Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - Spoiler Filled Geek Angst Review

Originally published 06/26/09 at geekinthecity.com

There is a moment during the last third of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen when John Turturro’s character looks directly at the camera and pleads for a concise and to-the-point description of the story so far. He’s irritated, confused and out of patience with not only his current predicament, but seemingly the entire film. Of course, who could blame him? A few scenes earlier, Turturro was showcasing his bulbous, pock-marked asscheeks onscreen as he tore off his pants, proudly displaying his Sector 7 thong.

This is how your geek childhood dies.

I’ve got to hand it to Michael Bay. It is no small task to take a movie whose sole premise is a series of brawls featuring giant fighting alien robots and turn it into an offensive, confusing and altogether unwatchable cinematic experience. Bay, whose directing prowess has never been grounded in the cumbersome territory of character development or plot progression, is in rare form with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Admittedly, I was able to enjoy Bay’s first film adaptation of Hasbro’s iconic action figure line/cartoon. In fact, there were moments during the first movie where I found myself pumping my fist in glee, reveling in the life size versions of the familiar childhood epic backyard battles in which I served as both hero and nemesis. Watching Optimus Prime (even with the flames), Bumblebee (even without the voice) and Megatron (even as a jet) was worth the price of admission, which I gladly paid more than once.

Then they had to go and make this fucking travesty.

I’ll make this very easy for you. What follows is a checklist of everything good, bad and altogether offputting in Revenge of the Fallen. If you find yourself approvingly circling more than two things on this list, then by all means dash to your local metroplex and prepare for a 2 1/2 hour onslaught of Bayisms. If you’re on the fence after reading this, carefully reconsider dumping your ten bucks into this film. You’ll only be encouraging him. Consider this list spoiler-heavy, so be warned if you’re not the kind who wants to know in advance exactly how many giant robots die, how effective Shia is or where to find the teabagging and fart jokes. If so then well… you’re probably going to see the damn thing anyway.

Optimus Prime: I’m sure that I am not the only one who would pay Peter Cullen the price of a movie ticket to read a page from the latest edition of Merriam-Webster. The man clearly enjoys voicing the Autobot leader above all of his other works (including Eeyore). However, I get the feeling that casting Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime may have been the only ground that Michael Bay gave to the vast and frenzied Transformers fanbase. Prime is easily the most energetic and charismatic character in this film… which of course means that he gets killed off about halfway through. Yes, Prime does get resurrected during the final moments, but the hour or so that he is offscreen feels like an eternity. Prime’s battle sequences, especially his final smackdown versus Megatron and The Fallen, are the movie’s high-points. However, even the Autobot Matrix of Leadership can’t save the film when Optimus isn’t speaking, transforming or fighting.

The Fallen: Apparently, he’s the movie’s bad guy. You even get told as much by Decepticon turncoat Jetfire (we’ll get to him in a moment) in a plot-delivery monologue reminiscent of the butler’s speech at the end of Spiderman 3. The Fallen isn’t so much of a badass as he is a nuisance, sending his non-transforming minions out to do the dirty work in the film’s end battle sequence. Oh, and he’s voiced by Tony Todd (say it again four times) who sounds as if he’s speaking through a Cybertronian smoker’s larynx.

Devastator: Is wasted. Also, he has giant steel balls. Which is not to say that I didn’t expect an enormous robot comprised of smaller construction vehicles to not have certain ball-like features. I mean, the back half of a cement mixer is round. Giant tires are round. What I didn’t expect was for Devastator to have two wrecking balls hanging from beneath his legs. And, as if the sight gag wasn’t enough, they are pointed out in a scene that literally stops all momentum of the film so that an actor can deliver the line: “I’m beneath the robot’s scrotum.” That’s right, leader of the Constructicons gets to be the delivery method for a teabag joke in this movie. I can’t make this stuff up.

The Twins: By now, you’ve likely heard much of the outcry surrounding Mudflap and Skids. They’re racial stereotypes. They speak in Ebonics. They can’t read. One has a gold tooth. You know what? The twins are all of these things and worst of all, they’re clearly targeted at kids. I’ve seen (and to a certain extent, enjoyed) a number of films that contained racial stereotypes. None of these moves were marketed exclusively towards children. In Revenge of the Fallen Michael Bay places Mudflap and Skids in front of the camera with the frequency and eagerness of a Gungan-obsessed neckbeard. They replace Bumblebee as the marketing tool for the under-12 demographic, even appearing in a damn Burger King commercial. Well done, Dreamworks. Mudflap and Skids are the reason that I won’t be taking my kid to see this film.

Jetfire: He’s the Decepticon version of Benedict Arnold, only with irritable bowls. He’s also a SR-71 Blackbird, which was admittedly a very cool addition to the Transformers fleet. Jetfire exists in this film for a single reason.. to further the plot via exposition. OK, that and deliver fart jokes, so two reasons really. He’s the dirty old man of Bay’s Transformers universe and while he sacrifices himself at the end of the film to ’save’ Optimus Prime, we have to suffer through close to 30 minutes of old age jokes to get to his 30-second swan song. If I want effective old man jokes, I’ll go see UP again.

Megan Fox: Boobs. In slow motion.

Shia LaBeouf: I’ve never been one to herald the acting prowess of LaBeouf, instead thinking that he has set himself up nicely to be the next Hasselhoff or Swaze… or Bosworth. In the first Transformers, Shia’s spastic line delivery was spread out in the film, making it at least tolerable. Moments of Sam Witwicky looking awkward-yet-heroic were broken up by enough robot vs. robot fighting that you didn’t have enough time to become annoyed with him. In Fallen, Shia rewards us with entire scenes of speed-mumbling, incomprehensible dialog. Its as if he decided that his performance in this movie was his chance to audition for the voice of Blurr in TF3. It doesn’t work and we’re left to suffer while he rambles on in his twitchy and frustratingly frequent appearances onscreen.

The Rest of The Giant Fighting Robots: While Bay added more Autobots and Decepticons into the film, the fighting and action sequences are so closely shot and the robots to similar looking that it is almost impossible to tell them apart. Since there are more robots in TF2 than the first film, this makes the issue doubly frustrating. Bumblebee, Starscream, Ironhide and Ratchet all get speaking roles, making them instantly recognizable. Beyond those, the credits list a host of other robots that may or may not have actually been shown onscreen. Arcee is definately present, but this time appears as a trio pink, blue and purple motorcycles. Soundwave stays in orbit for the entire film, loafing in space as a communications satellite. For some unexplained reason, Jazz returns, but dies again… I think. Jolt, Sideswipe, Sideways, Grindor and Scorponok all appear in the credits, but they seamlessly blended into the shrapnel and gunpowder that dominated the screen during every bot vs. bot battle.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a bumbling, obnoxious, clusterfuck of a film and deserves to be exiled to the proverbial clearance isle of geek culture. The goodwill of the those who were raised on a steady diet of Saturday morning cartoons and pop culture minutia does not come easy. To take Transformers, one of the most revered properties in all of geekdom and reduce it to a 150 minute long dissertation on dry humping, racial stereotypes and EXPLOSIONS does nothing more than confirm that Michael Bay is is the one-trick Hollywood douchebag that we all expected he was. I guess Bay didn’t rape my childhood with this movie, but he certainly didn’t turn it into a giant fighting robot.