Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
Maxabout Review
Superior to the Original
Friday, June 26, 2009What do you expect out of a Michael Bay film? Explosions? Big freaking robots? The extremely hot Megan Fox? Well that is what you get from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. You get what you expect – a solid film lacking a story with a ton of eye candy. What there is - in spades - is action sequences designed to make your eyeballs pop out of your head and stun you into submission.
It is obnoxiously over stimulating, noisy, visually too much and feels like continual kicks in the head. We are meant to be distracted by the awesomeness of the CGI machines as the focus – not the story. Lazy filmmaking or simply a showcase for the latest technical gadgetry. This is a movie about jagged metal, plain and simple.
The film’s target audience is 15-year-old boys, and they get well and truly served with the explosive combo of sunset battles, cool cars, ultraviolence and Megan Fox’s super-tight jeans. Robot-wise, the big names from the first film are back, with plenty of Starscream/Megatron bitching and a completely insane opening sequence in Shanghai, with Optimus Prime duking it out with what appears to be a demented, giant unicycle.
Continuity is out the window. Robots marked with dents and battle grime turn into immaculately polished cars. It seems to be daytime everywhere on Earth at once. A construction vehicle becomes a wild two-wheeled Decepticon (seen in the trailers) that grows larger in every successive shot, until it is a dozen times larger than it originally appeared.
A movie like this is always crafted from flexible, fuzzy logic; this is a story about battles between giant robots from space that discard all laws of mass and physics when they change into cars. But Revenge of the Fallen feels like it was pieced together moment to moment, scenes written on post-it notes and napkins at lunch to be filmed that same afternoon. That’s where the feeling of storytelling by thirteen-year old comes in.
The films biggest problem is its choppy style, which shows up every flaw in the exo-skeleton. The movie tries a little too hard to be funny, with the always-value-for-money John Turturro fighting to keep his secret. Gripes aside, this does exactly what you expect from a Bay film. Explosions, hot girls, piles of military hardware and nary a thought for plot as it hurtles recklessly toward an epic, money-shot climactic fight outside the pyramids.
The acting is on par with the first film. Nothing spectacular but overall a competent job. Tyrese and Josh Duhamel lack any distinguishing skills whatsoever in this movie. Their scenes seemed to be forced – it’s Monday, punch the clock. Megan Fox looks hot as always but in a very fake way. Maybe he outsourced directing Megan… anyway, Shia is back too doing his same impersonation, the cross between Indy’s kid and Sam, destined to (reluctantly at first) save earth.
The effects are amazing and in places mind boggling. Director Michael Bay's upped the ante this time - within minutes of the film opening, we're plunged into a visually frenetic explosive opening which cuts a swathe through your senses and is designed to leave the kids wanting more and more. It's just disappointing some of the smarter brainier side of it has been demoted in favour of old time Hollywood excess.
Revenge of the Fallen has a number of dead spots, but every time the movie hits one, you can sit back in eager, childish anticipation of the next feat of industrial whirligig diversion.
Shia LaBeouf seems to get taller and leaner, more confidently chiseled, with each new movie. But he'll always have his precocious kid's quick-start mind, and in Revenge of the Fallen, he uses it to play off on-screen girlfriend Megan Fox, with her porno-doll sultriness, as if they were in a romantic comedy.
Sure the movie has some decent moments; some of the jokes and one-liners are amusing; the action is plentiful, but somewhat anti-climactic and sporadic. The special effects abound, but the movie falls flat and could have been much, much better. People ignore all the negative reviews about storyline, plots, character development, acting, comedy and so on. Transformers is a glorified summer blockbuster that's meant to entertain us.
Good all round entertainment and thankfully at last one decent action blockbuster this summer! Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is one hell of a spectacle - it's everything an old school blockbuster should be - loud, noisy, and a lot of fun. Crazed, hyperactive and nonsensical. It’s also curiously lovable and a true multiplex movie. Roll out and see it now.