[Movie Review] TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
** Please note, there are spoilers within this review/comments section. If you haven’t seen the movie yet and don’t want to know some fairly major plot points then this isn’t the review for you.
Gareth **
I happen to be a big believer in karma. What goes around always has a way of coming around, as that catchy Justin Timberlake song says. People get what they deserve, so be good for goodness’ sake! I’ll also admit that I’m pretty big on schadenfreude, which basically means that I enjoy the misery of others. We’ve all had our moments of schadenfreude: someone that you don’t like gets bad news, a celebrity gets arrested and we all make jokes about it, your douche ex gets cheated on, you get the point. Well right now, karma has come around to bite the entire movie-going populace square on our butts. We had this one coming, people. All of us who make excuses for big summer movies by claiming that we should just “check our brains at the door” or “I just wanna see stuff blow up” or “oh look, hot chicks! This movie must be AWESOME, yo!” WE HAD THIS COMING, and now Michael Bay is experiencing the biggest schadenfreude in human history. I can just see him on some island surrounded by strippers and guns, laughing his head off at the misery that I endured watching this wretched movie.
While commercials play on television hailing this pile of excrement as a masterpiece (I literally JUST saw a commercial where a critic called this a “masterpiece”), I know the truth. This movie is bad, people. There’s no two ways around it. It’s bad. It’s a loud, brainless, offensive piece of crap that feels about twice as long as it actually is. Now, before you peg me as a Bay hater, I’m not. Lemme direct you to my review of the first Transformers movie, where I even said that the sequence where the Autobots fall to Earth put some moisture in my eyes. It was a beautiful moment combined with that great score booming in IMAX. There was a sense of wonder and magic there that does not make one single appearance in this new film. Bay has somehow taken everything that was wrong about the first film and amplified it. You liked the lame attempts at comic relief in the first one? You get MORE here! You liked the lame love story that no one gave two farts about in the first one? You get MORE here! You liked the racial stereotypes in the first one? You guessed it, MORE here! They are so consumed with making everything as BIG and LOUD as possible that they completely forget that their story is utterly nonsensical, their lead character has morphed into an unlikable little prick, and the robots that everyone so wanted to see are simultaneously thrust into the spotlight and strangely shoved out of it. There’s no sense in even attempting a plot recap here, so I’m just going to talk about everything that I dislike about this film. Spoilers like crazy from this point on.
1) What the heck is Sam’s problem? When during the two years between the first and second film did he turn into such a little douchebag? For starters, what is his problem with the Autobots? Not only did they save his life in the last film, they changed his life! Dude, you’re pals with ALIEN ROBOTS! You spent the first movie moaning about being a normal kid and not getting any tail, and now look at you! You’ve got an alien car and are apparently having sex with Mikaela, if your mother is to be believed (more on her later). So why all of a sudden do you want to be “normal”? This is NEVER explained. Why does Sam feel the need to shove the Autobots out of his life by abandoning Bumblebee and directly shunning Optimus Prime when he needs Sam’s help?! Are you kidding me?! He’s not asking you to uproot your life, you ungrateful little runt! Just have a friggin’ conversation with some government tools on Optimus’ behalf. Is that a HUGE thing to ask? He should be jumping to do whatever the hell Optimus asks! You think he would have gotten Mikaela without Bumblebee, who is now relegated to hiding out in the garage and crying like a baby when Sam basically dumps him? Any sympathy or identification the audience had with you is gone due to your douchy behavior, so when Optimus dies defending your sorry ass, all I could think was “Optimus died for this moron?” Then they set out on this lame redemption arc for Sam, but it’s too little, too late. It feels utterly disingenuous.
