I'll be completely honest, I came in expecting this movie to be terrible, but I also expected to find it hilarious; this, ultimately, was one of my main motivations for seeing this movie. It appears that I may have gotten a little more than I bargained for because by the end of the movie I found myself hating it rather than laughing at it.
Think about everything you have ever found annoying in a Michael Bay movie, multiply the degree of those annoyances by eight, and then stretch it out over a 2 1/2 hour period. You have now imagined Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (it's a scary thought and I apologize for putting you through that kind of trauma).
Here's a rundown of some of the things I hated about this movie:
- The worst thing about the movie is that every other scene is exposition. Poor exposition at that. After Sam (Shia LeBeouf) and Mikaela (Megan Fox) run away from another slow motion/explosion filled scene, they uncover more clues as to where they have to go and why they have to save the world.
- No story, no characters, no attention to detail. Everything in this movie is underdeveloped. There is a lot, and I mean A LOT, of filler though. All this is, is a series of scenes mashed together. There is literally a scene where our heroes are at the Air and Space Museum (or a museum quite similar to it) in Washington D.C. walk out the back door and are suddenly in the desert. It is apparent that no one making this film cared.
- The central arc for Sam and Mikaela's relationship is that neither of them are willing to say, "I love you," first (or possibly just say it to each other altogether). This is so creative and original. Um, on second thought...well, I bet you can guess what happens by the end of the movie.
- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen starts out with a bang, to the surprise of exactly zero people in the audience when a human/
robotalien team charged with intercepting Decepticons (AKA the bad bots) are on a mission in Shanghai. A couple of things jump out pretty quickly here. First, why does the same special-ops team come from halfway around the world to do every job involving the bad aliens? This doesn't make any sense at all. And how do they get there so fast? There aren't any other special-ops forces from other countries that can do a half-decent job? There is some attention paid to the events that happened in the first film being covered up, so maybe this special-ops team is the only team assembled to combat the bots. This doesn't make any sense, because the final battle in the first movie happened in a big city in broad daylight. Second, the team is made up of both good aliens and human beings. Think back to the first movie. Were there any times the military guys effectively fought the alien beings? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense if the Autobots fought the Decepticons exclusively? Every time they fight humans are being thrown around and killed left and right. - This next thing is something that I found revolting from the trailer. The first shot we see of Miss Fox is her posing in short shorts on a motorcycle at a mechanics shop. I don't even know where to begin with how incredibly dumb this is. In short, she's a mechanic and she is wearing short shorts. We must go on...
- Was it necessary to play a different section of the same Green Day song (21 Guns) three different times! Green Day was the first rock band that I ever liked. It's not as if Bay ruined the song or band for me, but there is absolutely no reason to play a song that many times in a movie. There just isn't.
- Speaking of songs. When Sam leaves for college and leaves Mikaela back at home Bay chooses one of the most on-the-nose songs ever. The chorus goes a little something like, "I'll never let you go" or maybe it's "don't let me go" Either way, it sucks. You start to think to yourself, "Wait a second...that's right, he's going away to college and he's leaving her behind. I get what you are trying to say Mr. Bay you magnificent bastard." The only thing is that the song won't allow you to think that
deeplysimply because you are already distracted by the blood dripping out of your ears. - Once Sam gets to college you know that Bay has something up his sleeve. Enter pot brownies. Nothing says you're at a college campus like some pot, right? Right? Do you know what would make the pot brownie scene even better? I don't know, but thankfully Bay does. That's right, Sam's mother is the one who eats the brownies. Mind you, the universal marijuana symbol is readily viewable on the bag of brownies. Hilarity ensues! Side note: Sam's mother, Judy (Julie White), is a prime example of something being annoying and multiplying it by eight in this movie. She is much more outrageous and embarrassing in this movie than in the first.
- Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Sam's new roommate runs a website about government conspiracies including stories about the aliens that Sam is friends with. Highly dubious indeed. Not only that, but he has a couple of minions who help him run the site and recruits (read: demands) Sam be a part of his "company." Of course his minions try to act cool with their technical lingo. Gotta love it!
