TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

2009
Directed by Michael Bay
Written by Ehren Kruger
Produced by Ian Bryce
Paramount Pictures

Ok people...

Once again Michael Bay attempts to awww and wow us with his infamous action sequences and detailed special effects. However, Revenge of the Fallen falls farther away from the entertainment spectrum than the first one did. Granted this is a film with Mr. Bay's name on and should be judged accordingly. That being said, even with his timeless quota of being "awesome" there has to be a certain level of coherency and consistency in order for the entertainment value to remain as the dominating trait in his films. Revenge of the Fallen demonstrates this quality very poorly. Again we are dealing with a movie that dwells within a reality involving large transforming extraterrestrial robots but I continue to protest a sense of coherency within it's own world. To begin with there are a lot of new twists, elements and plot devices that appear in this movie very conveniently. Although like slender women in slutty clothing this is not uncommonly apparent in Bay's filmography. My concern peaks when I repeatedly ask questions such as "Why didn't they just do this?" or "Was that really necessary?” and “Did I actually pay to see this?"

One example that I questioned frequently through out the movie was the All-Spark shard that Sam (Shia LeBoeuff) discovers in his old sweater. It still contains the power to transform ordinary machines into little transformers that want to snip your balls off and turn them into a small beanbag chair. So when Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) gets killed, why couldn't they just use the all spark shard to revive him if it still has its power? Also there's the scene where Sam, Mikela (Megan Fox), Simmons (John Tuturro) and... that agitating youth who reminds me of Chris Carter if he did cocaine, (Rammond Rodriguez) go speak to Jetfire. If he's still alive why DID they need the shard to revive him? Why couldn't he transform on his own? They don't explain anything as simple as that. It's both too convenient and inconvenient to make sense even by Michael Bay's standards.

By the way, I'm still wondering why the chose to have Mr. Spitz (annoying Chris Carter Neanderthal) ride along in this adventure. I don't think there was another character in another Bay film that made me want to heave a refrigerator at my own Dad because he wanted me to see this movie with him. He does nothing but bitch and moan the entire time and they didn't even work him in as competition with Mikela. Spitz is just another useless, frustrating character. He’s he type of person that warrants putting a warning screen before the intro credits saying that this movie causes high blood pressure and anger management. He actually made Shia bearable to watch, though whether that was his true purpose is unknown.

To comment on the transformers themselves... well aside from Optimus Prime, Bumblebtard and those two fuckball twin robots I don't really have much to say on the others because they barely have any screen time. Ironhide, Ratchet, they're only on screen for a matter of about 20 minutes before they go off doing heroic roboty things offscreen. There is only a single sentence introducing the new autobots and aside from Wheelie and Skids you barely see any of them either. Aside from that what was the deal with those two fuckhead twin robots anyway? They did the same thing they did with Jazz in the first Transformers; they reduced them to a cultural stereotype only this time to be more of two very perturbing cretins.

Going back to my frequently asked questions, there's the Matrix. This has to be the cheesiest stunt Bay has ever pulled in any movie and this is a man who referenced the American Revolution in The Rock. Sam gets shot by Megatron and dies. In... some kind of dream sequence, the other Primes confront him telling him he's "earned" the Matrix whereby Sam wakes up with it fully restored, ready to revive Optimus. Holy Fuckball. Once more we are visited by extreme convenience in order for our heroes to finish their quest in ways that seem unrealistic even in the world of Transformers. I don't understand it. There's never been this type of mysticism or fantastical magic involved in Transformers. Now it decides to throw us this curveball from Hogwarts, expects us to accept it and move on. Yes, I understand; it's Michael Bay, it's alien robots but it still manages to goes too far. It goes beyond it's own sense of reality. I just can't stomach the fact that they went to one of the lowest common denominators of copouts and expect me not to call bullshit.

On the technical side this movie was... ugh. Dear God. There's actually a scene where Sam says "Megan" instead of Mikela and they kept it in the final cut. More legitimately, there's so much wrong with continuity it's worse than the first one. Again we find ourselves sifting through fast-cutting action sequences that keep us guessing who's fighting who. Also there is a scene where Simmons seems to travel from Cairo to Jordon and it takes him mere minutes to get there... Oh come on, this movie isn't even trying anymore! Jordon is near 500 MILES away from Cairo with Isreal in between them no less. That's just absurd!

You know, I do enjoy a Bay movie when it deserves praise; Bad Boys II, The Rock and so on. I just can't find the entertainment when there's so much wrong with the Revenge of the Fallen that it confuses and annoys me rather than keeps me excited. On top of everything, the scene I couldn't wait for that debuted in the trailer (When Demolisher completely skull-fucks that highway in Shanghai) was seen a minute into the movie and then it turned out the rest of the movie was all of the above. Don't know what lies ahead for future installments of this series (and there will be) and I couldn't be more apathetic. If my dad has any more interest in seeing that one he's going to be surprised when he sees the newest version of Maytag flying at him through a window.