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June 24, 2009

Movie Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Posted by CoolerKing in Movie Reviews

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a jaw-droppingly awful movie, a piece of loud, cluttered, stupid junk that stands below any that the often criticized Michael Bay has ever directed. Consider that all the warning that you probably need. If you have never felt cheated by movies like The Island, Pearl Harbor, or Bad Boys II, then Revenge of the Fallen has a chance of delivering what you need, but the rest of you should take your least satisfying Bay experience and turn it up to eleven and that will approximate how you are likely to respond to this bloated mess of a film. There's a saying that a film's length is not only determined by its running time. We've all seen short films that feel epic and long films that fly by in the blink of an eye. I swear to you that I have never had a film experience that felt longer than the whopping 149 minutes of Revenge of the Fallen, every single one of which I wish I had spent doing something else.

I know that my dear readers think that I am exaggerating. First and foremost, unlike a lot of critics, I actually liked the first Transformers. It was a relatively simple tale of a boy caught in the middle of an interstellar war and I thought it played into Bay's "meets the eye" aesthetic. What better subject for a director who loves to make things blow up than a story like Transformers? So, what happened with Revenge of the Fallen? It is proof that “more” is not always better – more robots, more running, more shooting, more sci-fi nonsense, and more incomprehensible nonsense masquerading as action. If you own the first film, put it on, turn the volume up as loud as it will go, punch yourself in the face repeatedly, and then watch it again – that should approximate seeing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

I’ll give the plot the best effort I can (which is more than writers Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman ever attempted). Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) heads off to college only to discover that leaving Megan Fox was a very bad idea. At a school clearly staffed by the editors of FHM, Sam meets Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) and starts having visions of symbols like his legendary ancestor, the first Witwicky to encounter the Transformers. He discovers that he can read textbooks in seconds and that he is actually now the living key to a centuries-old battle between the Autobots and a legendary Decepticon known as The Fallen, a Transformer who wanted to blow up our sun to create a rare energy for his race but the Matrix of Leadership was locked away and.... Are you still with me? The dialogue/plot in Revenge of the Fallen is unbearable. There are multiple scenes of one giant CGI creation talking to another CGI creation and all of them are meaningless exposition about prophecies and plot developments that are simply impossible to care about. Oh, and did I mention that most of them have been given some stereotypical, culturally offensive accent? There's one that sounds like a bad gangster impression, one that might be Scottish, and don't get me started on the twins. Why do the Transformers need to sound like bad cartoon characters?

The human characters – LaBeouf, Fox, Rodriguez, and John Turturro – make out slightly better but they're basically just reduced to screaming and running for the last 100 minutes of the movie. What are they screaming and running from? Your guess is as good as mine. The action in Transformers was at least clean enough that you could usually follow what was happening. That's not the case here. By making every CGI creation ten times bigger, the film loses all perspective. You can never tell what the hell is going on in a giant robot fight until maybe the final shot when Bay decides to slo-mo the decisive blow like a finishing move in a bad fighting video game.

The entirety of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen lacks two elements needed for an effects-heavy action film to work – depth and danger. The film never conveys the size of these monstrous creations and you never feel like anyone or anything is in actual danger. The robots (and the people), bounce, run, fight, and then they just do it all over again with maybe a speech about The Fallen or The Matrix of Leadership in between. Bay can't even stage a pay-off to his numbing action scenes effectively. A Transformer fights on the hood of a car driven by Fox's character. She decides to crash the car to take care of the deadly robot and Bay can't even shoot the pay-off in a satisfying way so we could actually tell what the heck is going on. He's too busy moving on to the next loud transformation or scene about the Allspark or Matrix or whatever. Many people will think that this review is exaggerated and will claim that the film is just a good time and that I’m merely being too predictably critical of Mr. Bay. Before they write me hate mail or dismiss this opinion, I dare them to find one shot, one line, one fight scene, or one effect that actually sticks in the memory beyond the film's bloated running time. Just ONE for your hard-earned dollar. There aren't any.

Rating: WOOF!

Reviewed by Brian Tallerico (MovieRetriever.com Film Critic)

Release Date: June 24th, 2009
Rating: PG-13

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Ramon Rodriguez, and John Turturro
Director: Michael Bay
Writers: Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman

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