Tranformers: Revenge on my Wallet - 07-01-2009
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen sucked. It sucked in ways that the original didn't. Why?
- The plot was summed up twice during the movie, once at the beginning by Optimus Prime and then halfway through the movie by Jetfire. The rest of the movie had no plot. So, for a two hour thirty minute movie, the plot consisted of about five minutes.
- The acting was horrible. This has to be the worst blockbuster cast of all time. Shia Labeouf is horrible. All he does is scream and talk fast throughout the chaos. His college roomate (actor Ramon Rodriguez) is absolutely terrible. And, sadly, John Turturro, who had a terrific career before the Transformers series, is complete garbage (thanks for that terrible shot of your naked backside, by the way). They even find a way to completely screw up two of the main robots in the film, twins Skids and Mudflap. They are two potty mouthed adolescents that have no purpose in the flick other than to get a few (bad) laughs from pre-teens.
- The dialogue was the worst in a movie, ever. And I mean ever. Bad writing produces completely ridiculous lines, and this movie was full of them. From the terrible "no, you tell me you love me first" bickering to the completely absurd and raunchy mother to the speed-mouthed Latin college roommate (I'm not sure who gets a line out faster, him or Shia), the bantering in the movie makes you want to walk out the door.
- I heard warnings against taking kids to this movie for sexual content, but the real killer was the language. I believe every foul word with the exception of 'f' was there, and dick and fart jokes were the norm in this movie. Now I'm OK with dick and fart jokes when they're funny, but these jokes are positioned to make 5 year olds laugh. And trust me, no 5 year old should be seeing this movie. I guess the 13-14 year old crowd will think it's 'cool', but frankly I believe much of the raunchy behavior was too simplistic for them.
- The robots aren't used enough. Earth to Michael Bay: PUT THE ROBOTS IN EVERY SCENE! We don't need the terrible actors mucking this flick up. Use the Autobots (which, spare Optimus, Bumblebee, and Jetfire, are rarely seen) more. Explain who they are. Go deeper into the characters and lore. And as for the Decepticons, which were used well in the movie, add to their depth. Soundwave was reduced to a satellite in orbit! Scorponok, who was a big baddie in the first movie, was reduced to about 5 seconds of action time in this movie. People are paying to see these two groups battle it out on screen, and save for two big fight scenes, there wasn't a lot of battling going on.
- Earth to Michael Bay part 2: STOP USING SLOW MOTION!!! Seriously, it was old after your laughable slo-mo usage in Bad Boys 2. I swear, if you cut the slow motion out of Transformers 2, you'll have a 45 minute movie. It is used to such an abuse it's not funny. Which leads me to my point: the direction was horrible. Bay is a guy that is famous for making sucky summer blockbusters (The Island, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon), and this is no exception. This movie will go down as the biggest money-making suckfest ever.
Now to the good parts, which there were few:
- New robots - There were some great new robots in the mix, with Rampage, Soundwave (although terribly used), and Jetfire rounding out the mix. The Fallen was great, but they don't explore his background enough. Autobots Arcee, Sideswipe, Jolt are there, but are hardly used. The best newcomers are probably the Contructicons, who merge to form Devastator.
- Plot - The plot, although not completely original (part were lifted from the Marvel Comics series), was good. The Fallen brings with him some of the lore of the Transformers universe, but they could have delved deeper into it. Sadly, much of the robot history is lost in the human struggle shuffle, which is meaningless to the overall plot.
If Bay could keep the movie to the primary reasons why people go to see a Transformers movie (robots, robot plot, robot battles), then this franchise could be rescued. Sadly, with Bay at the helm, this will never happen.
I give Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen 3 out of ten spare parts.
