A Complete Mess; One of the Worst Movies of 2009

Rating: 3/10 (27 October 2009)

The summer of 2009 will forever be etched in my memory as a summer of terrible sequels and REVENGE OF THE FALLEN tops the list of bad movies I've seen this year. I really enjoyed 2007's TRANSFORMERS and so went into the theater with high hopes for this action-loaded sequel, and wow...we're my dreams ever crushed. When the film begins, the Autobots have been working with the US government as part of a "top secret" program known as NEST since the Mission City battle but the government's getting fed up with the constant Autobot/Decepticon battles. So, while the government tries to shut down NEST and send the Autobots packing to a new planet, the ancient Decepticon known as the Fallen is searching for a long-lost source of Energon on Earth in hopes of using it to raise an army.
Wow, looking back at that paragraph, that synopsis does sound as if it'd make for a fun movie...but it doesn't. There were so many aspects of this movie that bothered me that I probably won't even remember to mention them all here. For one, the plot does seem to have some major holes; I cannot understand how, after such a massive city-spanning battle with hundreds upon hundreds of witnesses at the end of the first film, the Autobots are now a government secret. In addition to a shaky plot, the film also suffered from some cringe-inducing performances from characters that I didn't feel were at all necessary and could've easily been scrapped. Ramon Rodriguez as Sam's new college roommate, Leo Spitz....what was the point of him? I was fed up with his childish whining within minutes and yet got to spend the entire movie with him. And, while on the topic of useless characters, the Autobot twins Skids and Mudflap were just aggravating. From the moment they arrived, I couldn't help but picture the crows from DUMBO and I kept hoping that a Decepticon would do us all a favor and take them out.
The remainder of the cast failed to grab my attention any better. Megan Fox didn't really come across as well as she did in the first film; I suppose now that the ogling from the first film is over it's easier to see her acting doesn't quite hold up as well. Shia LeBeouf spends the majority of the film moping, hardly his usual wisecracking self. The only "highlights" were John Turturro (returning as former Sector-7 agent Simmons) and Kevin Dunn & Julie White (as Sam's parents, though even they wore out their welcome after a while). The only real compliments for the film should be directed at ILM, whose visual effects and Transformer designs are just as amazing as they were on the first film. I just wish I'd had more of an opportunity to appreciate it seeing as how the action is all shown so close-up and so fast that there are points where you can't ascertain what exactly is happening in battle.
The second TRANSFORMERS film tries it's hardest to be epic in scope, but fails miserably and you can't help but feel time slow down as you sit through the exhausting 2.5 hour runtime (especially during the seemingly never-ending final battle). As I'd said, I know there are even more grievances that I'm neglecting to mention here but believe me when I say this movie was terrible compared to the first. Since it happened to nab more than $400 million at the domestic box office, another sequel is inevitable. Let's just hope the filmmakers get their act together and bring us another TRANSFORMERS movie we can be proud of.