2) I don’t care about the “L” word in a TRANSFORMERS movie. They spend the entirety of this movie with Sam and Mikaela embroiled in this idiotic drama about Sam not saying the “L” word to Mikaela. THIS MAKES NO SENSE. For starters, raise your hand if you’re concerned about their relationship? Didn’t think so. Second, Sam went to so much trouble in the first movie to get her that his mistreatment of her here (and yes guys, being with a girl for TWO YEARS and stringing her along like this is mistreatment) makes him even more of a douche than I already described. Why not just say it? As Sam says himself, she has options. She can do better than this little prick who builds up his own self-esteem by lowering hers and having her chase him about everywhere whining about why he won’t say it. It was nauseating! Here’s a tip, honey: if a guy has been with you for that long and can’t say it, leave. The end. But then, if she did that we’d miss that extra twenty minutes of BS in this movie, wouldn’t we?!
3) Megan Fox, what hath thou wrought? Her acting is even worse here, her lips are noticeably pumped full of something, and they devote endless scenes to objectifying her. The first time you see her, her ass is up in the air on a bike in short shorts. Then she’s in leather. Then she strips out of the leather on-camera for no reason whatsoever. Then she runs in slo-mo so her titties that have been shoved into a push-up bra can bounce, bounce, bounce. I’m sure that appeals to some of you, so enjoy it now. She’s got one more Transformers film and then she’s done.
4) Isn’t comic relief supposed to be funny? The parents were funny in the first film in short doses. Here, we have a scene which does NOTHING to further the plot and could have and should have been cut, where Sam’s mom gets high on a weed brownie, tells some girls about how she heard Sam getting his cherry popped, and tackles some guys playing football. It. Was. STUPID. There is this irritating little Italian Decepticon robot that acts like he’s in Goodfellas and humps Megan Fox. There is an irritating roommate who screams through the entire film. Agent Simmons returns to irritate me and flash his ass for no reason at all. All of it made my eyes roll and roll.
5) The TWINS. Car Car Binks, indeed. Gold teeth, talking like gangsta rappers, claiming that they can’t read. I don’t offend easily, but this crap offended me a lot. My friend who I was with kept looking at me as in disbelief at what we were seeing.
6) Can these people read a map? There is an absolutely inane sequence when our heroes go to the Smithsonian Institute in WASHINGTON D.C. to seek the aid of a Decepticon named Jetfire. This facility is in D.C., right? So why the hell is it that when Jetfire breaks down a wall and walks outside, THEY ARE IN A FIELD IN CALIFORNIA?! For God’s sake, did none of these people behind this film think of this?! What the HELL?
7) America, F*&% Yeah! When the heroes are crossing from Egypt into Jordan, what do we see? Not a proper checkpoint, but some rinky-dink gate that looks less secure than a railroad crosswalk and is guarded by an Oompa-Loompa (literally). How do we establish that two characters are in France? Have them get accosted by a mime and eat some traditional French food, escargot, only to spit it out and call it disgusting. I get that Michael Bay would have sex with the Washington Monument if he could, but come on. Some folks may call it a nitpick, but there’s no need to deride other countries and include stupid stereotypes like that.
8) Where are the other robots? If your name is not Optimus Prime or Bumblebee and you are an Autobot, you do not exist in this film. Well, you exist, but you are not heard from. Ratchet gets maybe one line. Ironhide gets two that I remember, and spends most of the movie in truck form. Even worse, those two spend the majority of the movie out of action. They’re separated from the rest of the group and are barely seen. Arcee, the motorcycle, is seen onscreen for maybe two minutes total and never gets a proper introduction. Another Autobot whose name I do not know since his name is never said is there in the beginning and just disappears. He may have been in the finale but there’s so many silver robots running around that I honestly couldn’t be sure. The Decepticons are also given the shaft. Soundwave says a few lines and is never seen again. Devastator is seen for a little bit before being taken out by a friggin’ twin. Why the hell did they do this? Why bring in all of these new robots if you aren’t even going to tell us who they are?! God knows this film was long enough to fit in a “Hey, this is so-and-so”. Speaking of…
9) Why is this film so friggin’ long? There’s a good hourlong section of this film in which nothing really happens. We are suddenly thrown into Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (I swear, they used the same location) as the humans run around trying to find some magic key and I did not care and I’m falling asleep typing this.
