Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Bay, 2009) — The Reviews Thread

[outcastja]

People here keep mentioning the awesome action. Besides the opening, the forest battle, Bumblebee and Optimus fights in the dessert, what other action scenes did everybody else enjoy? Cause those were only scenes I liked in the whole movie.

[Solid Snake PAC]

I think at least for me it's only the Autobots vs. Decepticons brawls that count..cuz...honestly...that's what I mostly remember.

[2SwiFt29]

Transformers 2 doesn't care about all the negative reviews its getting.. it's showing that people will still watch it no matter how the critics bashed this movie and because of people watching it and making tons of money in the box office, they will keep going with the Transformers series..

[Mopower]

Originally Posted by 2SwiFt29

Transformers 2 doesn't care about all the negative reviews its getting.. it's showing that people will still watch it no matter how the critics bashed this movie and because of people watching it and making tons of money in the box office, they will keep going with the Transformers series..

Of course they will. Why not? How do you think drivel like The Pink Panther 2 and anything with Kate Hudson in it get made?

[Matthew Chmiel]

I will argue to state that this sequel was better than the first one. However, that's the equivalent of stating that cancer is better to get than AIDS.

Saw it in IMAX this morning and it was a pretty piss poor way to start my vacation.

The Pros:

- The story is much more simplistic than the first film. Less subplots and less human characters in a movie about gigantic robots is a goddamn win in my book.

- Anthony Anderson and Jon Voight don't show up.

- The IMAX footage is gorgeous, but doesn't hold up to what Nolan was able to perfect with The Dark Knight.

- The action scenes are more entertaining.

The Cons:

- The film is two and a half hours meaning it's an hour too long.

- There was too much story filler that stopped the film dead in it's place.

- There was way too much humor and scenes devoted to comedy that stopped the film dead in it's place and makes everyone in the audience stupider for having to be witness to it.

- The action becomes boring, especially during the near 45-minute long climax. Don't get me wrong, I love it when Bay blows shit up; but half way into the climax, everything gets tedious.

- Ramón Rodríguez is the acting equivalent of cancer and AIDS combined.

- The progression that African Americans have set in this country was just shot back fifty years.

- I actually felt sorry for Josh Duhamel and Tyrese.

It's still a terrible film, but at least I could stay awake during it which I couldn't state the same for the first.

[RocShemp]

Originally Posted by Matthew Chmiel

I will argue to state that this sequel was better than the first one. However, that's the equivalent of stating that cancer is better to get than AIDS.

[thematahara]

Yeah, the movie does suck, but I can only blame myself. I paid to go see it, and lord knows I'll end up buying it on Blu-ray for the A/V experience.

Oh well, it still wasnt as bad as Indy and the Crystal Shit.

[Giantrobo]

Originally Posted by Blu Man

I didn't think Star Trek was much better. Look, there are, as you know, many different kinds of movies. There's action, drama, comedy, thriller, horror, comic book, toy, animation and countless other genres and categories for films. Movies like The Green Mile, Memento, Se7en, Schindlers List, The Shawshank Redemption, etc, are all story driven films. But then there's Transformers, Jurassic Park, X-Men, etc, that are effects driven films.

Both of them have the potential to be good. The reason the public loves Transformers is because they want to go to the movies and see stuff blow up, see larger then life robots duke it out, see Megan Fox wearing slutty outfits. They want that experience. But when people go to see The Green Mile or Schindlers List they want to see the incredible acting, the strong story, the teary moments and every thing that goes with that experience.

Two different experiences for two different moods and attitudes. Who say's a movie has to have a strong story driven by strong performances? Why can't a movie mindlessly entertain you with it's special effects? Both are good, both have there place and there purpose, but to think that you or your friends are better then Michael Bay is just preposterous. Say what you will, his movies bring stuff to the screen that you will probably never see in real life and he's making more money then you and most people could ever dream about.

I prefer the story driven films over the CGI monsters. But some day's I don't want to think about the story, I just want to be entertained.

Yep.

What I love is how liking this movie gets you a nice insult from the Haters.

