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I saw Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen yesterday. I went because Roomie is a ravening Transformers fan, and because I have soft, squishy spots in my heart for Bumblebee and Optimus.
The Good: The robots continue to amaze me. The action sequences are frenetic and make it difficult to appreciate the fine detail work that went into creating the robots, but what we do see is remarkably human. Bumblebee and Optimus radiate kindness from their blue eyes and metal faces. Bumblebee in particular is wonderfully expressive; when he began to weep washer fluid after Sam tells him he's not taking him to college because freshmen are prohibited cars, and anyway, he just wants to be normal, I got weepy myself. Actually, this scene illustrates what a true sweetheart Bumbles is, because I would've smashed Sam flat, the obnoxious little wet fart of an ingrate. Bumbles got his legs blown off for him. The least Sam could do was tell him he loved him.
There were plenty of shoutouts to the original series. Frank Welker, the original voice of Megatron who lobbied for the role but was snubbed by Bay in favor of Hugo Weaving, voiced Soundwave and Devastator. Additionally, the film reprised Megatron's oh-so-delicious drubbing of the duplicitous Starscream from the original animated films, and Ravage, Frenzy, and Rampage made appearances, though Ravage inexplicably resembled a Cyclopean hyena instead of a puma.
Most will undoubtedly find him annoying, but I loved Sam's whiny, screaming roommate, Leo. Yes, he was a shrieking coward, but in the end, he rediscovered his chutzpah and helped in the small ways he could, and isn't that the definition of hero? Sam was heroic, I'll grant you, but his heroism was enmeshed with his survival. He fought as hard as he did because Megatron wanted to suck out his brains in order to retrieve the Cybertronian symbols therein. Self-preservation is an extreme motivator. Leo, on the other hand, could have walked away. He chose to stay. Yes, he cried and blubbered and screamed like a girl, but wouldn't you if you were being chased by Jordanian police and shot at by fifty-foot robots? I would be performing an opera in brown notes.
I also enjoyed the return of Agent Simmons, who retired in ignominy at the end of the first film. He added a wonderful humor, which was desperately needed to offset the juvenile, crass humor sprinkled throughout like herpes sores. The infiltration of the aeronautical museum was pure slapstick gold.
The Bad: It was forty minutes too long. The narrative was uneven, rushed when it should have been drawn out and belabored when it could have been condensed. Sam's sum college experience was crammed into ten minutes, while the race across the desert to resurrect Optimus took thirty minutes and looked liked Bay had recycled unused footage from Pearl Harbor. I found myself checking my watch as Sam crawled another two feet in fifteen minutes. The trek should have been abbreviated and the excess time lavished on the dramatic confrontation between Optimus Prime and The Fallen. Throughout the movie, The Fallen was extolled as the baddest of the bad, one of the original primes, yet Optimus dusts him in three moves. I know Optimus is a badass, but that was pushing it, even if the antiquated Jetfire did donate his parts to the cause. What a waste of Megatron and Tony Todd.
Bay introduced a lot of new characters, only to have most of them die. RC, Ravage, Rampage, The Fallen, Scorpinok, Devastator, Jetfire, and a nameless Insecticon died. With little fanfare. Why introduce such seminal characters for the sole purpose of using them as unlamented cannon fodder? RC, or Arcee, was in the film for three scenes and was given two lines. Two. Why squander her character for that? Where was Sideswipe, the Corvette introduced in the beginning, or Barricade, who survived the first film?
The humor was unnecessarily crude in spots. Did I really need to see Wheelie humping Michaela's leg? No. The language was also unexpectedly coarse. Those with young children should beware on that score.
Still, the message of good besting evil stayed true to the cartoon's ethos, and there were plenty of visual thrills. It got irksomely loud and busy at times, but it was a fun popcorn flick, and I enjoyed the two and a half hours I spent in the theater with Coke, candy, and a big bag of popcorn.
B
The Good: The robots continue to amaze me. The action sequences are frenetic and make it difficult to appreciate the fine detail work that went into creating the robots, but what we do see is remarkably human. Bumblebee and Optimus radiate kindness from their blue eyes and metal faces. Bumblebee in particular is wonderfully expressive; when he began to weep washer fluid after Sam tells him he's not taking him to college because freshmen are prohibited cars, and anyway, he just wants to be normal, I got weepy myself. Actually, this scene illustrates what a true sweetheart Bumbles is, because I would've smashed Sam flat, the obnoxious little wet fart of an ingrate. Bumbles got his legs blown off for him. The least Sam could do was tell him he loved him.
There were plenty of shoutouts to the original series. Frank Welker, the original voice of Megatron who lobbied for the role but was snubbed by Bay in favor of Hugo Weaving, voiced Soundwave and Devastator. Additionally, the film reprised Megatron's oh-so-delicious drubbing of the duplicitous Starscream from the original animated films, and Ravage, Frenzy, and Rampage made appearances, though Ravage inexplicably resembled a Cyclopean hyena instead of a puma.
Most will undoubtedly find him annoying, but I loved Sam's whiny, screaming roommate, Leo. Yes, he was a shrieking coward, but in the end, he rediscovered his chutzpah and helped in the small ways he could, and isn't that the definition of hero? Sam was heroic, I'll grant you, but his heroism was enmeshed with his survival. He fought as hard as he did because Megatron wanted to suck out his brains in order to retrieve the Cybertronian symbols therein. Self-preservation is an extreme motivator. Leo, on the other hand, could have walked away. He chose to stay. Yes, he cried and blubbered and screamed like a girl, but wouldn't you if you were being chased by Jordanian police and shot at by fifty-foot robots? I would be performing an opera in brown notes.
I also enjoyed the return of Agent Simmons, who retired in ignominy at the end of the first film. He added a wonderful humor, which was desperately needed to offset the juvenile, crass humor sprinkled throughout like herpes sores. The infiltration of the aeronautical museum was pure slapstick gold.
The Bad: It was forty minutes too long. The narrative was uneven, rushed when it should have been drawn out and belabored when it could have been condensed. Sam's sum college experience was crammed into ten minutes, while the race across the desert to resurrect Optimus took thirty minutes and looked liked Bay had recycled unused footage from Pearl Harbor. I found myself checking my watch as Sam crawled another two feet in fifteen minutes. The trek should have been abbreviated and the excess time lavished on the dramatic confrontation between Optimus Prime and The Fallen. Throughout the movie, The Fallen was extolled as the baddest of the bad, one of the original primes, yet Optimus dusts him in three moves. I know Optimus is a badass, but that was pushing it, even if the antiquated Jetfire did donate his parts to the cause. What a waste of Megatron and Tony Todd.
Bay introduced a lot of new characters, only to have most of them die. RC, Ravage, Rampage, The Fallen, Scorpinok, Devastator, Jetfire, and a nameless Insecticon died. With little fanfare. Why introduce such seminal characters for the sole purpose of using them as unlamented cannon fodder? RC, or Arcee, was in the film for three scenes and was given two lines. Two. Why squander her character for that? Where was Sideswipe, the Corvette introduced in the beginning, or Barricade, who survived the first film?
The humor was unnecessarily crude in spots. Did I really need to see Wheelie humping Michaela's leg? No. The language was also unexpectedly coarse. Those with young children should beware on that score.
Still, the message of good besting evil stayed true to the cartoon's ethos, and there were plenty of visual thrills. It got irksomely loud and busy at times, but it was a fun popcorn flick, and I enjoyed the two and a half hours I spent in the theater with Coke, candy, and a big bag of popcorn.
B
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