10) The Terminatrix. From the moment the college whore comes onscreen, you know something’s wrong. When they reveal that she’s a Decepticon, it opens a very interesting door that the movie forgets to walk through. If you have robots who are now capable of disguising themselves as HUMANS (and how did they figure that out? Oh yeah, never explained, oh well), why don’t we have, oh I don’t know, MORE OF THEM running around? Wouldn’t that be a good tactical move for the Decepticons? Wouldn’t that make sense? But yeah, this movie makes no sense, so having something in it that makes sense would make no sense!
11) The Fallen’s revenge is pretty lame. “Hey, my pals betrayed me and for reasons never explained they had to die to hide that stupid key, so I’m gonna sit right here wherever the heck I am since the film can’t even establish if I’m on a spaceship or on Cybertron and I’ll chill here for thousands of years until I can blow up the sun and take the energy. Who cares if there are other planets for me to take energy from, I’m gonna sit here and pout until I can blow up the sun! Oh, and I’m gonna get hyped up to be nearly invincible only to be dealt with in one minute by Optimus. Yeah.”
12) Sam goes to robot heaven. Do I even have to explain how dumb this is?
Do I even have to explain this rating any further? Yes, the effects are nice, but this became less of a film and more of an endurance test. I barely made it. Barely.
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37 Responses to “[Movie Review] TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN”
I told you so.
With the money I saved not seeing this piece of shit, I get to go and see Moon next week.
Yeah, but…
Optimus Prime and JetFire Link-Up and fight Megatron, Starscream and The Fallen on top of a pyramid
Well Grundy, my one consolation is that I did not pay.
That’s good.
I don’t understand why everyone thought the Twins were annoying? I can see why buy they didn’t bother me at all. Did they need to be in there? No, but it was funny when they were. Decepticons were wasted, Autobots were not. Too long, awesome action, great effects, I enjoyed it.
The Twins were obnoxious and dumb. Rather than have even more comic relief in a film that had too much of it (parents, roommate, Simmons), wouldn’t you have rather seen some more interaction with the other Autobots, or gotten to know The Fallen a little bit better? There was nothing even remotely redeeming about the two of them.
The Autobots WERE wasted. Why bring in Arcee if you aren’t going to use her? What was the name of that silver car in the very beginning, the one who slices that car in two and says “Damn I’m good”? Tell me please because they never even say his name! Where the hell are Ratchet and Ironhide throughout this film? They’re barely there. WHY KILL OPTIMUS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOVIE ONLY TO BRING HIM BACK? We have a third movie coming. If Bay had a brain, he would have killed him in the climax of this cluster**** and brought him back in part three. Here, it plays like I’m watching The Passion of the Prime, with him croaking and resurrecting back three damn days later. His death holds no significance if you bring him back so quickly. I ****ing forgot that Optimus was dead until that whole powder sock deal.
And now that I think of it, the entire climax of this film is a direct rehash of the first one: the military blasting shit, Sam running like hell while some Autobots provide shitty cover fire, he gets the girl, Optimus talks, roll credits. Problem is here, it makes no goddamn sense and my head hurt trying to figure out who all these ****ing robots were. They have GOT to give the Decepticons a more distinguishable color scheme, because they all blend together.
Aaron broh…there were just too many robots..the coolest transformer was easily Arcee but **** theres 42 robots man i dont think there was time to introduce them all.
I do 100% agree that the autobots were wasted but…dude there were like 20 of them, and **** ratchet he never does shit in the first one he didnt fix ANYTHING, hes a shitty medic
And the Decepticons, again, there was a scene were 50 fall out of ****ing nowhere- i just dont see how it would look okay in the movie to introduce them…maybe if the Fallen said:
“DECEPTICONS! Before we begin onslaught, we will play the name game, after the 67 of us are done, we will commence our revenge upon mankind!”