- When Sam gets to college we come to realize that every person there is a model. I give up.
- There is a Bad Boys 2 poster plastered on the wall of the dorm room. You can't make this stuff up!
- Sam goes to a party one of his first - if not his first - nights at college. He gets picked up by a hot young woman. He doesn't give into the pressure, but she won't take no for an answer. Turns out she's an alien who for some reason does not attempt to kill Sam until the next day(s). Why didn't Bumblebee, Sam's car/protector realize that he was looking at a Decepticon? By the way, here's an example of how stupid this movie is. There is an alien that can turn into a human yet we only see it happen once! This seems like a trick that the aliens should be using as a disguise all the time. Bay never bothers to elaborate on that though, because that's not interesting at all, apparently.
- Megan Fox attempting to train a young "dog-like" Decepticon. Trust your eyes, you read that correctly. Cringeworthy. One of those moments when you are embarrassed to be watching it happen in front of you, even though you have nothing to do with what is actually happening.
- One of Michael Bay's signature shots. A slow motion shot of military men walking on a tarmac looking like a group of "badasses". This is a Bay staple.
- Optimus Prime dies halfway through the movie. Do you think he'll be back by the end?
- Any and all (there are certainly many) attempts at humor are just that...attempts. For example, there is a bot that has testicles. There is also a bot that humps Megan Fox's leg. Oh and I almost forgot, two different times the family's pair of dogs are humping. Hilarious. Oh and while Sam's at the party in college he makes fun of a guy who is wearing a shirt that is way too tight for him. What follows is a hilarious exchange between Sam and the tool. Who thought of this, a 12-year old boy? Oh wait, I'll stop asking questions. I'd also like to apologize to all of the 12-year old boys out there for insulting their intelligence.
- Tyrese. Everything he does. Most of his lines are as simple as, "I have a bad feeling about this."
- Alien dialogue. Horrific. Enough said.
- I couldn't tell what was going on in the action scenes in this movie. Every transformer looked like a jumbled up mess, even more so when they were fighting each other. The action was much more coherent in the first installment (even there it was difficult, at times, to determine what was going on).
- In the last battle, Sam's parents are dropped in out of nowhere as a trap the Decepticons have sprung. Where did they come from? They were in France earlier, but are now in Egypt. I guess there's also a bot that can capture humans and transport them places. We never know what happens to them from Point A to Point B.
- Flares! At least the third time Bay has used flares as a critical tool in one of his movies (The Rock, Transformers).
- Sam is running through the desert in Egypt in an attempt to bring Optimus back to life by using the Matrix. Before he can get there he is blasted and appears to have died. It then appears that Sam goes to "Robot Heaven" where the heavenly Primes bring Sam back to life. Who knows what was actually happening here? He wakes up, the Matrix is reconfigured and he brings Optimus back to life. Woohoo! "Robot Heaven" I am not kidding.
- This entire scene where Sam is trying to give life to Optimus and is nearly killed is hilarious. This is classic Bay. Tons of slow motion, tons of bombs going off in the background, tons of slow motion reaction shots from every character involved in the scene. All with dramatic choir boy music playing. The best part is the dialogue by Megan Fox demanding Sam to come back to life. So cheesy. This is really the essence of what makes Bay hilarious/horrible. He has no clue how to film a dramatic scene. Look back to Armageddon, The Rock, Pearl Harbor, Transformers, all of them. You will find at least one of these types of scenes in every one of his movies.
- Optimus Prime nearly dies again at the end of the movie. Thankfully, an old British bot from the olden times comes back and gives him a heart transplant on the spot. At least I think that's what happened.
- It's almost the same movie as the first (except everything is much much worse). Replace the "Allspark" (cube) with "Matrix" (diamond) replace the final battle in L.A. to Egypt.
This seems to be long enough, so I'll stop. I am sure I could think of more things I hated. I will leave you with the most satisfying moment of my entire experience at the theater which happened as I was walking out following the movie, when I grabbed the ticket stub from my pocket and saw that it read: "The Hangover."Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made $200+ million in its first five days, but much to my excitement the $8.75 I paid to see a movie that day consciously did not go towards that total.
