Sunday, July 19, 2009

Movie review - Transformers 2: Revenge of The Fallen

Someone once asked me who was my childhood cartoon crush (yes, my conversations really do go there). I pondered it for a long time and came up with no one! Not Inspector Gadget, not Papa Smurf, no AstroBoy! Well, now I can answer that question - I am gloriously, wonderfully in love with Optimus Prime!

Since the last move, it's become apparent that there are more Decepticons living in disguise on Earth despite the fact their leader, Megatron *died* at the end of the last movie and his carcass was dumped into the Laurentian Abyss. The Autobots, led by the awesome Optimus Prime, have joined forces with a multinational military team led by Josh Duhamel (still wearing too many clothes) to hunt down rogue Decepticons. But on a mission in Shanghai, a Decepticon makes a statement to OP that has him puzzled about what they're after...Meanwhile Sam (Shia LeBoeuf) is about to embark on going to college sans Megan Fox or Bumblebee, except he finds a shard of the Allspark on his shirt from 2007 and it he starts to see funny symbols in his brain...

Now, I was prepared for TF2-ROTF to be another Pearl Harbour given all the negativity I'd heard about it compared to the last one. This no doubt primed me to expect an absolute load of crap and I was pleasantly surprised to not be confronted by that. Of course, this is not going to win any Oscars (okay, maybe in CGI and sound editing) but c'mon people. It's a Michael Bay movie about Transformers. I think everyone's expectations were driven so high by the original tht there could only be disappointment for this one. I like to call it the Quantum of Solace effect.

Okay, there's no plot and the script is terrible but IT'S A MICHAEL BAY FILM. All of his movies have no plot or script. I'm not condoning that it's okay to just be a collection of action sequences linked together by some vague ...thing...but people walking into a movie of his expecting some sort of profound message have got to reassess which movies they're seeing. And sure, the acting is terrible but when you've cast people like The Beef, or your character direction seems to be sashay around (Megan Fox) or you've got a giant mechanical tongue coming out of your mouth (Isabel Lucas), where can you go? It's not Shakespeare! It's not even Tom Clancy.

So the good
  • The new transformers - so many new options have been opened here.
  • John Turturro is The Man!
  • All action, all the time. And so many *shroop shreet zhooop* moments!
  • Tyrese looks so cool in aviator shades.
  • The CGI acting was taken up another notch - when the robots go Mano-a-Mano, they are brutal. I don't think I have ever seen so much pain etched on a fake robot before! My heart twisted in sympathetic agony.
  • Way to go on blowing up various cities around the world! (Shanghai, Paris, Philly, Giza)
  • How is it possible to imbue such nobility, such heroism, such awesomeness into a CGI wonder like Optimus Prime? Whoever was the lead nerd on him, i give you applause. *applause*

The bad
  • Isabel Lucas really needs to lay off the fake tan. Or the real tan. Either way, I wouldnt be surprised if people have their hair dyed the colour of her skin, it is that orange/brown.
  • Megan Fox should not be running in a singlet/tank top - fake boobs alert!
  • Those twin Autobots and their jive talking. Can someone say Jar-Jar Binks?!?
  • Disobedience of the laws of physics. If a windstorm is strong enough to drag a 1.5-tonne van into it, how is it possible for a skinny teenager to crawl into the opposited direction?
  • It's like they took what ppl found amsuing in the first movie (inappropriate parents, random cuts, scolding giant robots) and dragged them so far that it left the realm of amusement and into annoyance.
  • At 150 minutes, this movie was and felt far too long. Okay, it's only 6 minutes longer than the original but when I'm wondering when the explosions are going to stop, it's time to edit them down and say goodbye.
  • (Spoiler comment) Excuse me, but Petra is NOT the tomb of the Primes, it's the location of the Holy Grail! (End spoiler comment)
So yes. Best Picture winner, this is not. Given how everyone was surprised by how good the first one was, it could only be down from there. But just go in with low expectations and I think you, like me, will be pleasantly amused.
7/10
Picture from Rotten Tomatoes.

1 comment:

Vanilla Bear said...

Lmao, I think disobedience of the laws of physics is a general Michael Bay thing - Armageddon must be full of crap but I wouldn't know because I am not that way inclined :)

Also Optimus Prime - LOL I think I'll stick to crushing on humans and cartoon characters kthx :P :)