- Shia Labeouf and Megan Fox star in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS A REVIEW. IT ALSO CONTAINS SPOILERS.
Transformers was a crock of doo-doo. Michael Bay throwing out random plot strands, absurd leaps of logic as well as hard-to-follow action sequences as well as basically having the title characters not show up until at least half way into the film. Shia Labeouf did a good job in holding the interest, but all in all it was a mess of a film under the guise of family entertainment.
And after watching the sequel, Revenge of the Fallen. No. It doesn’t get any better.
No, actually I think I might be lying because the first hour I was thinking that this was actually much better than the first one. The machines are in the movie a lot more, the plot seems (fairly) linear and Megatron seems to be having scenes where he’s berating Starscream….then Megatron reveals a ‘Master’ who comes out of NOWHERE, there’s a transformer who mimicks someone from Home and Away for no apparent reason, a room-mate who gets dragged along for no reason except to bring back that guy from the first film I can’t remember actually being in it, Aaron Pierce from 24 playing a character named after the actor, Mega Fox doing nothing but running and just a really lopsided plot.
Again the story nose-dives into another direction half way through, with most of the transformers taking a back-seat as Sam goes on a quest to find something that can ‘resurrect’ Optimus Prime.
Oh yeah, they kill Optimus half way through – which is actually a very strong image and one of the better points in the film (i.e. the scenes that had the machines in them). But the quest to save him just brings in some very dubious creative choices in that there’s an ‘old-man’ transformer who limps along and then two amazingly racist stereotypes of characters which make Jar Jar Binks the poster-child for political correctness!
It’s too long, too muddled and seems to lack focus. Sam’s parents are kidnapped then forgotten about for around 50 minutes. Sam gives Miss Pointless Character (Miss Fox) a piece of the All-Spark that nearly destroys his house which I was convinced was going to be what brings Optimus back to life when the dust of the Matrix thingy wouldn’t work. Instead we got some really strange bullcrap about destiny and such and then Optimus comes in and kicks the crap out of Megatron (and The Fallen, his ‘Master’) in the space of a minute. We don’t even see the piece of all-spark again.
We spend god knows how long in an action sequence for Sam to get to Optimus’ body; and it just feels like it’s overly padding. We get too many Decepticons and other robot actions appear with no explaination – the actual characters of the transformers aren’t really explored and it’s very, very, very difficult to tell which one is which!
It was also weird because it was the first ever time I watched a movie in the cinema and I was the only person there watching.
Bah. Thank god I used a new Unlimited movie pass on this.
Matt
Matt is the webmaster of ITalkInType and has been a fan of television for a long, long while. He's also a keen gamer and is part of the administration team of Monster Zero Productions.
Good review. I really wanted to like the two Transformers films, but they’re such a mess. The problem is that they have ‘Drop Dead Fred’ syndrome, too childish to be adult and too adult to be childish. I won’t be seeing the third one, unless I’m at a cinema where I can make use of MY Unlimited pass again.
Surely the fact that you were the only person in the cinema would have tipped you off regarding the film’s quality?
This was possibly the worst blockbuster I have seen in the last 10 years. If it weren’t for Megan Fox running around in tight clothing, I’d have walked after 45 minutes.
The worst part? I was surrounded by people who thought it was *ACE*. The world is doomed.