Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
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| Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 "You picked the wrong planet! Give me your FACE!" - Optimus Prime right before killing Megatronus Prime
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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a 2009 American science fiction action film directed by Michael Bay. It is the sequel to Transformers, as well as the second installment in the live-action Transformers film series. It stars Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, and Josh Duhamel. Revenge of the Fallen premiered on June 8, 2009 in Tokyo and was released on June 24, 2009 in the United States. It was followed by Dark of the Moon in 2011.
Plot
Two years after the Deceptions' attack on Earth, Sam Witwicky is off to college, while the Autobots have teamed up with a secret military organization, NEST. When Megatronus Prime (AKA "The Fallen"), the first Decepticon, makes himself known, Sam and his girlfriend Mikaela Banes team up with the Autobots to figure out a way to defeat Megatronus once and for all.
Bad Qualities
- Despite being a Transformers movie, most of the screen time and story focus goes to the humans, while most of the Transformers' screen time was given to Bumblebee, Skids, and Mudflap. This causes the other Transformers to not be explored or even have any time to get fleshed out. Megatronus Prime/The Fallen is the primary villain of the film, but he never gets any time to be given a motive or any character traits. There are also a bunch of Constructicons, and the movie never gives you time to know who is who.
- Multiple plotholes. For example:
- A piece of the Allspark was used to bring Megatron back to life. But when Optimus is temporarily killed, the part of the Allspark in Mikaela's possession is not used to bring him back to life.
- This is a major one: At the beginning of the movie, Sam starts to have visions and lose his mind after touching a small piece of the Allspark, but by the end of the first movie, he runs holding the entire cube. Why didn't anything happen to him there or after that?
- The confusing way that the Constructicons are incorporated: One of them is killed at the start, then Devastator forms from a set of nine of them (even though it's only supposed to be seven), but then four more are seen fighting the humans in the desert. About the only way, this makes sense is if there is more than one set of Constructicons.
- Bizarre geographical errors, such as saying The Pentagon is in Washington DC (it's actually in Arlington, Virginia), the back door of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's annex at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia leading to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, an aircraft graveyard in Tucson, Arizona, or forgetting that Egypt and Jordan don't share a border.
- Juvenile humor and awkward moments that feel very out-of-place (with it also making the movie's tone shift too clumsily, making it hard for the movie to be taken seriously or humorously), such as Devastator having wrecking balls dangling between his legs (referred to as "the enemy's scrotum" in Simmons' dialogue, just in case anyone thought this was accidental), Sam's pet dog Mojo humping Frankie (Sam's other dog), and Jetfire farting. In fact, the humor here is more graphic and needlessly over-the-top compared to the first film.
- In one scene, you can actually see Alice's panties. Which is kinda creepy for a PG-13 movie.
- There's a scene where Seymour Simmons gets his pants ripped off for no reason at all, revealing his underwear.
- The CGI, while still really good, doesn't quite go well. It doesn't feel like they're really there, such as the scene where Sam is restrained while Scalpel and its assistants examine him.
- Speaking of that scene, the part where Scalpel puts some worm thing inside of Sam's head is disgusting.
- While Transformer designs are interesting in themselves, the problem is that this movie includes way too many Decepticons that are just non-threatening canon fodder that get anticlimactically killed off and in multiple scenes, they cover up the more major Decepticon characters (and more than a few of them are reused CGI models, including ones in the previous movie). At least in the first film, there were only 8 Decepticons and they looked completely different from one another and actually were treated as important characters. Plus, during their scenes, the camera shots at least tried making it clear who is on-screen and there wasn't too much going on per shot (without too much special effects or objects in the way).
- While it's not bad for the normal canon fodder (the ones that look like generic alien robots) to use the exact same model (to help distinguish them more from others), the ones that look more like major ones (whose CGI models were reused in both this and in the first film) is not the best idea and it will cause major confusion.
- It continues the first movie's love affair with too-close "shaky cam" fight scenes, which, when combined with the above, makes it very difficult to tell who is doing what to who.
- It wastes potential for Megatronus Prime, Arcee, Chromia, Elita-1 (originally Optimus' love interest in G1), the Constructicons, Grindor, Jolt, Sideways, Sideswipe, Jetfire, Skids & Mudflap, Alice the Pretender, Ravage, Wheelie, and Soundwave.
- Speaking of Soundwave, he rarely appears in the film and is only seen in one scene (twice actually, but that scene was repeated twice, trying to be different scenes). We also don't get to see the robot mode of his interesting satellite design. It's a real shame because he's one of the classic Decepticons, but his debut in this film is painfully minute.
- And speaking of Optimus Prime, his death and the Matrix of Leadership were used way too early.
- Sideways and the Constructicons were teased about having signified roles. However, there were entirely in the background, and they barely impact the story.
- Jetfire, a former Decepticon, never even stands out as his own character in the film. He mainly serves as a power-up for Optimus Prime in the final battle.
- Grindor is just both a bootlegged version and a significant step back from Blackout. He is a pointless Decepticon to have, so much to the point that he was never seen again after this film.
- Skids (Tom Kenny) and Mudflap (Reno Wilson) are extremely obnoxious comic-reliefs, and are considered one of the worst Transformers characters in the film series as they are racist, offensive African-American stereotypes that speak almost entirely in slang.
- The acting and performances from the human characters are a significant step back from the first film, especially from Shia Labeouf, who just screams most of his lines.
- The poorly developed characters from the first film, such as Sam's parents, aren't given any worthwhile character development.
- The film blatantly reuses stock footage from the previous film in certain places.
- Starscream is once again treated as a punching bag, similar to other counterparts of him. Prior to this film and in Dark of the Moon, Starscream was more competent from what was shown and implied on-screen, which was a nice change that was sadly wasted.
