Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Directed by: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro
Running Time: 2 hrs 35 mins
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: June 24, 20009
Complete coverage of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Features
Scorecard Review
Video Review
He Said – He Said
Soundtrack listing
Interviews
Megan Fox
Josh Duhamel
Tyrese Gibson
Ramon Rodriguez
Visual Effects Supervisor Scott Farrar
Plot: Autobots and the U.S. military have joined forces to form a special fighting unit called NEST, but when Sam (LaBeouf) touches a piece of the cube, everything changes and an old Decepticon enemy comes back to reclaim the Earth.
Who’s It For? Teenage boys. But they’ll need to text during the film because there are some very boring parts. With the language and violence, I don’t think it’s really meant for younger children.
Expectations: I didn’t know what to expect, but I was hoping for a tighter, more basic plot, more fights where you can actually see who’s fighting, and Fox continuing to look like Fox.
SCORECARD (0-10)
Actors:
Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky: He’s reduced to a lot of blinking. I guess that’s what getting possessed with ancient symbols can do to a man. Sam also wants to go to college so he can be normal, and he doesn’t want to take Bumblebee with him. What?! Good lord, when I get my Transformer, I will treat him with a lot more respect. Plus, Sam and Mikaela find it difficult to say the “L” word. Shia’s at this best went ranting, like when he tries to give Mikaela the silent treatment for 10 seconds, or when he makes reference to his insane life. The problem is those are two moments in a 2 and a half hour long movie.
Score: 4
Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes: Her first moment on screen is draped over a motorcycle with insanely tiny denim shorts. She’s also got the shiniest, biggest lips that have ever been on an Imax screen. I don’t know how much of a compliment either of those things are. It remains to be seen if Fox can elevate beyond just an insanely pretty face. Not that there’s anything wrong with being the hottest woman in the room.
Score: 5
Josh Duhamel as Captain Lennox: He’s in this movie but not really. You’re not going to remember any lines or moments. It’s pretty much that Lennox and Sergeant Epps (Gibson) are reduced to a poor man’s Riggs and Murtaugh. Lennox says something, then Epps mutters something about having a bad feeling about something.
Score: 4
John Turturro as Agent Simmons: Simmons shows up to act crazy about half-way through. At first I was relieved because I thought maybe he could provide a jolt to a pretty boring film. But then I remembered what Turturro brought to the first film and how it just didn’t fit.
Score: 4
Talking: Painfully bad one-liners. The worst dialogue comes from the street/ghetto Autobots who love to drop a “bitch” in wherever they can. Good thing one has a gold tooth so we totally understand. The parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie White) don’t add anything funny and the screenwriters beat the “letting Sam go” angle to death.
Score: 2
Sights: Jaw dropping. There are still plenty of moments where you’re too close to the action to understand who’s fighting who and who’s actually winning the battle, but you will see detail with these robot aliens that is the best of the best. They went from 18 Transformers to 46. You’ll also notice every human is super-duper orange. Odd choice there. Isabel Lucas as Alice … Um, this isn’t Terminator.
Score: 8
Sounds: You don’t really notice many songs during the film, even though the soundtrack sports Linkin Park’s “New Divide” and it’s not bad. There is always the attempt at heart-pounding music, but it never compares to the positive visual aspects. Bumblebee once again talks in songs (dated ones like “I’m So Excited” by The Pointer Sisters) and movie quotes (Tom Hanks). Amazing all the technology the Autobots have and they can’t fix his voice box.
Score: 5
PLOT SPOILERS
Best Scene: Optimus Prime takes on three Decepticons in the woods … You can actually see the fighting for the most part, even though I could only tell that Megatron and Starscream were two of the three Decepticons. Optimus fighting is something I could watch all day, but this is hands done the best this film has to offer.
Ending: You’ll never guess who gets away. Looks like there’s plenty of room for a 4-hour Part 3! Bay abuses slow motion on the people at the end, because he’s actually convinced he’s crafted characters here.
Questions: There are too many to really get in here, but what about Sam finding where the seven are when no Decepticon could for centuries? Or what about the old English Decepticon who switches teams, but didn’t even know he was on Earth (in the form of a stealth jet fighter, and has the ability to transport to other places. Plus, any issues with Bay showing dead soldiers being flown home, or 9/11 and Obama references? In this fictitious film, those events have no place. I’ll stop here since I would rather my head not explode.
Rewatchability: It’s two and a half hours. It’s two and a half hours. It’s TWO and a HALF hours. I have no excitement to see this movie again.
OVERALL
This is Michael Bay at this worst. And don’t tell me this is always what he does, because The Rock, Armageddon and even the first Transformers are filled with fun. The best comparison for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is Bad Boys II. This film is forced full of one-liners, has no plot (even though they try to explain it over and over again) and there are no movie boundaries. You need movie boundaries, no matter how outlandish they are. This time around anything can take the form of a Decepticon and apparently anyone can borrow power from another robot. There is no sense, only moments trying to overload your visual senses.
While the film looks fantastically overblown, and there is meticulous detail given to the look of the Transformers, it just doesn’t make up for the fact that this film is boring, and you’re never connecting to anything or anyone.
