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Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen |
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When last we saw Megatron—the evil head honcho of a race of machines dubbed Decepticons—he was rusting away at the bottom of the ocean, tethered by high-tech chains, surrounded by guardian submarines and counting the days until his obsolescence. Too bad the guy had some time left on his extended warranty.
 Turns out, Megatron and the Decepticons, despite having had their dastardly plans foiled in the first Transformers film, aren't destined for the scrap heap. In fact, they're following an even more dastardly plan ("Let's extinguish the sun!") dreamt up by an even more dastardly leader (we know he's evil because even his best friends call him "The Fallen"), which—once it reaches its climax—will leave the Decepticons free to gloat over the frozen wasteland they've created.
But humanity isn't ready to choke on the Decepticons' exhaust just yet. After all, we've got the valiant, GM-branded Autobots in our corner—backed by a crack team of soldiers who boast more boom sticks than the 1927 Yankees. We've got truth, justice and fair play on our side. And we've got Sam Witwicky, a goofy kid with an outrageously attractive girlfriend (Mikaela), an outlandishly cool car and Autobot leader Optimus Prime on speed dial.
But wait, what's this? Sam's leaving his car at home (an Autobot disguised as a Chevy Camaro) because it can't come to college with him? He's telling Optimus Prime to leave him alone? Didn't Sam watch the first movie? Doesn't he remember how handy Autobots are in a pinch?
Those ill-fated choices set the stage for an avalanche of foreboding plot points. Sam touches a metallic shard that fills his brain with a mind-scrambling code! Home appliances come to life with malignant intent! A new American leader shuts down the Autobots' support team! A short-sighted bureaucrat threatens to kick the nice robots off the planet! Sam gets attacked by a sultry mechanical undergrad with a six-foot-long tongue! GM goes into bankruptcy! Decepticons start taking out huge, subprime loans!
Things look bleak. It's all up to Sam now. Too bad he's decided to go to college instead.
:: Review
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen comes with no pretensions of greatness. It's not written to make you think, not crafted to make you cry. Its sole intent is to get moviegoers to fork over their 300bob and sit still for two-and-a-half hours. That said, I was surprised at how cold this movie left me.
The film's emotional moments felt forced, and its themes of sacrifice insincere. While some films use CGI to set up a story, Transformers reverses the process: It uses a halfhearted story as an excuse to string together some cool special effects.
But a much bigger issue than the film's cinematic failure, for our purposes, is its level of crassness and sexual content. This is a movie based on children's' playthings, for Pete's sake. I can't imagine that many in the audience really came to see robot testicles or small-dog erotica. And then there's Megan Fox's ongoing parade in her barely there outfits, not to mention a sexed-up co-ed who turns out to be, bizarrely, something else entirely.
One of the folks with whom I saw this movie left the theater feeling insulted. "This is what they think I want to see?!" he said. "This is what they think I'm interested in?"
Film critic Marshall Fine put it this way: "This is what we've come to: movies based on cartoons that were marketing tools for toys." He also noted, "It's hard to exaggerate what a depressing mess of a film this misbegotten monstrosity is. More depressing still, it will attract lemming-like multitudes to multiplexes this weekend, further convincing [director Michael] Bay of his own genius."
Yeah, that feels about right.
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