“Im Rampage..and i turn into a tractor”
“Hes Rampage and he turns into a tractor, Im Sideways and i turn into an Audi”
No ****ing way with 42 robots^^^ it would have taken an hour
I kinda felt guilty laughing at the Twins’ act, when Mudflap was doing his ninja hop in the desert it was funny or when Skids called the college guy a pussy
But I understand they were a bit obnoxious and i see how people don’t like them
This is a pretty good review and all of these things are 100% true but, when i saw it I didnt really care about Sam or Megan Fox, I mean, Optimus split Grindors face in two, i wasnt thinking about the plot or looking for the moral of the movie, i was waiting to see Megatron get ****ed up by Starscream (And it never happened! FUUCK!!)
My expectations ran thus:
Stupid humor that ill ignore, unessesary porn thrown at my face, but amazing nonstop action with giant robots”
And then i added a note to self
“Expect nothing but that^^^ disregard the juvenile humor and flaws, and enjoy the rest of it”
ALSO
by the wayyy
I was looking for R2D2
I didnt find him lol
Oh and Kris his names Sideswipe, lol he was at the end,
He shouts “SAM!” and then skates 4 feet and gets shot in the face lmao
OHHHH
AND
I saw Bonecrusher
Right after Megatron says
“DECEPTICONS, begin onslaught!!”
They show him in truck mode and a decepticon in front of him is walking and..sort of pointing at him or something
I shouted “BONECRUSHERS BACK!”
And yeah all the decepticons look exactly the same,
Remember the helicopter in the forest scene?
Yeah. Thats not Blackout, thats an exact replica called Grindor. There were 5 robots i can name that looked EXACTLY the same. With this i agree, that was bullshit
Rampages face looked just like bonecrushers and Mixmaster had the same ****ing face the fallen did
**** my life. Im such a nerd. llo.
The real irony is, even though it’ll still bomb badly, I think I’m going to end up enjoying G.I.Joe more than this film. I can’t imagine it being worse.
Hazzy, I’m not saying that they had to stand around and do an introduction scene like they did in the first one, but for Pete’s sake, at least give me a NAME in the ****ing movie so I’m not sitting there the whole time trying to figure out who’s who. I’m sure most folks thought it was Jazz reborn.
lol xD
Well, im really trying to think of how they could have introduced them so it wont be the same as the 1st movie (because if they did that, the twins would have said something ****ing stupid…yes- even worse then “wassup lil’ bitches” to introduce themselves like Jazz)
Okay how about having Optimus introduce them to the Sergeant Major of the Air Force, i mean if they were going to work alongside the humans, they HAD to introduce them to the military and give SOME sort of background check
I guess that would have worked out
But then again, i cant stress enough how stupid it would have been when Optimus said
“And this is my reconnaissance specialist Mudflap and our scientist Skids…”
And then have them say somehting completely ****ing irritating like some…”yo momma” joke
Okay now for the decepticons:
Yeah- nothing, theres no way they could have introduced them
OR
lol
It could have been like in the movie The Rundown with The Rock how when the movie starts each time a character is shown the screen pauses and you see some chrome letters tell you the guys name…but that would have been SO ****ing cheesy
The reviews for this movie have been hilarious.
Check this one from IO9:
http://io9.com/5301898/michael-bay-finally-made-an-art-movie?skyline=true&s=i
Oh yeah Haz I agree there were far too many robots. At one point they just kept coming I was thinking “How many of em are there?” The Decepticons, more of my “Waste rant” (lol) were very wasted. I mean Megatron didn’t really do crap except fight a few Autobots. He was just there, taking of a portion of the screen. The Fallen, don’t even get me started. Since when does Starscream bow???? Bumble Bee could have been used a little bit better, because I thought he was a waste. Devastator wasn’t wasted, because he was used in the right scene. Sure he could have been in there more but still..
The Twins. Trust me guys I hear ya. They were juvenile and Haz I kind of felt guilty laughing too. BUT, I still liked them for whatever reason, honestly IDK why I did.
Yeah the robot heaven thing was alright. It came off as fake and this one dude on the movie blog said “Sam goes to robot heaven” so I’m like “Oh thanks for spoiling it dude.” Turns out it wasn’t much of a spoiler.
Optimus Prime’s death. Did we really buy that?? No not at all. He’s optimus, I mean come on!
