

In this unnecessary sequel, director Michael Bay, along with writers Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Ehren Kruger, drags us through the exact same film that he released two years ago, but with more Transformers, less plot (I didn't think that was possible), more suggestive shots of Megan Fox, and a little more length. To speak frankly about Revenge of the Fallen, it was a terrible film. No good performances, a terrible script, and noticably long. But who really cares about those things when they buy a ticket for this movie. You want to know about the action. Although the action was fairly impressive, there really wasn't much here that wasn't in the first film. It was more of the same, and it got pretty boring. I am also surprised that there has been no backlash by the African American community about the blatant stereotypes that the writers sprinkled into this film. Two brand new Transformers, Mudflap and Skids, are walking caricatures of all the generalizations of African Americans in our society. I was kind of insulted by it, and I'm white! I couldn't believe this cheap attempt at comic relief. Truly reprehensible.

I can't take too much credit away from Revenge of the Fallen, because it was never really trying to be anything more than it was. It had no aspirations, rather than to be loud and entertain. For that I give it credit. Also, suprisingly, I understood more of what was happening on screen in this film than I did during Public Enemies. For that, I give Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a 5/10

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I’m sure by now you’ve read, or at the very least heard how people are bashing this film left and right for one reason or another. Well, now it’s my turn to put my two cents in.
As I stated with my review of Transformers and Transformers: The Movie, I am a fanboy, so I’m slightly biased, but at the same time I will be objective.
Something I want to getout of the way first and foremost, is how “offensive” the twins, Mudflap and Skids are. Look, its more than obvious they are there for comic relief, yet folks are saying their offended because of their “African-American” personas. Quite honestly, I didn’t get that impression from them. They just seemed like twin brothers who have a sibling rivalry and have wannabe urban personalities. I’m sure we all know someone like that, or have at some point in time. The fact that people are making a big deal out of this is utter stupidity. Now, I will say we could have done without the gold tooth and them not knowing how to read, but even thosethings aren’t anything to raise a fuss about. for goodness sakes, these are alien robots!!!!
On to the film…A big qualm I had with the first film was that they spent too much time on the humans and not enough on the robots. A big reason for that is economics, and that’s understandable. CGI isn’t cheap. However, with a bigger budget and a couple years under their belt, I had high hopes that this one would feature the robots more. To an extent it does, but they still spend too much time on them.
Don’t get me wrong, a good portion of time they spend on the humans, makes sense, such as the storyline with military and the national security adviser, but other parts are there just for the sake of being there, such as, and it pains me to say thins, many of the scenes with Megan Fox. If there is a third film, Michael Bay needs to either maie it worth our while to see these God-forsaken humans, or cut back on their screentime. Again, I have to say, this franchise is called TRANSFORMERS, not humans, so let’s see more of them. I understand the cost and all, but there comes a point where you may just have to start working street corners for CGI, rather than sticking in more pointless human scenes.
While i’m on the topic of the humans, Michael Bay maintains his hard on for the military, but this time they’re actually helpful, and its the national security office (paranoid folks as they are, anyway) that is causing all the inner conflict.
Shia LeBeouf has done a lot of work since the previous film, and its obvious his acting has improved, but he’s still not god’s gift to acting. you could literally have a drinking game with the times he runs around saying “No! No! No! No!” or something similar.
Megan Fox is reduced to nothing but eye candy here, nothing wrong with that, per se, but her character has lost that depth she had in the first film, and is bordering on becoming the bitch girlfriend. Somethign tells me, if there is a third film, that’s what we’ll see from her.
Tyrese Gibson, John Torturro, and Tyrese Gibson all reprise their roles, in much smaller fashion. That’s pretty much all I can say about them.
Ramon Rodriguez comes in as Leo, Sam’s tech-savvy roommate. This guy seems cool enough, but from the minute he finds out about the Transformers until he seems to disappear, he is whiny and annoying. The guy seems like he has talent and potential, but it doesn’t show here.
