Once More With Feeling (Or Lack Of) – A Brief Review of Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen

Published on June 24th, 2009

Well, if you don’t want to be spoiled about the movie, I would recommend not reading this review:

The movie involves finding a machine buried in Egypt that can suck all the power from the Sun to provide energy to the Transformers. The machine was setup on Earth 17,000 years ago by the Fallen, a Transformer that defied the rule not to harvest energy from star systems that contain life. This Fallen is responsible for leading the current civil war between Autobots and Decepticons and can only be killed by a Prime, in this case Optimus Prime.

In a way this movie feels more Sci-Fi than the first one, but has a lot less soul. The movie is also a lot more brutal in the fights among the giant robots. And by brutal I mean faces getting ripped apart, torsos being penetrated by arms and robots being pulled apart. Quite gruesome to write about and quite numbing to see on the screen, especially when you think that none of the violence seen on the screen is real.

There’s a lot of military hardware on the screen, shot beautifully. The humour in the movie is passable, but crude. Characters such as Captain Lennox get no development, at least in the first movie he was portrayed as a family man, here he’s just a man in uniform shouting orders.

For a movie with so little soul, there’s some attempt at mysticism in the story, with one of the characters dying and going to robot heaven (yes, I find it ridiculous just writing about it).

I just hope that by the next movie we don’t find Optimus Prime angry about being dragged out of robot heaven by his friends, eventually falling in love with one of his enemies in a scene with robots bursting into song for no reason.

If you have kids, they will love this movie, for the rest, if you didn’t like the first one, don’t bother going to see this. Leave your brain at the door or it will be too long and too dumb for you.

Some useful links regarding this movie:

Use this website to know when you can go to the toilet and not miss much:
Runpee.com

Website featured in the movie that’s run by one of the characters in the film:
The Real Effing Deal

Robot-Warrior’s website:
Giant Effing Robots

21 users responded in " Once More With Feeling (Or Lack Of) – A Brief Review of Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen "

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# 1 Marc said, on June 24th, 2009 at 6:07 am

I thought only some teens watch crappy movies, no?

# 2 Improbus said, on June 24th, 2009 at 6:15 am

So, let me see if I have this right. Go stoned?

# 3 The Warden said, on June 24th, 2009 at 6:16 am

IT’s a Michael “cokehead” Bay movie for christ sakes. It’s like one long commercial with no substance and all action. And that’s what Bay does so well. Bay isn’t out to win an Oscar. His only problem is he over does it with the FX and scrimps on the story. Maybe people will one day get tired of how he does movies but the movie going audience enjoy mind numb movies. This will be a big hit.

# 4 jccalhoun said, on June 24th, 2009 at 6:21 am

With sequels to action movies all I need to know is if it is better or worse than the first one. Then I’ll make up my mind based on my opinion on the first one. I don’t go to action movies for things like plot or character development. I go to see things blow up.

# 5 MrMiGu said, on June 24th, 2009 at 6:24 am

#2
Im not wasting the money or the drugs watching this movie

# 6 wbskeet37 said, on June 24th, 2009 at 6:34 am

I liked Ebert’s review better.
http://bit.ly/rkDKz
I don’t think he liked it. “If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together.”

# 7 Bob West said, on June 24th, 2009 at 7:07 am

Is it me or are the FX looking more and more fake. Nothing seems to move with weight, they try to make up for it with louder sound.
It still looks like a computer generated image. everything stays in focus and moves to fast.

# 8 GigG said, on June 24th, 2009 at 7:33 am

Movie reviews? Really?

# 9 Nth of the 49th said, on June 24th, 2009 at 7:35 am

Thanks for the video clip, no need to see the movie now.
I can only assume the marketers in Hollywood think everyone one else is as mentally challenged as they are and can’t remember what they watched previously. Personally I’m tired of seeing pretty well the entire plot and best action scenes in the trailers. It’s one of the main reasons I no longer go to movies, no point in it once you’ve seen the trailers nowadays.

# 10 BubbaRay said, on June 24th, 2009 at 7:43 am

Were I a 12 year old kid, I’d be all over it. Now, not.

# 11 Benjamin said, on June 24th, 2009 at 8:14 am

The last movie was all GM product placement. Is this movie going to be something else since GM is defunct. I didn’t read the review because it had spoiler warnings.

# 12 GregA said, on June 24th, 2009 at 8:17 am

I think the robots have too much detail and are overly animated and it makes them hard to look at.

# 13 chuck said, on June 24th, 2009 at 8:34 am

The real question:

Is the plot of the new Transformers movie any worse than the plot of the new Star Trek movie?

I liked Star Trek right up to the point where Spock (old version) explained that a single super nova was going to destroy the galaxy.

# 14 MikeN said, on June 24th, 2009 at 9:03 am

Wow, a Buffy reference.

Is it true they identify the President as Obama?

# 15 Luc said, on June 24th, 2009 at 9:18 am

Meh. I get my movie reviews from Rod Hilton. Much better.

http://the-editing-room.com

# 16 brian t said, on June 24th, 2009 at 9:21 am

There’s an even better review (short video) by Mark Kermode of the BBC: http://bit.ly/xy5ae

# 17 The0ne said, on June 24th, 2009 at 10:03 am

Saw it last night with the nephews. They liked it because of the action. I actually love the transformers and while the action is nice the “soul” and story is disappointing. And while it’s nice that all autobots are GM vehicles it defeats the purpose of the unique characters of other autobots. There was a Audio but it was quickly destroyed.

The movie is really weak in many areas.

1. Robot heaven was a bit of a stretch but the cartoon does have it

2. no Autobots died but plenty of Decepticons died horribly

3. Optimus is suddenly a martial art master taking on multiple enemies

4. You become Prime when the Matrix is passed to you, based on cartoon. It is the only way the Autobot leader can stand against the Decepticon leader.

Well, I could go on and on but really this movie is more about “action” than any thing else. Best to leave your brain at home

# 18 ECD said, on June 24th, 2009 at 10:14 am

#16, Very good find. I love it! Best movie review ever.

# 19 KneeJerk Optimist said, on June 24th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

Oh god…yet ANOTHER alien??…snooorre

The time is surely ripe for a “This Is Spinal Tap” style parody of all these aliens-come-and-take-over-the-world movies.

# 20 Angel H. Wong said, on June 24th, 2009 at 6:30 pm

Did anybody noticed Devastator’s roboscrotum and the decepticon with a gun for a crotch?

# 21 Carcarius said, on June 24th, 2009 at 10:42 pm

Optimus Prime dies?

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