Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (’09 review)

3 out of 5

Transfomers: Revenge of the Fallen suffers from sequel bloat.  By being bigger it loses what made the original special.  The flick bogs down in tedious plot diversions and some really lame characters, but what sells Revenge is unhinged destructiveness.  Are we so cynical that we can’t enjoy a three-story robot running over cars and then getting blown apart by another robot? You only get that kind of entertainment at the movies. 

There’s a plot, but it’s not terribly important. College bound Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is in a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) but a piece of the Transformer’s All-Spark (their bible and science text rolled into one) has imprinted itself on his mind.  So now the good Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, are trying to protect him from the evil Decepticons, led by The Fallen.  Transforming robots beating the bejesus out of each other intermixed with limp human scenes follow.  At one point, the bad guys try to destroy the sun.  You have to give them points for thinking big.

The script is clunky compared its straightforward predecessor. The mythology of Transformers is cool, but exposition tends to be regurgitated in chunks: one character complains that the “plot” isn’t advancing fast enough. It makes you nostalgic for the simple “Boy and his car” storyline of the first movie, which slowly led up to the reveal of the Transformers. 

The human characters are underdeveloped.  LaBeouf isn’t quite as funny this time, but he gets some impressive motor-mouth mental breakdowns, and later visits Robot Heaven.  It’s odd.  Still drop-dead gorgeous (she seems to be humping a motorcycle in her first shot), Megan Fox’s acting deficiencies are more noticeable.  Basically she does a lot of pouting and her delivery is quite monotone.  However, the film acknowledges that Fox is so hot that she can make evil Transformers go good.  Adding some decent comic relief is John Turturro as a disgraced secret agent who has the movie’s funniest line when their quest hits a dead end and he snaps, “Sometimes you get to the end of the rainbow, and the leprechauns booby trapped it!”   LaBeouf picks up an annoying side-kick named Leo (Ramón Rodríguez) and all he does is cry.  Army guys Tyrese Gibson and Josh Duhamel just point, shoot, and shout while the Autobots do the heavy lifting.  Duhamel gets one very funny scene where he tricks someone into jumping out of the helicopter. The characters needed more fun moments like that. 

The Transformers are more interesting.   The animation, while excessively busy, is fantastic.  The main bad guy, the Fallen (menacingly voiced by Tony Todd), looks downright weird even for an alien robot. As voiced by Peter Cullen, Optimus Prime is an iconic character.  If anyone remembers the classic cartoon movie you’ll instantly feel for what happens to him halfway through the film.  One of the Decepticons, Soundwave, a character that was originally a tape-deck in the ‘80s cartoon, gets a unique redesign into a satellite.  Soundwave spits out smaller robots, including tiny ball-bearings that form to become a min-spy-robot.  There’s even an angry old man Transformer with a cane! And a sadistic tiny robot that wants to yank out Shia LeBeouf’s brain!

However, a huge drawback is the stunningly regressive pair of robot “twins” that stepped out of a production of “Amos ‘n’ Andy”.  Even more annoying, they spend half the movie hanging out with LaBeouf.  There’s a neat “female” Transformer motorcycle that splits off into three separate robots which would have been a much cooler companion.  Unfortunately, every time you see the twin robot guys acting uncomfortably racist, you wince. 

All of the new Transformer toys get used.  Robots are smashed up, blown apart, yell, scheme, monologue, and more.  The action could be wearying, so the best strategy is going in knowing that Revenge is robots beating the hell out of each other and enjoy yourself. It’s stunning how much goes on: robots combine into bigger robots, Optimus Prime transforms in mid-sky-dive for no other reason than it looks really cool , there’s a hopelessly outnumbered fight against evil Decepticons (although how LeBeouf ends up in the midst of the melee not clear).  There’s even a human-replica robot in an unabashed steal from Terminator!  But Director Michael Bay’s over-the-top style works because the movie is about a ridiculous concept: giant transforming robots that shoot and punch each other.

While the human stuff is mostly tedious, many jokes fall flat (there’s three leg humping jokes), Green Day’s “21 Guns” used too much, its military fetish is overblown, and the run-time is excessive, there’s a simple reason why this is entertaining: Optimus Prime punches a robot through the chest and then tears it’s face off.  That does not happen in bad movies.  Not in great movies either, but Revenge of the Fallen is a decent diversion.