Main cast: Shia LaBeouf (Sam Witwicky), Megan Fox (Mikaela Banes), Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime), Mark Ryan (Jetfire), Reno Wilson (Mudflap), Tom Kenney (Skids), Hugo Weaving (Megatron), Tony Todd (The Fallen), Charles Adler (Starscream), Josh Duhamel (Major Lennox), Tyrese Gibson (USAF Master Sergeant Epps), John Turturro (Agent Simmons), Ramon Rodriguez (Leo Spitz), Kevin Dunn (Ron Witwicky), Julie White (Judy Witwicky), and Glenn Morshower (General Morshower)
Director: Michael Bay
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a typical big, dumb, and loud popcorn movie. If you even think just once while watching it, this movie falls apart completely. On the bright side, because this is a big and dumb movie, there is no problem about following this movie if you hadn’t watched the previous movie.
Where we last left off, Megatron is rusting away at the bottom of the sea, the humans have formed NESTS, a coalition of US soldiers that serve as meat shields for the Autobots, and our hero Sam Witwicky is off to college to enjoy a “normal life”. As normal as one can be if one looks like a 40-year old Jewish mother’s boy who, in an “only in the movies and geek boys’ wet dreams” manner, manages to hook a hot babe who looks like Mikaela Banes. Alas, a super crystal shard manages to find its way into Sam’s possession, and now he is in possession of Super Secret Information that has every Decepticon on hot pursuit of his useless annoying scrawny rear end. The Decepticons are so desperate, they have even ripped off employed a horny alien creature from that low-budget direct-to-video Canadian movie Decoys to take down Sam.
Naturally, it’s up to the Autobots to protect Sam’s useless self as Sam and his entourage embark on an unbelievably stupid quest that makes me wonder how nobody has discovered the Top Secret Thing That Five Primes Pointlessly Sacrificed Themselves to “Protect” since it is so easily found. Along the way, parents who have brought their kids into the cinema will find themselves having to explain to the little kids the scrotum jokes, the sight of a mini-Decepticon dry-humping our heroine, and other jokes that contribute to the PG-13 rating. Kids who love playing God of War will also delight in watching Optimus Prime rip off heads and disembowel bodies with his bare hands as if he’s possessed by the Ghost of Sparta.
The plot of this movie is very thin, but I don’t think anybody watches this show for enlightenment, heh. Unfortunately, this movie focuses very little on the robots. For way too long, it’s all about the irritating Sam and his gang running around, using poor stupid Bumblebee as their personal donkey. The twin Autobots, Mudflaps and Skids, provide ghetto humor that will delight kids who believe that Eminem is the real deal in gangsterhood. Jetfire and Agent Simmons are the only two in Sam’s entourage to be actually funny, while Sam’s college room mate Leo Spitz is a waste of space. Meanwhile, the mystery of what a hot babe like Mikaela is doing with a total loser like Sam remains unsolved.
Like the previous movie, the only cool Autobots are Optimus Prime, who rips apart losers for breakfast, and Ironhide, but these two, especially Ironhide, have minimal screen time here. The other robots, both Autobots and Decepticons, barely register in this movie. I can only snort when I read that they have created new robots for this movie, because given that these robots show up for like ten minutes in the entire movie, I can only why they bother. Even Megatron’s big boss, the Fallen, is a non-entity in this movie. There is way too much focus on the useless humans in this movie.
There is unsatisfying quality to the action scenes as well. The fight scenes are hard to make out, and it’s very difficult to see who is getting shot and who is doing the shooting. These scenes are often concluded abruptly before the movie jumps to the next scene. Also, it doesn’t help that all the fighting is stupid. Decepticons suddenly keep missing Sam when they could have easily squashed that loser. Sam and Mikaela manage to overrun explosions. Bombs explode… but the animals in the foreground behave as if nothing has happened. Wait until you see how lax the security is surrounding Megatron that the Decepticons manage to get him out of the sea bed with just a few robots that manage to sneak past the NESTS’ defenses – you know, giant robots that go stomp-stomp-stomp on the ground? The people behind this movie waste so much money into CGI that they forget to double check to make sure that nothing embarrassing is sticking out here and there.
As for logic, well, where do I start? The Decepticons have the bigger fragment of the Allspark crystal, but apparently they still need Sam because Sam has information contained in the shard that is now imprinted in his brain. Yes, the same shard that the Decepticons also have in their possession. And can someone tell me why we need the Stupid Not Very Well-Hidden Thing to resurrect Optimus Prime when Megatron gets resurrected so easily? Why do the military devices owned by NESTS calculate that 5+1-1=6? Why do big things and machines get sucked into a giant robot’s maw but our humans can still run around on their feet? Then there are scenes where we have a bunch of Autobots following Optimus Prime, but in the next scene, we see him all alone. Did the other Autobots stop for a toilet break?
Think it about. It took three people to come up with this mess of illogical and incoherent nonsense. If this isn’t a sign of Hollywood short-circuiting away, I don’t know what is.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a nice, shiny, and loud movie to sit back, relax, munch popcorn, and watch while the brain is allowed to shut down and take a break. I would recommend renting over actually buying this movie though, because repeated watching of the movie will only expose how messy the whole thing is. And then you will feel as if you’re standing right under a robot’s giant scrotum, and not only that, the robot is called Michael Bay and he has just taken a dump right over you.
