Directed by: Michael BayStarring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Ramon Rodriguez, Peter Cullen, Hugo Weaving
Other Actors of Note: Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, Kevin Dunn, Rainn Wilson
Plot: Decepticon forces return to Earth on a mission to take Sam Witwicky prisoner, after the young hero learns the truth about the ancient origins of the Transformers. Joining the mission to protect humankind is Optimus Prime, who forms an alliance with international armies for a second epic battle. Taken from www.imdb.com.
A perfect example of Megan Fox's great tits- er, acting. Summer. The time when drama, plot development, and characterization are thrown to the wind to make room for more explosions. And what director captures the summer movie like Michael Bay?
Michael Bay the Rob Liefeld of movies does his second sequel. His previous part 2, "Bad Boys 2", managed to take a good movie and improve upon it despite making it as big and shiny as humanly possible. So, naturally, I assumed as much would be possible for even Michael Bay a second time. Alas, it was not to be.
Now, before I proceed, I would like to give you a little bit of a history on the intellectual property we now see before us. "Transformers" started out as a four-issue Marvel Comics series and a 20 minute commercial both of which were made with the express purpose of advertising a line of toys that turned from robots into vehicles.
While the comics did indeed come into their own storyline-wise, the show was never more than cheesy bad animation meant to entertain 7-year-olds, not even when the movie came out. A movie held together almost solely by nostalgia. So let me say that this movie and the original in no way "bastardized" the series or raped your childhood. Shut the fuck up.
And for those of you comic fans who have a very valid point. (After all, if you argue with Simon Furman he'll write your death into the story.) But I remind you that even Michael Bay can't fuck things up as bad as Pat Lee.
You've got the Tooooooooooouch So anyway. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" picks up a few months after the first movie. Sam is going to college, Mikaela is staying where she is due to having to help her father, and the Autobots (sans Bumblebee who's fulfilling his voyeuristic mission of letting Sam and Mikaela fuck in his back seat) are out rounding up the remaining Decepticons.
Well as the Autobots fight with a bunch of Decepticons we find out absolutely nothing about we wind up in the middle of a "Terminator" movie as a Decepticon that looks human tries to do... something?... to Sam. Megatron gets brought back to life for some arbitrary reason, Optimus dies, and Soundwave tentacle rapes a satellite.
So shit gets real and Sam, Mikaela, Sam's new "quirky" room-mate/sidekick Leo, Bumblebee, and Skids and Mudflap (two Autobots that kick the Civil Rights movement in it's righteous ass, but more on that later) go off to find a really old Transformer to help them.
This all culminates in Egypt in a big explodey battle where robots are literally in two places at the same time, Optimus gets to show his psychotic side, and John Torturro stares at a robots giant ballsack. Also this happens (okay, it actually doesn't, but it would be awesome if it did.)
Megan Fox just watched the "GI Joe" trailer. Shia LaBeouf's performance in the first movie was certainly nothing special. Before we go much further let me say that I like Shia LaBeouf. I think he's a good actor that's suffering from a case of over-exposure and has had 3 pretty crappy roles (Mutt Williams in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", Sam Whitwicky in "Transformers", and Jerry Shaw in "Eagle Eye") that haven't really allowed him to show off his ability. Nonetheless, he doesn't shime much in this movie. Of course he doesn't really get a chance to, the only time we spend much time with Sam is at the beginning which just feels tacked on and pointless, otherwise he's running around dodging CG and explosions, and looking scared.
Megan Fox has been compared to Angelina Jolie. She's certainly better looking but I'd say when it comes to acting she's about on par with Jolie's "say-a-line-then-strike-a-pose" style of pretending to act. Maybe "Jennifer's Body" will change my mind but Megan Fox hasn't done anything for me thus far and this movie does nothing to change that.
Josh Duhammel, Tyrese Gibson, and John Turturro seemingly play parodies of the characters they played last time. (Now think of how campy Turturro was last time and tell me that concept doesn't scare you a little bit.)
None of the robots performances really matter, they all do a good job but add nothing specific to the movie, but lets pause momentarily on a particular 2.'
Skids and Mudflap are two Transformers that: speak jive, look like monkeys (one has a gold tooth as well), are illiterate, and generally act like two of the most stereotypical black characters in the universe. They make Jazz from part 1 look perfectly normal. This is a perfect example of what Michael Bay is like when Steven Spielberg isn't there to tell him "no." I feel sorry for the actors because their families have to eat too (especially the one who actually is black) but I suppose you can't blame everything on Michael Bay, they could've reigned it in a bit.
Just getting over that headache that the action scenes from the first movie gave you? Well I have good news. You can actually see what the fuck is going on this time! Though Michael Bay, no doubt twirling his Snidely Whiplash mustache, has compensated for this by making almost all of the robots look exactly alike so you have no fucking clue who's killing who.
It's also of note that Decepticons that died in the first movie and even earlier in the movie show up in the final battle scene. Also, all the robots that make up Devastator are fighting the Autobots at the same time as Devastator himself are fighting Uncle Tom and Jim Crowe. In fact there's seemingly no rhyme or reason to the Decepticons, perhaps they're self-regenerating robots that can never die like the T-1000 or Toonces the Driving Cat.
Though we do get some nice fan service. Soundwave is here and even though he never actually fights anybody we do get to see him tentacle rape space technology with fiber-optic cables and he does sound the same as in the cartoon. And he does shit out Ravage at one point or another.
We also get Jetfire, a Decepticon who defected to the Autobot side in the comics, and though that remains the same in this movie the big difference is this Jetfire is a cantankerous old man who seems to be constantly on fire or falling apart. Jetfire is the shit.
Though as many cool cameos as we get, most of them go to waste. All the cool Decepticons die in ways where they're obviously never coming back. (This is, except for Starscream and Megatron who will probably ally themselves with Unicron for part 3) Then of course all the new Autobots are rather unspectacular as well (Skids and Mudflap are the only ones we ever really get to see very much.) But hey, Arcee's finally here! And she gets one whole line before she dies! That'll teach you uppity womens to know your place!
Of course the most odd thing about this movie is despite the stupid-as-hell storyline, sub-par acting, weird editing, and over-flashiness of the whole thing I didn't walk out of the theater disappointed. "Transformers" has never been high art and even if this goes against every rule of cinema established since the dawn of time it's still entertaining.
It's not as good as the first one but it's still a big, explodey, mildly offensive good time.
I give "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" a 3 out of 5. It's fun, see it at some point.
And remember...
You've got the touch
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