- There are pointless subplots that go nowhere and aren't even mentioned again, other than to pad out the movie's runtime.
- Sometimes, the pacing isn't that great.
- Optimus Prime was flanderized into a murderous psychopath who says a lot of morbid quotes. Furthermore, he shows no remorse for his brother Megatron. In the first film, Prime never acted this violent and still showed concern for him despite all the things he has done.
- Optimus Prime's dark portrayal in this movie is also a problem in the later sequels.
- The PSP tie-in game is mediocre.
Good Qualities
- There are still a fair amount of epic moments and awesome action scenes, such as the forest fight (which was considered by many as one of the greatest robots fights in movies) and the battle in Egypt, are still good despite the shaky camerawork and the fact that some parts are hard to follow.
- Megatron's resurrection was pretty awesome, and his conversation with Starscream and The Fallen after returning to his base is sick.
- Despite the disgusting way Scalpel extracts information from Sam, Megatron torturing the boy while pinning him onto the ground is pretty cool and appropriately scary.
- The final battle with Jetpower Optimus Prime, The Fallen, and Megatron is still effortlessly epic and mind-blowing, even if it only lasted for a few minutes,
- The CGI for the Transformers is still amazing and visually stunning, still holding up to this day. In particular, Devastator's model reportedly "fried" an animator's PC.
- The opening titles for this film are dark and aggressive in a cool way.
- Some parts of the movie are still funny:
- Jetfire's line about his ancestors is pretty funny, particularly when he mentions that his first ancestor was the first wheel ever invented and that he could never transform.
- Shia's facial expressions can be somewhat unintentionally hilarious.
- Despite being reduced to a secondary role, Megatron is still a great villain who is pretty cool, scary, and entertaining. His bulkier but sleeker, more tactical, and more compact redesign is also slightly more faithful to his G1 design (even having some elements from G2 and Armada Megatron).
- The scenes where he punishes Starscream were made for old-school fans who know how much Megatron resents Starscream.
- He also underwent some character development that was actually good and not something that would make him weaker as a villain, going from being mainly a power-hungry conqueror to becoming more of an extremist who grew more concerned about the future of his race after the near-loss of the All Spark. He also seemingly lost some of his arrogance, recklessness, and greed as well.
- Jetpower Optimus Prime looks AWESOME!
- Some of the acting is good, for example:
- Megan Fox is better in this film than the previous one and gives a slightly better performance.
- Great voice acting for the Transformers themselves, thanks to the voice actors reprising all their roles.
- This is the only film that Skids and Mudflap appear, and they are never seen again afterward (on the novel version of Dark of the Moon, they get killed by Sentinel Prime).
- Great soundtrack composed by Steve Jablonsky (composer of the other films), especially the credits song "New Divide" by Linkin Park. One could argue that Revenge of the Fallen's soundtrack is even better than the first film's.
- Sam Witwicky's near death was an emotional scene, Sam meeting the Primes was also cool despite being out of place.
- Some of the Autobots are still great:
- Though he was slightly flanderized in a way where he's more violent, Bumblebee is still mostly his same, cute self from the previous film and at least he wasn't ruined nearly as bad as Prime.
- Ratchet and Ironhide, despite not having enough screen time, are still great characters.
- It introduced Sideswipe, who became a fan favorite. His design is also pretty sleek and he does some cool stuff in his minimal screen time. It's just a shame he's underutilized in this movie.
- The sound effects are still pretty cool and satisfying, especially the sounds the Transformers make.
- The sound effects used in the Paramount logo are still cool.
- The special effects (while overused in certain parts) are still epic and dazzling, just like in the first film.
- The cinematography looks cool and appropriately stylish, just like the first film.
- You picked the wrong planet! Give me your face!
- The four tie-in video games of the same name are good, released on PC/Xbox 360/PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii/PlayStation 2 and Both Decepticons and Autobots DS games.
- The movie is understandably problematic:
- Writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci were not able to refine and finish the script because of the writer's strike that happened while the movie was still in development, leading to the script being incomplete. Michael Bay knew about this and tried to make up for it by amping up the action, innuendo, and the unfortunate amount of sophomoric humor, but it sadly didn't help the movie much and the end result was still messy. Even Bay thinks it's a terrible movie and that his experience while filming it was awful.
- There are people who might still like this film and find it entertaining. Additionally it's better than the sequels that came after it.
- This movie spawned the best toyline out of all the ones for the Michael Bay films. Hasbro improved the detailing and engineering for the toys of Revenge of the Fallen, with the action figures being more complex and enjoyable compared to the toys of the first film. If only the movie was as good as them.
Videos
Trivia
- This was the final Transformers film to:
- star Megan Fox;
- be released by DreamWorks Pictures during their former partnership with Paramount;
- to get dubbed in Korean.
- Even Michael Bay himself admitted he actually didn't like the film.
Reception
Critical response
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was released on June 24, 2009, and received negative reviews from critics, criticizing the plot, script, adult-oriented humor, characters, performances, and runtime, while praising the visual effects, action scenes, score, and the performances of Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 20% based on 251 reviews and an average rating of 4.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a noisy, underplotted, and overlong special effects extravaganza that lacks a human touch.". On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 35 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a "B+", compared to the "A" that the original film had scored. On Letterboxd, the film collected 2.1/5 score.
Chris Stuckmann gave this movie rating of F.
Despite the negative reviews, however, the film received mixed reviews from the audiences and fans of the series, with some fans claimed that the movie was a great installment to the first film in the franchise, others dismiss that it's a bad installment to the first film.
External Links
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen at the Internet Movie Database
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on Rotten Tomatoes
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on Metacritic
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on Letterboxd
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