Let’s talk Autobots, shall we? If you go into thins expecting to see a movie in the same vein as the G1 cartoon, you’re going to be sadly disappointed. Fact is, it’s all about Optimus Prime. Bumblebee, Mudflap, and Skids get a good portion of screentime. Ironhide has a lot of lines, but, he’s still underused, but at least he’s in most of the Autobot’s scenes, unlike Ratchet who is rarely even seen, except for a couple of scenes. New Autobots that have joined the force are, the aforementioned Mudflap and Skids, Sideswipe, Arcee, Jolt, and joining later in the film Jetfire and Wheelie. Arcee and Sideswipe have cool chase/fight scene at the beginning, but that’s about it. Jolt has no lines, and except for being instrumental in bringing Optimus Prime back to life, you don’t even see him. Wheelie is much less annoying than his G1 counterpart, and is another example of comic relief. Jetfire looks like Davey Jones and sounds like he should be a part of the Monty Python troupe, but he plays a very important role to the film, albeit confusing. There were rumors of Jazz returning, but that unfortunately didn’t happen. No Autobots died this time around, though. Not sure how I feel about that.
The Decepticons get a large portion of the Transformer screentime. One of the things that I loved from the original cartoon was the relationship/rivalry between Megatron and Starscream. This has been preserved, for the most part here. Soundwave was left out of the first film on purpose so that Bay could have leverage for a sequel. A good idea, but I think Soundwave was overhyped. I’ll have t see the film again to make a final decision on him, though. One thing I can say about him, though, is that, like optimus Prime, they got the original voice actor (though he doesn’t quite have that same sound) and kept his personality in tact. With Soundwave, you have to have at least one of his minions, they decided to give us Ravage, who is some sort of bony, one eyed cat that can project nanobots. The Constructicons merge to form Devastator. Do I really need to say more on that? Well, actually, I do. There was no need to give him balls! The Doctor is an interesting addition to the Decepticons, especially since he is some sort of spider-like creature.
The Fallen can officially take his place among the baddest villains in film. Voiced by Tony Todd, this guy just looks plain evil. Our first look at him is of him sitting in a throne like char as Megatron and Starscream come greet him. This brings me to my next point/qualm.
Megatron, in every incarnation (including Galvatron, after Unicron releases his hold on him), has been the psychotic villainous, mastermind on top of everything, so to hear him call someone “Master” takes away from the mystique. It seems as if they were going for the whole master/apprentice thing. Not sure what Starscream’s role is, though.
With every Michael Bay film, you are sure to get tons of explosions. This is no exception. Once we get past the initial introduction and get started, he never lets up. The opeining battle sequence dwarfs anything in the previous film. What really got me was the entrance of Optimus Prime. Anyone who has seen the original cartoon, knows that Prime is the ultimate everything. He didn’t give off that impression in the last film, though, but this one was vintage Prime. The only thing missing was his trailer. They seriously need to find a trailer to add to him.
While I’m on that subject, again I must discuss these horrible “realistic” designs of each robot. I guess its just my oyalty to the originals, but I am not a fan and don’t see why they can’t resemble the originals more closely. The upgraded vehicvle modes are acceptable…though Sideswipe couple have kept his original Lambroghini form. In the previous film, it was hard to tell who was who. Even Bumblebee, who sticks out more than anyone, got lost in the shuffle. With the influence of Hasbro and the fact that they learned from the previous film, they actually gave some color to a few of the robots. Still not enough for my taste, though. I mean, it doesn’t need to look like a 60s era living room or anything like that, but they are not the same color, and even the ones that are have different shades and markings. Like I said, that’s more the G1 fanboy in me being all nitpicky.
Ok, so this film has ups and downs. The story has some holes and everything, but chances are if you’re taking the time to watch this, you’re not watching it for some sort of cinematic masterpiece, but rather to enjoy yourself. Yes, it 2 1/2 hours, but unlike many films, there isn’t that lull that drags the film down. The action keep you interested and the humor keeps it from being too much.
Speaking of the humor, many complained about it being too much in the first film. I remember reading reviews saying that there was no need for any humor, and that this needs to be a dark, brooding film (referring to the first), blah, blah. So, my guess is Bay read those and wen the other way with it. Personally, I like it. My guess is that he read those and in his mind, figured that if he put more humor in, then people would like it,
Hopefully, I’ve given you some insight into this great film. It’s not perfect, but it is entertaining. Pay no attention to those stuff critic reviews. Go see it for yourself and make your own decision. Fanboy love aside, I loved it, and think people that aren’t influenced by what they read will be, as well.

