A lackluster sequel that disappoints on almost everything

Rating: 4/10 (1 July 2009)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is this year's version of The Dark Knight: the big summer sequel that everyone knows and feels the need to see. Undoubtedly, with the possible exception of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the enigmatic and potential game-changer Avatar, Transformers will be this year's highest grossing film. But looking past these two similarities (and a handful of scenes filmed to take advantage IMAX screens), Transformers and Dark Knight have absolutely nothing else in common. While Dark Knight was a masterpiece and is one of the greatest sequels ever made, Transformers just may be one of the worst.
Taking the old adage of bigger is better; Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen revolves around the continuing battle between the good Autobots and the evil Decepticons. Once again, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is thrust into the middle of the war after he accidentally finds a shard from the AllSpark that was destroyed in the first film. The resulting pulse the shard gives off gets the attention of the surviving Decepticons, as does Sam's weird habit of writing ancient messages that is read mainly by Transformers. And that is where the titular character of The Fallen, the leader of the Decepticons, comes in as he wants to kidnap Sam to use as bait against Optimus Prime.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a busy film that is filled to the brim with ideas and subplots. Virtually everyone in the film has their own storyline and it makes for a movie that has just too much going on. For one thing, it introduces plenty of new Autobots and Decepticons, but the majority is either killed, or does one thing in the film and then is never seen again. They barely even get the time to say one line. New additions to the human cast like Ramon Rodriguez as the conspiracy theorist Leo Spitz, Isabel Lucas' alluring college bombshell Alice and John Benjamin Hickey's punching bag of a government agent Galloway, get very little backstory and are taken out of the film almost as fast as the robots are getting killed. But even the returning cast members (read: practically the entirety of the cast from the original film) get so very little to do that one wonders why they even bothered coming back in the first place.
Because the film is so busy, and Michael Bay seems so intent on filling his explosion and action scene quota to quadruple the size of scenes of exposition and explanation, the film virtually moves from point to point on a whim. A character is introduced late in the film merely to explain everything that has happened, and everything that will happen. He has no development; he is merely a plot device. So very little is explained that it gets to the point where things just happen for no reason, and then the audience is given all of a minute to digest what just happened. Characters die, yet no one seems to really mourn for them. They just pick up and soldier on to the ending. And then when scenes actually do become emotional, they get so melodramatic that you wish there was no focus on them.
There just seems to be no middle ground in the film. Characters, no matter if they are main or supporting, are saddled with horrible or non-existent lines. I realize the film was cobbled and stitched together during the Writer's Strike, but two of the three credited writers are coming off the excellent redo of Star Trek, which ironically was made by the same company as Transformers. But it was affected by the strike too. How can one film be littered with such a wealth of thought out exposition, while the other is basically hobbled by almost none?
But what mangles this film even further is the insistence on being funny. The first film had a bizarre sense of humour that got in the way more than once, but this film is just so over-the-top ridiculous in some scenes that it almost becomes parody. John Turturro is brought back simply to be zany and off kilter and the Autobot "twins" Skids and Mudflap are so overtly annoying in their quest to be comic relief that they make Jar Jar Binks look like Brando in The Godfather. But these two examples are just the tip of how much "funny" is added into the film. Sex jokes and innuendos are tossed at random (including a scene where a small Decepticon humps Megan Fox's leg), an entirely needless scene with Sam's mom Judy (Julie White) eating "green brownies" becomes the focal point of an entire scene, as does a scene involving LaBeouf's odd screaming like a girl. Some of the laughs are genuinely funny, but the majority either fall flat or are totally out-of-place.
What is done right, again, are the incredible special effects. It is still amazing to watch these Autobots and Decepticons face off against each other, and even more so when the newer, larger Transformers come into the fold. The entire opening chase scene in Shanghai is simply marvelous to watch (and such a downer by the end since nothing matches up to it at all). Some of the scenes looked incredibly fake however, especially scenes involving human and robot interaction. Not all of these scenes look the same, but it still makes for a bit more added disappointment.
If you go into Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hoping for anything outside of awesome effects, just do not even bother. It may look great, and have amazing effects, but the lack of a cohesive plot, too many characters, and its inane humour is so horribly done that you may insist on getting your money back. So little is done right that I genuinely fear for Transformers III.
4/10.
(This review also appeared on http://www.geekspeakmagazine.com).