You know how the Batman films jumped the shark after the third or fourth? It only took Transformers two times … Maybe someone can remake these films in 20 years and get it right. I said the first film is a teenage boy’s wet dream. This sequel is just masturbation.
Final Score: 4/10
Complete coverage of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Features
Scorecard Review
Video Review
He Said – He Said
Soundtrack listing
Interviews
Megan Fox
Josh Duhamel
Tyrese Gibson
Ramon Rodriguez
Visual Effects Supervisor Scott Farrar
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Video Review
Tyrese Gibson – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Box Office Review – June 28, 2009 – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen WINS
Josh Duhamel – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Megan Fox – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
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critics suck, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen is AWESOME
YES IT IS! the best movie i have ever seen
Man what a bad review. Have you ever watched tranformers when you were a kid? Cause I think Bay did a great job depicting them. And for the “questions” paragraph, because something isn’t blatantly pointed out on the screen and you can’t figure it out yourself means it’s stupid? Please…
DAMN!!! I cant stand this!! I was soooo lucking forward to this movie!!! I cant believe it..i am still gonna see it!!
http://c-trainsentertainmentreviews.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9LC0Yc6Q_U
Megan Fox tribute
Did you see that Bad Boys 2 poster in LaBeouf’s dorm room? (Of course you did, it was impossible to miss it). Now THAT was pretty masturbatory
Not to mention the shots of stuff falling to Earth and smashing through buildings that looked copied and pasted from old Armageddon footage.
God, where was Nic Cage, (AKA The Cagemaster) in all of this?!! He probably would’ve fit in perfectly
I hope everyone was as annoyed as I was every single time I heard a crappy one-liner. Don’t tell me there aren’t any because there are too many to count, and their all terrible and cliche. The “funny” parts of the movie with humping (too many) and “cool\tough” acting autobots was torture for me. I felt embarrassed to be watching this movie. I could see this movie being “awesome” to people between the ages of 8 and 13 but that’s it. maybe that’s what Bay wanted to do. The formula fiction is over used and I could pretty much guess what was going to happen about a minute before it did. That’s quite enough for my rant. i don’t want to be submitting a complete review on some other reviewer’s page. Sorry if it got long.
What a moronic review. “0/10″ and yet there isn’t a single “0″ in any of the <ahem< detailed reviews of the movie fine points. Did this guy get a degree from University of Phoenix..?
I’m sorry you were so neglected as a child that you can’t have any fun watching this movie… Stick to your award winning ‘bore-me-out-of-my-mind’ movies while the rest of the world prove you wrong… again! Seriously go do something productive with your life, like maybe right your own movie so other critics down the road can scrutinize your “amazing work” psssh
After watching the movie reviewed and having not read the above critique, I really wish I had listened to my gut and read this review. I can’t believe this is what passes for summer action flicks these days. I remember a time, not to long ago, when audiences were treated to mediocre big budget movies like Independence Day, Twister, Men in Black, or Air Force One. These, even though some will be more fondly remembered than others, were leaps and bounds better movies than Terminator: this title is too long. Please stop hating on this man. He is doing the rest of the educated population a service.
“Man what a bad review. Have you ever watched tranformers when you were a kid? Cause I think Bay did a great job depicting them. And for the “questions” paragraph, because something isn’t blatantly pointed out on the screen and you can’t figure it out yourself means it’s stupid? Please…”
Lolllllll Axel please explain to me where in the old transformers cartoons where they had two autobots acting like stereotypical black people. Bay sure did do a great job depicting them…
I totally agree with your review,nicely done, by the way. What hell was that?But you have to feel a little depressed with mankind when they spend 200 million dollars doing some mindless pretty garbage(not that pretty), in that way,tranformers could have been a nice heart wrenching drama.And don’t mind the people who did not like you bad mouthing their new favourite “blink and you miss,hear and get annoyed” little flick…i guess those are the actual unintelligent average oafs that this obscenity was targed for. triwizard@hotmail.com
That was well put. All those who disagree, well I hate to be the one to say it but you’re a little simple. Its just a crude and corny childrens movie with a bit of sex appeal and pot humour thrown in to hook the D students and blue collar workers.
Dude screw the critics, this movie was the sh**. if you liked the first movie this one was 5X better. I dont get this guys review its entertainment at it sure as hell entertained me
lol at all the neckbeards defending this sh**pile of a movie
I’ve heard people who say that reviewers are completely disconnected with their audience and that this movie is proof of that.
I disagree. Michael Bay set us up with an entertaining Transformers, and this movie promised even more battles and more fun. So everyone is going to see it and he’s making boatloads of money. But it is like a rockstar who makes hits then puts out a terrible album. It sells well even though it’s terrible because of the expectations. But that’s it. After that his career is over.
This movie is like that. I went to it. Everyone went to it. But it was really, really awful! I don’t even want to think about it!
My prediction: residuals (toy sales), and DVD/BluRay sales will be much lower than after the previous movie, and when they start advertising for Transformers 3 movie, everyone will go “ho hum”.
Haha whoa now, did someone just say Air Force One was mediocre?! That’s blasphemy. People here should be getting worked up about that more!
this was a very awsome movie and i was entertained through-out so if the dumb disconnected critics dis agree they can check the amount of money this film brough in it was a hell of a lot so critics you suck and transformers RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!