[RD1973]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake PAC

You gave a fuck about Anakin Skywalker? I thought he was horrible as a character. I will admit...the new trilogy are better films than TF2, please don't call it T2..that spot is already taken by THE T2. There's a huge ass BUT though..TF2 was more entertaining than the SW prequels. I like TF2, it was a lot of fun. YES...it had a lot of shitty stuff in there..but..when I went in..I went in asking for more Transformers badassness..and I got that...sadly I got bad shit in there too.

Yes, I did care about Anakin. The actor wasn't the best, but the character has quite an arc from Episode I to Episode III. Does any character even have an arc in The Transformers movies?

Also, TF2 was not more fun. It was a long, tedious slog without a single mind-blowing moment. When I think back on the movie (which I saw yesterday), I basically just remember alot of random shit happening. Nothing interesting stands out. It is a colossal waste of money and everyone involved should be ashamed. TF2 is what Ed Wood would make with $200 million (I need more shots of the military!).

It is, hands down, the worst would-be summer blockbuster ever. Just thinking about it raises my blood pressure dangerously high.

[Solid Snake PAC]

A colossal waste of money that made it's money back so far and will continue to do so once it hits DVD. Maybe I'm wrong...but....I think most people aren't willing to seperate their critical views from their actual sense of entertainment. I see that TF2 is a horrid film..but I had fun. I like Transformers, love the whole transforming robots etc...it's my fav thing as a kid. Yeah, the adaptation of them isn't all that great but I wanted to see my fave character, Optimus Prime, kick ass and he did...

[dan30oly]

Wow. Do we have to have a suicide-watch for people who hated TF2 now???

[Blu Man]

Originally Posted by Giantrobo

Yep.

What I love is how liking this movie gets you a nice insult from the Haters.

It was a good effects movie, nothing more, nothing less. You have to give the guy's at ILM props for what they did with this film.

[Matthew Chmiel]

Originally Posted by Blu Man

It was a good effects movie, nothing more, nothing less. You have to give the guy's at ILM props for what they did with this film.

The effects, with the exception of the IMAX footage, was not that good. At least Nolan and company rendered ALL of their effects to 8k for IMAX. What it looked like here is that Bay and crew only rendered the IMAX footage to a higher quality (probably 8k) whereas the rest of the footage was most likely rendered in 4k (like most big budgeted flicks).

[Suprmallet]

Also, I would say that given how many more Transformers ILM had to animate, no single individual transformer looks as good as they did in the first one.

[RocShemp]

Originally Posted by Suprmallet

Also, I would say that given how many more Transformers ILM had to animate, no single individual transformer looks as good as they did in the first one.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that. Transformers at most had 4 or 5 unconvincing shots. Here everything felt rushed. I can understand the desert battle taking the hardest hit but even solo shots of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee looked unfinished.

[RD1973]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake PAC

A colossal waste of money that made it's money back so far and will continue to do so once it hits DVD. Maybe I'm wrong...but....I think most people aren't willing to seperate their critical views from their actual sense of entertainment. I see that TF2 is a horrid film..but I had fun. I like Transformers, love the whole transforming robots etc...it's my fav thing as a kid. Yeah, the adaptation of them isn't all that great but I wanted to see my fave character, Optimus Prime, kick ass and he did...

Yes, I know the movie already made all its money back. But with the amount of money spent, you'd think it could have been at least a little better.

And I loved Transformers as a kid, too. I still have the Jetfire, Soundwave and Ravage figures somewhere.

Optimus, and a few others were pretty cool. The problem is the mountains of stupid shit in the movie. The glasses-wearing robots, the leg-humping robots, the...ah screw it.

[RD1973]

Originally Posted by dan30oly

Wow. Do we have to have a suicide-watch for people who hated TF2 now???

The thought did cross my mind about 2 hours into the movie.

[Mopower]

Originally Posted by dan30oly

Wow. Do we have to have a suicide-watch for people who hated TF2 now???

More like a murder watch for people that dismiss any negatives because it's a movie about "shit blowing up".

