Film Revenge of the Fallen: Quite possibly the worst film to make over $400m this year.
Alright, I'll come clean. I hated this film. Say what you will about Michael Bay, and there is a lot to be said about him, but I thought Revenge of the Fallen was a staid, boring film that strung together sense-shattering explosions and metal slamming into metal that served to pummel the viewer into submission. Now some people may enjoy the sight of metal and flame flying across the screen and clangs and crashes in their ears, but I was just utterly bored, and picking stuff apart.
While I could regurgitate what many critics who are better paid than I am have said about this film, I'd rather just go quickly through the major problems that I had with this film. The first one is HUMOUR: I didn't really find any of the comedy in this film funny at all. This film was just so earnest in beating me around the head with the comedy brush that I just felt sorry for everybody parading about the screen japing around. Among the worst offenders are, of course, The Autobot Twins, who set new standards for embarrassment, both in their comic relief antics, which I found a bit of a pain to watch, and their (I'm guessing accidental) racism, but special mention must go to Ramon Rodriguez for his role as an obnoxious weenie who gets dragged along.
After that one, let's go with PLOT: It's pretty much all an excuse to have Shia Le Beof running about the place, chased by the orgiastic storm of rolling thunder and metal. Apart from the obnoxious humour, there is sorely little attempts at trying to squeeze any other emotions from the audience, apart from a couple of bones here and there. There is little to no character development or even interaction, and I just found what little there was just utterly cringeworthy.
Finally, there's the matter of ACTION: There are about three major fights in this film between the Transformers, and most of the time, the titular Transformers are pushed aside to serve as a backdrop for Shia Le Beouf and Megan Fox to run about dodging explosions in. Apart from major players and the Twin Scrappies, all of the rest of the Transformers, what we're here to supposedly see, are pushed aside to make way for more of Sam's parents, Leo the Goober, or the US Military. In fact, the US Army kicks more Decepticon butt onscreen than the damned Autobots do!
And that's why I hated Revenge of the Fallen.
Film Revenge Of The Fallen
Now, I will rarely say this about any movie only after seeing it once, but I think this movie has proven to me what it is: The absolute worst movie ever made. I'm serious. There is absolutely nothing good about this movie. All the characters are flat and non-existent, the plot makes no sense, and the actors suck at their jobs. Too many humans, NOT ENOUGH TRANSFORMERS. These facts are nearly universally agreed upon. Now, many people will argue to me "its not about that, its about the action and the CGI". Well, in my opinion, the CGI is the worst part. The first Transformers movie's CGI was good, but these effects are just horrible. First of all, I couldn't even tell which robot was which, considering everyone but Optimus Prime and Bumble Bee all had the exact same color, the whole dull, gun metal grey color. This, along with the fact that all the robots look horribly ugly (they are just a big huge mash of like wires, gears, guns, etc.) made all the action scenes impossible to decipher. Plainly put: This movie looks like shit. The movie is also horribly long, being 2 and a half hours. There is about 20 minutes of horrible undecipherable fighting, and about 2 hours of horribly unfunny (and racist) comic relief characters. There is exactly ten minutes devoted to the actual plot, which makes no sense what so ever (seriously, why do we even need those damn Transformers? The US military is so kickass in this movie they look like they can handle everything by themselves). Bottom line: This movie is absolutely horrible. I have no idea how this made hundreds of millions of dollars, or why so many people liked it. I am deeply fearing that humans are becoming stupider and stupider, due to the fact that they actually saw this movie. The plot of Idiocracy seems to be coming true at this point.
Film On "Revenge of the Fallen"
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a movie about robots fighting each other. If that doesn't sound exciting to you, then don't watch it, because there isn't much else in the movie.
The characters are not so much stiff as non-existent; you could have switched Shia Le Beouf for Morgan Freeman, or Megan Fox for Carol Channing, or Shia Le Beouf for Megan Fox, and there would have been no difference. The events of the film are an Excuse Plot used to string together more robot fights: something about a robot named The Fallen who, guess what, wants revenge. (He's the bad guy, donchakno.) And there's Those Two Guys who, according to Word Of God, are supposed to be white people pretending to be black, but, because they're robots and colored bright green and purple, we can't tell that, and they come across as racist stereotypes. Good try, but, didn't think this through.
Now, the robot fights are pretty freaking cool. The CGI is incredible, the robots look very convincing, and it's Michael Bay, so you know there are going to be some killer explosions. But, if you're not into that sort of thing, you won't care much... and, unfortunately, that's really the only thing the movie does. Well, that and the potty humor. If you're twelve, you'll enjoy it. But if you're older—say, thirteen—you'll probably roll your eyes.
Film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
When most film-makers sit down to start making a movie, the first three (or four) things your average film-maker tends to consider are characters, plot and setting (and for a fair few of them, theme as well). When Michael Bay sits down to start making a movie, his first and only concern is set piece explosions and how to string them together in what could faintly be considered a plot. The result: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, 150 minutes of explosion followed by explosion, interrupted briefly at the start for a few poor horrible at humour.
Characterisation is forgotten. Most characters are lucky if they have two defining features. Major Lennox is heroic and compassionate. His black aside is heroic and black. Simmons is heroic and stupid. And annoying. The two transformer twins who follow Sam around are defined by their lingo, which gets very very old, very very fast. Everyone of them is a cliche, from the reasonable supportive General to the jerk-ass stupid suit from Washington, with zero depth.
Character motivation is best shallow and uninteresting, at worst non-existent. Deceptions are attempting to destroy the sun. Why? Because they're Deceptions! And the Autobots must stop them. Why? Because they're Autobots!
Except Sam, who is the only one with anything close to real emotional depth and human characteristics. Credit should be given to Shia Le-Beouf, who is given a hard time over this film but who manages to defeat a dodgy plot and poor script to ALMOST give Sam emotional grounding. Sadly however, he is a character defined by his interactions with others, and everyone else is hallow and uninteresting.
As for the effects? The Transformers themselves are a combination of moving gears and parts thrown poorly together in a mess of grey and a rusting, barely visible coating of paint on the outside. In a fight it is impossible to tell characters apart, and after watching the movie I can honestly say I cannot remember the visualise any of them besides Optimus, Megatron, Bumblebee and the Fallen as a result. Not worth watching.