http://thankyounetflix.wordpress.com

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A Story About Megan Fox... oh yeah... and these Transformers or something...

I don’t think this was a real poster for the movie… but it made me laugh!
Rated PG-13
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, a bunch of robots
150 minutes!!
Currently available to rent

It’s not the excellent dialogue, script or character building that will get you to rent Transformers.  Quite simply, I rented Transformers because it

1. Has Megan Fox in it.
2. Made the most money at the box office last summer.
3. Has giant explosions.
4. Has Megan Fox in it.
5. Has awesome special effects that would have caused brain hemorrhages to viewers 100 years ago.
6. Has giant robots that somehow transform into much smaller, sleek looking cars, jet planes, bulldozers, remote control cars, semis and (didn’t see this one coming) college students (?).
7. What else… oh yeah… it has Megan Fox in it.

Uh... what was I saying again...
There are quite simply those movies out there that you go see strictly for entertainment value.  At certain points in the movie I would catch myself going, “Now… how did that happen?  They just transported halfway across the world?  The Autobots and Decepticons just destroyed half that cities highway system… how does the government cover that up?  How did… oh wait… I forgot that I’m watching Transformers.  Not ‘Gone With the Wind’.” 

T2 jumps down so many rabbit holes you come away from it with a lot of unanswered questions.  Too many in fact for a 2 ½ hour movie.

“But what’s wrong with that?” you might ask me.

“Absolutely nothing.” I would reply.

There is a reason that this movie made eight trillion dollars at the box office (see above).  If you want to think, reflect or cry… rent movies like Memento, Flight 93, or Marley and Me respectively.  If you want to sink into the couch with a sack of popcorn and relax all the muscles in your body to a point where drool uncontrollably spills from the corners of your mouth… then rent Transformers 2.

Even though the Transformers movies main draw are the fantastic special effects… the actors aren’t horrible… they simply don’t have enough lines to bust their acting chops. 

Shia LaBeouf is one again the funny and fast talking Sam Witwicky (coolest fake last name ever).  I like Shia (dumbest real name ever).  He has proven to me that he can act in movies like “Eagle Eye” and “Disturbia”.  I like his acting style and although he seems like he could probably be a tremendous douchbag in real life… I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Megan Fox reprises her role as Mikaela Banes… the role that made her super famous.  Despite all the negativity that she gets in the media for her smart mouth and stuck-upivness (yes mom… I know that’s not a word) she is quickly ascending the ranks as my favorite “it” girl… replacing the highly intelligent Kim Kardashian (although the rest of her family can be shot into space for all I care).  She’s not a bad actor… but she’s not going to be winning an Oscar any time soon.  She sure is nice to look at though.


Megan Fox… good actor or pretty much the whole reason T2 made 8 trillion dollars?  I’m going with the latter.

Next to the computer generated robots… all the other actors are pretty secondary seeing that most of their lines are either said for comic relief or screamed over the sound of a bomb going off, entire cities screaming in horror or that weird “Wei ah wei eh ah” noise that happens every time a robot changes into car/semi/jet plane/motorcycle/remote control big wheel or vice versa.

So, weighing everything that I’ve said here and because I too like explosions, robots, special effects and Megan Fox… I give T2 a handsome 4 out of 5 total raging idiots:

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Read more about me and what's in my crazy mind at www.handstowar.wordpress.com

Last updated: 2010-02-08 21:23:55 by papak