‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’: The Action Popcorn Film to Beat for the Summer?
Director: Michael Bay
Running Time: 150 Minutes
Rated: PG-13
For: Michael Bay and Transformers fans
Not for: Methodical action enthusiasts
In 2007, Michael Bay took on the challenge of making the Transformers cartoon series into a live action reality and was a runaway success, guaranteeing that a sequel would be coming to a theater near everyone. 2009 has arrived and brings forth Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a sequel that trumps its predecessor in bringing bigger robots, a slightly longer running time, and more action. If that’s all one needs to verify before going to see the film, this summer film will probably satisfy the appetite for more of Bay’s crazy action antics. However, the true question is if the film will whet the majority of audience’s craving for entertainment, and to an extent, this sequel does live up to what it promised. Just be forewarned that for all the emphasis on special effects and explosions, the film has a lot of problems that many moviegoers may have trouble overlooking.
A few years have passed since the first Transformers and the heroic Autobots have teamed up with the military to create a special covert unit to take down the remaining evil Decepticons left on Earth. Unbeknown to any of the protagonists, however, is that an evil being called the Fallen still has plans to utilize Earth in a scheme that will destroy the planet and help the Decepticons live on. Meanwhile, Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is finally off to college, leaving behind not only his mother and father (Julie White and Kevin Dunn respectively) but also his girlfriend, Mikaela (Megan Fox). However, after touching a special alien shard, Sam’s college days soon become a race to save humanity with the Autobots with the help of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee as well as some fresh new faces.
A point needs to be made before going into the full review. Michael Bay’s direction brings along a set of directorial quirks that follow nearly all of his films. Humongous explosions, constant perverted dialogue, a male-dominated line-up, a fascination with the military, and constant patriotic references are just a few of these qualities that regular viewers should come to expect and although it is not to say that these attributes will completely be left out of evaluation, this is meant to warn audiences that may have been turned off by Bay’s previous films that they will probably have a similar experience here.
Continuing from that point, however, Bay’s style still overshadows much of the other aspects of the film. Much like the first film, the narrative is still a pretty big mess. Plot holes start to pop up constantly while plot points are glossed over quickly unless they yield some type of humorous or slow motion moment. Characters are also thrown in and out of the film with little to no care, depending again on how much entertainment value or eye candy they can provide. In fact, much like many other series with huge casts, the casual audience member will probably get confused over who is who, at least in terms of the robot population because there is such a sheer amount of them in this film and are never truly introduced well (or destroyed so quickly that no one cares to begin with). And staying on the issue of characters, an eyebrow raising mention needs to go to Mudflap and Skids. Although a good number of audience members will probably disregard the issue as Bay’s lack of care for the politically correct, the characters will rub off some as fairly offensive from their look to their actions.
The pacing also hits a huge slowdown midway through as Bay forces himself to re-explain key exposition points and recover most of the team to meet at one spot. Even the climax becomes less of an impact due to Bay’s inclusion of several deux ex machinas that become great visual moments but inexplicable plot holes that could have been utilized much earlier in the film. Instead of being a breath of air in a movie that tries to keep the audience on its toes, it becomes literally a buzz kill and could have avoided this if it actually thought about its core narrative and plot twists better along with cutting down on a fairly long running time.
The cuts in the editing room also should have been looked over with more care, as there are a good chunk of scenes that literally become confusing in terms of the spatial distance between characters. This becomes heavily apparent during scenes when there are multiple action set pieces occurring and soon becomes perplexing where characters like Sam are or why the Autobots are so far from a location. Bay also still has seemingly not learned to control his joy of overusing the spinning cinematography shot and clamping down on the film soundtrack that still is too sporadic and obvious to be palatable.
Finally, there is the acting and dialogue. Although the lines are still fairly corny and cheesy, most of the actors understand this direction and bring a bit of an over-the-top acting style with them to make it work. However, some of the weaker actors like Fox make the stilted dialogue not only apparent but brings the audience out of the film to wonder why these scenes were not re-shot.
Both Bay and Transformers fans, though, should not despair, as the core film is still the blockbuster that many are expecting. The first obvious bit of praise is that the action scenes and choreography are much more fluid and enjoyable. Bay utilizes a more, zoomed-out camera, most of the time, to get a better sense of what is happening on the battlefield rather than the Bourne-esque, jumbled cinematography that plagued the first film. This makes the epic scenes that much more exciting and eventful. The forest scene midway through the film is a great example of this improved action aesthetic as the audience gets to see a great ground-level perspective from Sam while the robots are literally destroying huge parts of the forest. Bay’s style, here, flourishes as audiences are taken into the action, even though most of the characters are CG models. It also supports the non-stop, breathless action that most fans loved from the first.
While on the topic of special effects, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) has put out another showstopper, literally competing with themselves with the other summer, technological wonder, Star Trek. Only rarely do audiences feel taken out of the film because there is a notice that a special effect is off or poorly done. From the sheer amount of CG onscreen to the gargantuan robots, such as Devastator, they all still feel very tangible. Admittedly, the robots look better in darker-lit scenes, yet again, ILM should be proud of the final product that already looked great in the first film but even better and bigger here.
Most surprising, however, is how fun most of the actors come off with some fairly funny scenes. LaBeouf, for instance, still brings a lot of energy into the role but because of some plot developments, becomes an even more engaging and interesting character to watch along with some very hilarious moments with White and Dunn (albeit a bit too much in some scenes). An even bigger surprise has to come in just the sheer number of hilarious cameos and homages Bay pokes fun at both others and himself. Just to spoil two moments, look for the Bad Boys II poster in one scene with another being an oddly reminiscent temple from Indiana Jones. Some may complain that these are unnecessary yet they are oddly engaging little Easter Eggs that avid moviegoers will enjoy.
To note, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a very typical Bay blockbuster that will have common as well as some very odd complaints that hampers the film’s overall, dumb enjoyment factor. Some audience members will complain about the pacing mistakes while others are going to be turned off by the convoluted plot or some offensive or weird characters. Yet if some audience members are the type that cannot stand plot holes or lack of emotional resonance, do they really have the right mindset to begin with entering this film? For all the little trivial and huge errors, this sequel is a pure, popcorn action flick that has a lot of good improvements from the first to at least note that Bay is listening and maturing.
The Wie muses: **½ out of *****
Ratings:
*****: Excellent
**** to ****½: Great
*** to ***½: Good
** to **½: Mediocre
* to *½: Bad
0 to ½: Terrible
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Youtube Trailer
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