[RocShemp]

I don't want to hurt anyone who liked this movie. I just want to torture Michael Bay, his yes-men, and the writers of this garbage movie.

I'm hoping the eventual third movie turns all this around (unlikely with the already boneheaded decision of expanding the role of the pointless roommate in the next movie) and I can pretend TF:ROTF never happened, much like I do with M:i-2. I always pretend the third "I" in M:i-III is a typo. I'll simply pretend that the events of TF:ROTF happened in a tie-in comic book I never bothered reading.

[emachine12]

Michael Bay has a serious problem.

He just can not make sequels. Period. Bad Boys II was his first sequel and that did not have an engaging story either. In fact, the movie's main story got shoved out of the way in the third act so Bay could do his "let's blow shit up with lots of collateral damage" trademark. It was at the end of the Bad Boys II that some semblance (very little, actually) of the original plot was wrapped up.

He pretty much did the same thing with Transformers 2. By the end of the movie, the main plot was completely ignored in favor of "blowin' shit up with lots of collateral damage." On top of that, they manage to make Sam look like a hapless dumbass that should not be the saviour of the world. To write in his hand injury, he is the ONLY one in the group to cut up his hand on impact.

My other problem was the absolute loss of family friendliness. Sure Transformers did not have it either but TF2 is so much worse.

- The graphic death of tribal men by the first visitors.
- The appiiance robots popping a missle hard on.
- The multiple deaths in Shanghai.
- The two dogs humping TWICE.
- The pot brownies.
- The thong.
- The "out of toilet paper" scene.
- Wheelie humping Mikaela's leg
- Mikaela landing face first on the roommate's crotch.
- The multiple dead bodies upon The Fallen's crash through the aircraft carrier
- And of course, the wrecking "balls."

I'm all for this kind of stuff in a movie that it SHOULD be in. The juvenille humor seems like stuff in a National Lampoon or Harold & Kumar movie. The violence could have been toned town severely or saved for another Michael Bay explosion orgy.

[Suprmallet]

Originally Posted by RocShemp

I don't want to hurt anyone who liked this movie. I just want to torture Michael Bay, his yes-men, and the writers of this garbage movie.

I'm going to give them a pass because it's clear they were spending their time working hard on Star Trek, and this was just them cashing a paycheck.

[RocShemp]

The violence was fine given there would undoubtedly be collateral damage when giant robots fight in populated areas. The final action sequence of the first had plenty of collateral damage too.

I'm not opposed to the pot brownies per sé. I just think that joke was misshandled (I'm cool with her accidentally eating pot brownies but not with her not knowing what they are) and then went on for too long. It was like watching a mildly amusing SNL sketch that went on for far too long.

I never noticed the bonerbot and would probably give it a free pass cos it already happened in part one so that's par for the course. In case no one remembers, the Nokiabot (whome I like to think of as Rumble) popped a gatling gun boner before Simmons fried him in that containment cube in part one. Of course, it would have been preferable had that scene not been repeated in the sequel.

I agree with all this, however:

Originally Posted by emachine12

- The two dogs humping TWICE.
- The thong.
- The "out of toilet paper" scene.
- Wheelie humping Mikaela's leg
- Mikaela landing face first on the roommate's crotch.
- And of course, the wrecking "balls."

[nightwing82]

I enjoyed the film as it entertained me. That is all I ask from a movie.

People complaining about juvenille humor need to remember that this series is based on a 1980s cartoon whose main purpose was to take 22 minutes of your day to advertise toy robots to children. I don't see why every property needs to become overly serious like Batman has.

[pinata242]

I think they nailed the advertisement aspect.

I, however, don't remember Prime and Megatron having a distance contest on pissing when I watched the show after school.

[Mopower]

Originally Posted by nightwing82

I enjoyed the film as it entertained me. That is all I ask from a movie.

People complaining about juvenille humor need to remember that this series is based on a 1980s cartoon whose main purpose was to take 22 minutes of your day to advertise toy robots to children. I don't see why every property needs to become overly serious like Batman has.

The cartoon didn't have any insulting, crude, racist, or vulgar humor.