Review: Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

The following review is solely my opinion and not the opinion of the entire Geekadelphia crew.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was released last Wednesday and since then has made a ton of money. No matter what you, I, or anyone else may think, Michael Bay is richer than we’ll ever be. However, is the film any good? That’s what I plan to answer in this review and hopefully get some feedback from readers on what they thought as well. I should warn you that there are some slight spoilers of the film, but nothing that would ruin your experience if you haven’t seen it yet.

Hit the jump and let’s discuss.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is like watching someone make fun of themselves and not realize it. It’s funny at first but eventually it gets to a point where it’s uncomfortable. It reminded me of  this scene from The Office. The difference is Ricky Gervais did all of that on purpose to get a laugh. Transformers 2 felt like it wanted to be something more but never got to that point in development. An outline was probably created where they mapped out where they wanted to go, but it feels like nobody actually wrote a script. It feels as if the people behind the film said “Just put a few shots of Megan Fox’s boobs bouncing up and down in slow motion, throw in a couple money shots of explosions and call it day!”

The story is a mess of ideas that never come together. Two years have passed since the first movie and the Autobots work with the government to eradicate the remaining Decepticons. During one of these missions Optimus Prime and his human allies are warned of an impending attack by The Fallen. Elsehwere, Sam Witwicky and his family, put in some sort of government protection program yet living in the exact same home where any Decepticon could find them, is heading off to college and accidentally discovers he has in his possession a sliver of The Cube, which gives life to any and all electronic devices. The object, when touched by Sam, downloads into his brain important information regarding another important item that grants life, or activates a machine. It’s never given much thought.

Somewhere above earth, Soundwave the eavesdropping Decepticon, taps into what my friend described as “America’s only communications satellite”, and in a matter of minutes discovers the location Megatron’s body, along with the location of another piece of the dreaded Cube. When Megatron is resurected in one of the most confusing scenes of the film due to sudden increase of characters onscreen without any explanation, he reports to his boss The Fallen. This guy is supposed to be a threat but he has no real plan, and he’s not that threatening. if he had a mustache he’d twirl it and considering they have a robot with a beard, it’s possible. From here chaos ensues and a globetrekking adventure begins to stop The Fallen and his Decepticon pals from doing whatever it is they were trying to do. Truth be told, it doesn’t matter and you won’t care.  The movie is beyond boring and all of the excitement and fun from the first film is gone. Also, Megan Fox is in this movie but she doesn’t do anything worth mentioning her more than this sentence. Sorry Tim!

It feels like the marketing for TF2 started after The Dark Knight, when everyone thought the key to success was to make a movie two and a half hours long, tell people it was a “darker” film, and had better visual effects. Unfortunately they missed the part where they needed to have a story to tell, engaging characters, and all the stuff that made TDK so good. What really breaks my brain is that two of the three writers behind this film, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, wrote the other big budget summer blockbuster of this year, Star Trek. My guess is that the directors had a lot of input in the final outcome of the movie. Whereas JJ Abrams created something awesome, Michael Bay did what Michael Bay did best; blow more things up. TF2 is pretty much Michael Bay going “How much crap can I blow up before people realize they got punk’d?”

The answer? 12 Minutes.

I wanted at the very least to enjoy the film and Bay couldn’t even do that for me. He made believers out of a lot of people. He had them on his side and then he completely dropped the ball. I believe the people seeing this film from here on out aren’t Transformers fans but all those average, everyday folks who go to the movies every so often. Thankfully, I’m not the only one who thinks this either.

My other big complaint is that more than half of the new robots, Autobots and Decepticons respectively, never get proper introductions. The original four autobots are there, but other than Optimus who gets the absolute best parts of the movie, they were all just background. The decepticons never get much in the way of introductions and just show up. None of the characters do anything worth being in the movie and just take up time and space. Except those twins, which loved telling people that they’d bust a cap in people’s asses. There’s some question as to whether they’re racist and it’s warranted. I went to a theater where the  audience laughed while I groaned. It’s not that I’m more sensitive about this but I know someone’s lame attempt at the expense of using stereotypes. Interesting enough, both the writers and Bay are either blaming one another for this glaring mistake, or they don’t care at all because they knew they were going to make a lot money. I just think when you add the gold teeth, the monkey faces, and personality traits where they admit to not being able to read, that should raise some eyebrows somewhere during the development process.

My displeasure of TF2 does not comes from any lack of  being a fan of the original series. It’s just painfully obvious that the film had no purpose. I believe there were cliff notes of a story that they wanted to tell, and had they spent time actually writing something awesome, the movie would have probably been a tight two hour action fest that would have actually been fun. Instead we got a film that is too long with a bunch of action that is terribly boring. How could you make fighting robots boring?

If you enjoyed it,  that’s your perogative. In fact I’d like to know why you enjoyed it. Am I missing the big picture?  Was there something I missed that would have made this film more enjoyable? Turning my brain off is not an option by the way. I know when I go into a movie that I expect certain things. I expected this movie to be fun, and it failed. Turning my brain off would not have made this movie any better.