Film Review: Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Warning: Extremely biased and opinionated review. Wait, isn't that the point of them...?

SPOILER ALERT
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Well first off, I will get my opinion as a whole out of the way: I didn't really hate the movie. That might be the greatest compliment I could give however. Amidst all the chaos and an unnecesarily ploddy narrative, not much true cinematic value is to be found. There is enjoyment, yes, but for all its so called epic-ness and well choreographed action, it is still only, at best, an ok action flick. In terms of Summer Action movies (well, Summer in the U.S), it is slightly more enjoyable than Terminator Salvation, but it too falls far short of the bar set by Abrams' Star Trek.

Everything that I expected to be bad about it was bad. The jokes aren't funny, I think I laughed about a total of 4 times. Well, maybe that's just because I have half a brain, who knows. Ask people who found those twin-autobots who tried to talk like gangstas funny. And the pacing is terrible; after a nonstop edge-of-your-seat first third, the movie veers into a long and winding plot arc that serves only to get all the major players to one location for a massive battle, and along the way has scenes of either people buzzing their own nuts with a taser or long speeches by an old-man former-Decepticon about how "we did things back in my day". Are you serious? A transformer with a BEARD?? What the crap! How does that even happen?? What, over time he gradually shifts different metalic parts towards the chin area to indicate old age? Arahghefaargh!!!!

*breathes slowly*

And then there's the acting. Yes, it seems that Megan Fox's role (whom I shall refer to as Fox, because I can't spell her character's name and am too lazy to try and find out how) consists only of wearing as little as possible and kissing Sam Witwicky. Shia LaBeouf as Sam is sticking to his guns as the smartmouth every-guy, and while there is still enough charm there to sustain the role, like much of the movie, it's overcooked and becomes too much by the end. Think Capt. Jack Sparrow, and how much you wanted to strangle him in the 2nd Pirates film.

Other characters fare even worse. The army guys are about as boringly manly and army-ish as they come (where has the humorous banter that Gibson and Duhamel shared in the first movie gone?), Rodríguez as Leo gets annoying as soon as he opens his mouth (he honestly does not add anything to the plotline AT ALL), and Isabel Lucas' role as the Pretender Sally is nothing more than a chick acting like a skank so that she can get info from Sam. Seriously.

However, there are a few stand-outs in the cast. John Turturro as ex-agent Simmons is a lot funnier this time round, and he is probably the only enjoyable thing about the 20-30minutelong climax battle. His "one man, betrayed by his country" routine actually made me laugh, and it seemed like he was the only character that would act like a normal person in his situation would. Sams parents too were quite well-written and acted. There are no classics like "Sams happy time" this time around, but they still deliver the comedic goods; it's just a pity they get reduced to yet more senseless plot devices in the climax.

As expected, the CGI is very very (VERY) good, and those massive robot-on-robot clashes that seem to pop up every 5 minutes are now more beautiful than ever. More so than in the first film, we really get to see how big these guys are and just how jawdropping watching a fight between them would be. This is helped by what seems to be a more patient Michael Bay; Instead of frantically shaking the camera every oppourtinity he gets, he actually sits it down on a tripod and lets us watch as the fights unfold. That said however, with there being a transformer battle almost every 2nd or so scene, their epicness and sheer OMG value is diminished; I just got sick of it. LESS IS MORE. We accept that action scenes are to Michael Bay as porn is to a horny guy (who likes porn), but cmon, after a while the explosions and loud noises just became senseless, meaningless, and ultimately uninteresting.

I mean, the best fight scene came before the halfway mark even hit, and yes, it involves Optimus Prime totally kicking ass (a welcome change to the Prime who got a hiding in the first film). After that, only a few 'Bumblebee vs another robot' scraps came close to its awesomeness. The climactic battle where Prime takes on The Fallen is ridiculously undercooked and forgetable, but there are some pretty impressive fight sequences in there (see brilliant opening sequence).

Another enjoyable aspect was also in the early acts on the film, where there was an emphasis put on how Sam and Fox were struggling in their relationship because he was going to college. However, this plotline is forgotten early on in the film, which is a shame because in the middle of all the Autobot vs Decepticon fighting, it was refreshing to have a heartfelt story that we could actually care about; it gave the film a soul. If only it were given more time to grow and get fleshed out, instead of discarded than mentioned again at the end.

On paper, this film has a lot going for it. More robots, bigger fights, higher stakes, better cgi, etc. But when you think about it filmwise, to have it 2 and a half hours long is just a big mistake (for a Michael Bay movie). Making it longer only invited in it's biggest downfalls: unnecesary extra characters, a slow plot that is only complex to stretch out its run-time, and a suffocating over-indulgence in most of the action sequences. Like, seriously, 30 minutes (and 10 characters) could have been chopped off without anyone even noticing, and it would have made a much better film.

Final Rating: 3 (out of 5)