Pretty Good

Rating: 9/10 (19 September 2013)

I liked this Transformers movie better than the first movie. Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen has a better plot line than Transformers, regardless of what other people say. There are actually two plot lines in this one; one where Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) and Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) delve deeper into their relationship and the other the continued civil war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. Yeah I know, not the best combination of plot lines, especially for a Sci-Fi movie.
In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen we learn more about what started the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. A long time ago Optimus Primes ancestors visited Earth in order to harvest energon, which comes from the sun, any sun. However, when it was discovered that there was life on Earth, the Primes decided to leave Earth alone and find a new source for energon. Unfortunately, one of the Primes refused to accept this decision and tried to harvest the sun anyway. The other Primes defeated the one, forever after known as the Fallen, and to prevent him from ever turning on the machine again they decided to hide the matrix. The matrix is pure energon and it is what powers the machine that would harvest the sun. To hide the matrix the remaining Primes sacrificed themselves and entombed it in a mountain cave.
Yeah, I know. It's called Science Fiction for a reason.
Now the parts of this movie I like have a lot to do with Sam Witwicky. During the first half hour of the movie he finds a shard from the cube that was destroyed in the first movie stuck to the shirt he was wearing at the time. He kept it as a souvenir. He gives the shard to Mikaela for safe keeping before going off to college. When he gets to college he finds out that his roommate is an alien robot paparazzi wannabe, but decides to go with the flow... especially since he can't get another room assignment. Sam and his flatmates go to a party where Sam meets Alice (Isabel Lucas). Isabel is extremely interested in Sam, apparently. Bumblebee, in Camaro form, comes to warn Sam that the Decepticons have located the remains of Megatron and another piece of the Cube. Sam refuses to get involved. The next day in an Astronomy class Sam reads his text book in less than a minute and attempts to correct his professor... he is asked to leave. Sam figures out that when he touched the shard from his shirt the information was somehow transferred to him. Also maybe some superhuman abilities.
Again, I know. It's Sci-Fi.
Another part of this that I like the take charge side of Sam that emerges as he tries to figure out where the matrix is. He enlists the help of his girlfriend, Mikaela, even though she is upset that she caught him making out with Alice. Fortunately for Sam, Alice turned out to be a robot that could change into human form. I think Mikaela forgave Sam for that indiscretion. Sam also enlists the help of his roommate, Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez), and former Agent, Simmons (John Turturro). Together, with the help of Bumblebee and a couple of other Autobots and a turn-coat Decepticon they figure out how to read the symbols that Sam keeps seeing. They end up going to The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum near Washington, D.C. to take to Jetfire (Mark Ryan). Jetfire turns out to be a reformed Decepticon and helps Sam and the others by transporting them all to Egypt.
The next scene I like is when Sam is trying to get to Optimus Prime to revive him. First he has to get his parents to safety and tells them to take Mikaela, but his dad, Ron Witwicky (Kevin Dunn), tries to stop Sam from going. Sam's mom, Judy Witwicky (Julie White), tells Ron that he has to let him go. Mikaela refuses to leave Sam, so they run to Optimus. Along the way they are picked up by Major Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and his team. While they make a run for it Sam runs in the direction of Optimus as everyone else goes a different direction. As he is running a Decepticon is shooting at him, one of the shots hits the ground near him and blows him off course, and apparently when he hits the ground he is dead. As he is lying there with a medic trying to revive him, with Mikaela crying over him, Sam has an out-of-body experience where he takes with the Primeval Primes (Say that 10 times fast!). The Primes tell him that he has the ability to revive Optimus, he always had it. At that point he wakes up. It's not all of this that I like, technically it is, but what I really liked was way back at the beginning of the movie Mikaela was trying to get Sam to say "I Love You", but he wouldn't; as he is laying there, apparently dead, she says it to him, then he wakes up his first words are "You said it first." Sucker!
A lot that I am not describing is pretty damn funny, so I would suggest watching it. You know some critics don't like Michael Bay because he puts beautiful women, sometimes too many, in his movies. I just say that that is our society. I bet you the same critics, mostly women, who complained about the beautiful women in these three movies had no complaints about Twilight with Robert Pattinson or when Taylor Lautner was walking around with his shirt off. Hypocrites!
Anyway, I give this a 9 out of 10 stars. I don't know what could have made it better.