Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
It’s the critic’s job to review a movie in such a way that informs the reader of how he formed his opinion without giving away details of the story. I’m not going to do that. I can’t this time. So if you’re the type who doesn’t do spoilers, read the following sentence, but not the following paragraphs. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is a noisy, 2 hour long car wreck that drowns in its own lubricant. I have a laundry list of reasons why and an earlier conversation with our special Myst Geek correspondent revealed a good lot more to add.
At some point in the writing stage it was decided that a single thread would do well to hold the rest of this mess together: who would say “I love you” first, Sam (Shia Labeouf) or Mikaela (Megan Fox). The first evidence of this is during a dizzying (literally) 360 camera motion around the two love-birds that, apparently, director Michael Bay just can’t get enough of, because he makes use of the same movement another half dozen times.
Sam discovers a piece of the life-giving All Spark from movie one has hitched a ride in a hidden jacket pocket and when he picks it up to examine it, the sliver singes his fingers and burns through down to the first story of his house causing every electrical device in the kitchen, including a Cisco router (WTF?!?) to spring to life. Two things come up here. Why didn’t holding the entire All Spark burn him as he was traipsing around Los Angeles in the first movie and why in the name of ILM did one of the newly created transformers have a giant phalice with which to fire projectiles from?
So the movie progresses a little more. Sam is going off to an ivy league college, completely populated by the hottest women on the planet, where his roommate just happens to be a conspiracy theorist nut-job that keeps tabs on all this alien activity via a website he runs out of a dorm room bigger than my house. They spend 10 minutes of the movie on Sam’s mother accidentally ingesting a pot brownie and assaulting a group of Frisbee players out on the lawn. Alice, played by blonde-hottie Isabel Lucas, takes an instant and suspicious liking to Sam. Hey look! The Decepticons figured out how to be terminators… I mean cylons… I mean they can take human form. Minus one for originality.
Meanwhile, the military was able to completely cover up L.A. being destroyed the first time around and they now work with the Autobots to seek out and destroy any remaining Decepticons on the planet. Come to find out they’ve hatched an evil plot to steal a second piece of the All Spark from a hidden and highly secured military installation in order to revive Megatron from the bottom of the ocean. Turns out security is crap and takes all of 5 minutes for Ravage, a cat-like servant of Soundwave (cartoon: ghetto-blaster now: spy satellite), to infiltrate and escape. So a quick zap with this All Spark chunk by the Constructicons and Megatron is back in action.
Naturally, ole Megatron wants his revenge and in a not so epic (though actually very good) forest battle, he splits Optimus Prime nearly in two, leaving the Autobots leaderless and the military doubting them. This is where it gets derailed. Sam discovers through an ancient, apparently dead Decepticon disguised as an SR-71 Stealth bomber (ooh, really old) that the bad guys are after this key, buried in a secret tomb in Egypt. Oh, did I mention? Sam brought this turncoat Decepticon back to life with his sliver. Tell me again why he didn’t try it on Optimus?
So, this walks-with-a-cane, bearded (I’m not making this up) Decepticon does this magic trick and teleports them instantly to Egypt. Aint that convenient? He explains that this key was hidden from an even more ancient Decepticon (currently residing on Saturn) in order to prevent him from activating a machine brought to earth during caveman days meant to sap our sun of energy, thus powering their own race. Seems to me that after this long, if they couldn’t get power from this machine, there’s no way they could survive, but I’m not an expert in transformer biology, or is it engineering? Sam gets this notion that, because he “believes it will work”, using this key on Optimus will bring him back to life. No amount of believing would make my laptop battery resurrect my dead fish, but again, I’m no robo-doctor.
So now a battle ensues between the Autobots, paired with the military elite, and Decepticons, dozens which show up out of nowhere. One one end of the desert are John Turturro and a pair of bumbling smart car-bots that sport near-insulting African-American stereotypes against the 5 Constructicons, now combined to form Devastator, a hulking mess of machinery that is crawling up the side of a pyramid in order to clear away the stone covering the aforementioned sun-sucking machine. Not to miss out on a cheap testicle gag, Turturro makes a radio call to a waiting battleship in order to use it’s top secret rail gun to take it out. When asked where he was exactly, Turturro responds “right beneath it’s balls” as the camera pans up to show a couple of giant wrecking balls swinging between its legs.
All the while, miles away, a second conflict is going on as Sam and Mikaela race through the Egyptian ruins to get what’s left of the key, now turned to dust and placed in a sock, to the body of Optimus Prime. Now remember that as this is happening, the Constructicons are miles away destroying one of the 8 wonders of the world. Continuity gets thrown to the wind when not one, but two of the Constructicons can be seen fighting alongside the other Decepticons in order to prevent Sam from getting to Optimus. One shot in particular shows the cement mixer transforming into a stationary gun turret that gets smashed by an Autobot. Way to go! Guess they didn’t have room in the 700 million dollar budget to model another robot.
Which brings me to the one single most ridiculous moment of the film. A scene so far fetched and absurd that, for a split second, I considered walking out. An explosion lands at the feet of Sam as he’s running to Optimus’ body that knocks him to the ground…dead. Sam DIES. The military medic shows up and can’t revive him. The shot cuts to a scene of Sam surrounded by puffy clouds, a beautiful sunset-hued sky and…wait for it…a council of “Primes”: ancient transformers that look over their brethren from beyond. Yup, Sam goes to robot heaven and these mechanical angels commend him for selflessly protecting one of their own then send him back to earth to finish the job.
Check please.
The ONLY reason I’m not giving this a 1 rating is that there’s still something cool about transforming robots on the big screen. Despite half the actual transformations being obscured by trees, scaffolding, people, other robots, sand dunes and pyramids, they’re practically the only reason for abandoning that 10 bucks better spent on your 5th Star Trek viewing. I had one geek moment though: it was nice to hear voice-great Frank Welker reprising his role as Soundwave. I’m just ashamed of Tom “Spongebob” Kenny for voicing Skids: one of the golden buck-toothed, big eared, illiterate, Alabama N-word-bots thrown in for comic relief.
Oh, and a note to Michael Bay: If you find the need to stroke yourself in front of the audience by sneaking in a not-so-subtle reference to one of your older movies, at least pick a good one like The Rock, not a critical and box office bomb like Bad Boys 2. Just give it a little thought while you’re working on that Nightmare on Elmstreet remake or your remake of The Birds. Or {retch} Transformers 3.