That hour section seemed to DRAG when nothing happened. But one bright side came out of it…at least we finally figured out what the story was and what the heck was going on!!
However, the awesome robot action and effects outweighed all the negatives. And there are A LOT of negatives.
Starscream is supposed to bow, hes a hypocrite a coward and a traitor, what i dont get is why they made him a pussy, yeah hes a suck up, but hes no Igor
That hour you speak of had that scene were JetFire tells them the story about The Fallen in the desert, i think i jizzed my pants in that scene, it was so ****ing epic, i love JetFire
Yes the scene with Jet Fire was cool, because I finally new what was going on, lol
In a nutshell, why this film is one big FAIL:
http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php
I’d have given it a generous 3, but really probably a 2.
It annoyed me more then it entertained me and Prime’s speech at the end on the military ship was utterly nonsensical. Absolutely, unequiviably, typical Ethan Kruger shite!
Oh btw, are Sam and Mikela going to make out every single time a Transformer fim ends?
The L word? This movie even has discussions about lesbianism?
No, they’re saving the big Mikaela/random hot blond makeout for part 3!
Probably would have been better if it did involve lesbians.
And again cause I’m an ass, I ****ing told you so. Ha!
I watched the Transformers cartoon version during my childhood days. It is nice to know that good computer graphics brought the Transformers back again. I wish to see more of the Dinobots in action perhaps on another sequel.
@ BODY DETOX DIETS
I agree with that 100%
AND
I want the next one to be called
“Transformers: Emperor of Destruction”
Because it will bring in the amazing Vehicons which need no spark and the Predacons….
And yes, there will be Dinobots.
Emperor of destruction has the best story ever
And Megazarak will be THE Emperor of Desatruction in this sequel
And of course to top all that ****ing awesomeness up have Unicron in there and Galvatron as his slave
AAAANNNNDDDDD!!!!!
AND!
AND!
I have an IDEA!!!
Kill Megan Fox, kill Sam and his family, and bring in new humans, Have Gwyneth Paltrow be the human…..shes suposedly Sams only remaining family member so she for some reason sticks around Bumblebee….anyways theres shots of her every 7 minutes sunbathing, reading books and eating fruit…..naked.
Grundy.
I like your idea, youre brainstorming…so am i…i will RAISE your lesbian idea and make this of it:
Have a bunch of lesbian clones of Gwyneth Paltrow as the disguised decepticon robots that KILL Megan Fox and Sam, they disguised themselves as Sams aunt, and then the real aunt comes in again in the movie later….that way Gwynie still gets most of the screen time
And as for the lesbian thing, she was only a lesbian because there arent men in this planet that could possibly be as godlike as she is, therefore she can only have a steady relationship with clones of her….if she were straight and went out with mortals it would blow her cover and sam would know its a fake
You all must admit.
This idea i speak of, is pure gold.
@MICHAEL BAY
If you are reading this, i will not sue you if you use this idea, feel free to use it, it will not work if you use anyone BUT Gwyneth Kate Paltrow, youre welcome.
Hazzy, sweet Jesus…
My Public Enemies review should be up tomorrow.
Kristina you know its a better plot then what you saw in TF2…Gwynnie would DESTROY Megan Toe Thumb Fox ANYDAY
(I love you G.K.P.)
OOH im watching Public Enemies with this girl on friday! I hope its good
(This review wont change my mind about watching it or not, i already told her id go with her….so….im really hoping its ****ing good cuz she doesnt wanna watch any other movie…and as usual i have to say “oh its okay ill watch whatever you want” )
I think it kinda looks like 3:10 to yuma…i kinda also hope so…cuz that was one of my fave movies of all time….and the Prestige lol
Sweet, can’t wait for the Public enemies review. I didn’t like it too much, but if Haz likes it, we will argue lol
You didnt? ****! Hopefully it was good and you were just on speed at the moment
Hahahahahah lol
Typing my review right now.
wether it is the Transformers animated version or movie version. you can expect some good robot action. I love Transformers.
I think the animated movie was 10 times better then any live action Michael Bay movie
All of them were shit.
You havent seen transformers.
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