6.26.2009

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN.

This is my personal opinion, but I think the haters are hating too much, but the lovers might also be loving a bit too much, as well. The sequel picks up two years after the last, and Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is going off to college. His girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) doesn't like being so far away, but Sam will find ways to keep in touch. And Sam's personal guardian transformer, Bumblebee, just feels left out. But after Sam finds a piece of the Allspark, he starts seeing a bunch of weird symbols that link to this... machine thingy... that there was this civil war over forever ago between the Autobot and Decepticon ancients. So The Fallen wants to use it, but can't because there's a Prime on the Earth? And... okay, I'm just gonna stop there.

I really have no f**king idea what the plot of this movie is. Hell, the characters even beg for a plot at one point in the movie (courtesy of John Turturro). Literally. He yells at one of the transformers to just lay out the plot already because nothing makes sense. And even afterwards, it still doesn't make sense. I don't know if it was just because I missed it or it was explained poorly, but I didn't even know what the big machine thing was supposed to do until the end of the film. And even after it's explained, I was still left with "um... okay... because that makes sense" thoughts. There are quite a few non-sensical things (or things with just poor reasonings behind them) in this movie. And it takes at least half the movie (and it's a long movie) before anything remotely plot-related occurs.

Much like the first film, entire scenes or even characters could have been removed completely. The "twins" were pretty unnecessary (and oftentimes annoying), and Leo, when not reminding me of a younger Kevin Corrigan, was just there for comic relief. However, despite his overall pointlessness, he was still an entertaining character, so he really didn't bother me at all.

Another place this movie "falls" is in character development. Outside Shia and Megan's characters, everybody else (including returning characters), are more like set pieces. Bumblebee and Optimus Prime are really the only returning Autobots that actually do anything for any portion of the movie (or are built-up, rather). The others are just kinda there. And the new ones hardly get enough screen time to matter (even those that do--the twins--you wish you had less of). Every character outside Shia and Megan's are so flat they'd almost be pointless if their story 'archs' (if you can call them that) weren't necessary to the 'plot' (if you can call it that).

The acting is decent, though... except from Megan Fox, who is just there for the T&A. And what lovely T&A it is (there's even a slow-mo Baywatch-esque running sequence).

I know this sounds like hating, but despite all of that negativity, I still enjoyed myself. Why? Because the action and special effects were good. The haters hate the movie because of the aforementioned things, of course. But what they also don't realize is that they're going in to a Transformers movie... as directed by Michael Bay. It's basically Robots & Explosions: The Movie. But I knew that going in. So knowing that, and still seeing it, I wasn't really disappointed. I didn't go in expecting Oscar-worthy plots and characters. I saw giant robots fighting each other and blowing crap up. That's what I went to see, and the movie delivered. Case closed.

Still, is it a good movie? Not really. But is it entertaining (even on a braindead level)? Heck yeah. So taking all things into consideration, including the outstanding visual effects (though even those had a few hiccups), I think I can give it a pretty fair score as a non-biased, knows-what-he's-getting-into source.

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5 comments:

  1. Sorry you missed the plot exposition, I guess it was easy to do so. But they DID say right when they mentioned the machine the first time what it was for. I'll explain it really simply since they didn't do so.

    1: Transformers need Energon
    2: Energon is rare.
    3: Ancient transformers built machines capable of destroying a sun in order to harvest all the energy from it to convert to Energon.
    4: The ancient transformers promised themselves they'd never use the machines on inhabited worlds.
    5: The Fallen decided he liked Energon better than humanity and tried to use it anyway, then got smacked down, but his mindset and ideas created the Decepticons.
    6: Now the Decepticons want to use the machine that he tried to use all that time ago, technically to save their race but they would kill humanity in the process.

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  2. But that's not the plot of the film - that's the plot of the feeble villains.

    Sam an Mikaela are just as static and unchanging and set piece-y as the rest of the characters, only Sam gets to scream a lot and meet the Transformers equivalent of Mufasa, while Mikaela gets long, laboring, soft-focus shots that creep up her body.

    I don't think it's possible to hate this movie enough.

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  3. *shrug* That's cool. You can have your opinion. It seems to be shared by a lot of people. I just don't happen to share it, that's all. I liked the movie, a lot. It was my favorite movie so far this year, but I'm certainly not going to put down anyone who doesn't like it, because I can see where they're coming from. I just disagree.

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  4. Ray: Like I said, I don't hate the movie. I enjoyed it and thought it was rather entertaining. Most other people don't even feel *that* way. They just straight-up hate it. And thanks for explaining the motivation of the Decepticons. All I got from it was "The machine destroys the sun." I didn't know how or why, I just got that it destroyed the sun, which was weird to me. And I knew Energon was involved, but I didn't connect it with the machine. I only got that Energon came from the funky hand dagger thingy.

    Paul: I don't think they're nearly as static as the rest of the characters. At least Sam and Mikaela have an arch to go through, regardless of how unimportant of an arch it is. None of the other characters did. So by narrative standards, they aren't completely static because there is a small bit of growth... but they certainly aren't rounded.

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  5. Oh I know you didn't hate it, Nick. I did get that. Sorry if I gave you the impression that I thought you did. It's cool. I just wanted to explain that one plot point.

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