Reviews
This is probably gonna be the most impartial and balanced review I’ve ever written in my life, because I saw this movie over a week ago and I still don’t know if I liked it or not.
The inevitable sequel to 2007’s Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen takes place in present day America, where despite several of them having a massive brawl in the centre of town the existence of the robots in disguise [in disguise as whichever cars had enough money to pay for sponsorship] has been entirely covered up by THE GOVERNMENT!
Shia LeBeouf returns as Sam Witwicky with Megan Fox as his pouty and otherwise senseless girlfriend [who’s name completely escapes me*. She’s not an impactful character]. In the intervening years, while we’ve all been trying to get hold of copies of Transformers: The Movie from 1986 so we can grasp back SOME good memories of the franchise, Optimus Prime and his Autobots joined with the US Military [who else right? No other country even HAS an army] to form a special task force charged with hunting Decepticons around the world [mostly in places where slo-mo is the norm and helicopters fly over head every few minutes]
I don’t know about this movie. I suppose re-reading the last couple of paragraphs it might come across that I didn’t like it at all. That’s not the case. I just don’t like Michael Bay. He’s a hack. Action over substance. It’s like he thinks it’s OK to make his movies stupid as long as enough stuff blows up and Megan Fox [Mega Fox] gets backlit while bending over something [this is how she’s introduced. Straddling a motorbike in shorts so tiny I can tell you not only that she waxed, but where she had it done and roughly how long ago].
Despite all the Bay-hem, there are things about this film to enjoy... and not just because I’m a nerd. The reason the first movie suffered was that it was called Transformers, however a more suitable title would have been ‘Shia LeBeouf’s sexy girlfriend stands near some robots’. If I go to the cinema to see a picture called Transformers, I expect there to be some fucking Transformers in it! If you’re like me, and you are whether you want to admit it or not, a nerd, you will be happy with this flick on the giant robot count. You got your Optimus Prime [again voiced by character originator Peter Cullen], your Starscream and now some brand new [racist] robots to enjoy.
The most talked about are The Twins, a pair of Autobots who kick off the movie as two halves of an Ice Cream Van [hilariously splitting apart and falling over within 5 minutes of the start] and wind up turning into a pair of different Chevrolets. The newest models Chevvie are trying to push, obviously. They’re voiced like a couple of red neck black guys, with all their jive talking and mad slang. Calling everyone pussies and high fiving all over the place. Sadly they are actually quite funny at times, which is something of a problem in itself. The movie is funny. Very funny, actually. Too funny, if you catch my drift. I’m supposed to be feeling the tension of two main characters getting eaten alive by a Decepticon made out of seven other Decepticons [cartoon Devastator = 1, movie Devastator = Shit] when all of a sudden I’m watching the same scene but someone’s replaced the soundtrack with some sketches from Doggy Fizzle Televizzle.
There’s also some bullshit with LeBeouf’s Mum eating a weed cookie [that came in a bag with a giant weed leaf symbol on the front and someone tells her it’s weed before she eats it but she eats in anyway, then tackles some Frisbee players. It doesn’t stop when the action kicks in either, but it does calm down.
Speaking of action, it’s actually very well put together. There’s a great fight in the woods, some awesome stuff in Japan. The Decepticons get a little interchangeable, because they’re all grey, so sometimes you’re not sure who you’re looking at, but the back and forth more than makes up for it. The effects are once again phenomenal and in all fairness to him, Bay gets some very nice shots out of his locations. Yeah he overdoes it once in a while. There’s a shot of Megatron [who’s back by the way] having a conversation with Starcream [they have dialogue and character this time around] and Bay chose to shoot it from a helicopter flying slowly around a building.
A conversation! Yeah, they’re huge maniacal transforming robots, but it’s still just talking. There’s no need for a fucking chopper man!
I’m still not sure if I like this film. It’s close enough, is the best I can give you. It’s better than the first one, which I despise and is fucking dreadful. It’s a Tranformers movie with a bunch of Transformers in it, talking and having backstory. Being important to the plot rather than expensive looking props made of 15,000 parts [FYI... did you know that if you stacked all of the moving parts that make up Devastator on top of one another, he’d still look like a Gorilla as painted by four year olds.] There’s too many jokes, too much fluff and bollocks, but it’s a popcorn movie so they say and apparently you’re not meant to analyse it at all... which is actually very good advice.
When you see this movie, do just that. See it. You’ll enjoy it. But do yourself this favour. Once the movie ends and you’re walking out of the theatre, don’t talk about the film. Don’t ever talk about it, to anyone, because for every second you consider this film you will like it half a percent less.
* Mikaela Banes
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