Revenge of the Villain Creep

Rating: 4/10 (25 June 2009)

When I first started reading details about Revenge of the Fallen sometime midway through the production, I was concerned about reports of there being 40+ robots in this film compared to the 10 or so in the original. This problem, villain creep, seems to be a disease that often strikes franchise movies, and usually not with positive results. Indeed, one of the major things that really killed Spiderman 3 was the number of villains – 3 – and there was scarcely enough story to go around.
Then, when the first reviews started coming in from overseas, quickly skimming through most of them gives pretty much the same consensus: too long, too chaotic, too convoluted, perhaps the worst movie of the year.
Regardless, I was going to see Revenge of the Fallen either way. I was an original Transformers fan in the dark ages of the early 80s, and these days my 8 year old son thinks he's Optimus Prime. The first Transformers movie gave me pretty much what I expected or wanted from a Transformers movie: big robots faithful enough to the spirit of the originals without looking boxy and stiff, a basic dumbed-down action movie plot that didn't involve a lot of mental heavy lifting, some pretty visuals (not the least of which was Megan Fox), some nice (if often incoherent) battles, and an identifiable, charismatic lead in Shia LaBeouf. Even if Megatron and Starscream, the two main Decepticon heavyweights, didn't evoke their Generation 1 counterparts as well as Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, or necessarily even have much to do or say, the movie was fast paced, funny, exciting, and overall enjoyable. I liked it a lot as a lightweight summer action movie, and couldn't have asked for more.
As for Revenge of the Fallen, the action sequences, particularly the robot fights, were pretty much as incomprehensible as warned. I was reminded of the old Tex Avery style cartoons where two cats fight furiously in an all-concealing ball of dust with the occasional arm, leg, or tail poking out in one direction or another. Many of the Autobots and Decepticons are so similar in color and so busy in design with the thousands of interconnecting plates making up their bodies, that it's often difficult to tell who exactly is fighting whom, and who's winning.
However, I didn't feel the movie was as unbearably long as most critics seem to indicate, and the storyline nowhere near as complex or convoluted. Even if there isn't always a lot of logic to it, it's a pretty straightforward bad-guys-want-to-take-over-the-universe-and-must-kill-all-good-guys plot. There's probably a store somewhere in Hollywood where they sell stencil templates you can lay on top of computer paper and just spray paint the script. Michael Bay probably even stocked up when there was a good sale going on. For a heavier movie, this would be a death knell, but for an early summer action movie based on a bunch of toys that came out almost 30 years ago, it's a good fit.
This time around, the Decepticons are looking for an alternative source of Energon located somewhere on Earth. The Allspark used to be the source of Energon that powered all the Transformers, until it was destroyed by Sam and Optimus Prime in the first movie. Here, Sam finds a sliver of the Allspark in an old shirt that gives him instant knowledge of advanced physics and mathematics, as well as (eventually), the location of the new Energon source. The Decepticons get their hands on it, and while they're inexplicably unable to learn as much from it as Sam did in about 30 seconds, they do use it to resurrect Megatron.
Meanwhile, the US Government is apparently trying to deport the Autobots, while they and Sam race around the globe trying to stop Megatron and the ancient Decepticon known as The Fallen from locating a device that will create Energon by destroying the Sun. Along the way, they meet and power up another ancient Decepticon warrior, Jetfire, who's been masquerading as an SR-71 Blackbird in the Smithsonian (how he didn't come to life when Ben Stiller was running through there earlier this summer is unknown). How he can be so ancient he has only prehistoric knowledge of the Earth and its people, yet is disguised as an airplane no more than 40 or 50 years old, is beyond me. But Jetfire's characterization as a cranky old war veteran who switches sides and helps the good guys was fun, and he's one of the few standout bots among the newcomers.
Ultimately, leaps of logic abound, as do a lot of action clichés such as the heroes running toward the camera as a gigantic explosion erupts behind them. Battles are indeed chaotic and often incomprehensible. And characters seem to show up in places you wouldn't really expect them to be, and where their presence serves no real purpose in the plot. Overall, though, there are enough laughs and thrilling set pieces to offset much of the headshaking nonsense. And while he uses spray-on stencil templates to write his scripts, I've always felt Michael Bay should be applauded for his craft in combining practical and CG effects to do what other directors would simply do in a computer. Bay may not be an artist, but he's at least an accomplished craftsman who knows how to put an action movie together in ways technically different from other similar directors.
At the end of the day, Revenge of the Fallen is probably not as bad as most of the critics are indicating; neither is it as good as its predecessor. I'm sure there will be a sequel by 2011 or so. Hopefully Bay will be able to combine the positive elements of each of the first two and craft a genuine summer classic.