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I wish "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" could change itself into a good movie, instead it ends up being one of the worst sequels I've ever seen.
The heroic Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, are eradicating the remaining evil Decepticons, who are still searching for traces of the Allspark, which has enough power to turn household items into robots. Meanwhile, the Autobots' ally Sam (Shia LaBeouf, "Eagle Eye") is preparing for college and a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox, aka the only reason to sit through this movie) and away from his Autobot friend Bumblebee. But Sam still has a piece of the Allspark and the Decepticons plan to use it to get their revenge once and for all.
I'm still trying to figure out if screenwriters Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Ehren Kruger really did put together a script this juvenile and outright stupid or if they farmed it out to a couple of bored high-school kids looking to make a quick buck. At the very least, the teenagers would have an excuse for a script written so poorly and cribbing a number of better ideas from "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings."
For a movie based on an action figure line, a lot of the script is wildly inappropriate for younger viewers with varying jaw dropping references to body parts and, at other times, needless vulgar language. I'm also not sure how offended I should be about the street-slang talking Autobots, one of whom has a gold tooth.
Director Michael Bay has a childlike sense of filmmaking. A child severely affected with ADD. I can almost picture him on set: "This scene needs something … oooh, I know! More explosions! One here, two there and 20 there! It'll be legendary!"
But by the film's climatic battle, if you've seen one gigantic explosion with robot debris falling everywhere, you've seen them all. With a run time of two and a half hours, that's a lot of redundant explosions.
At least this time you can tell who's fighting whom — for the most part.
The visual design of the robots, specifically the Decepticons, lack any real sense of creativity and are derivative of the Terminator robots with a bit more plating to provide an animalistic Alien vs. Predator look.
Either way, it's pretty hard to care about nameless robots getting shot up, especially when the writers decide the names would just confuse you anyway.
LaBeouf tries his able best, bless him, to be the hero this film needs in more ways than what's written in the script. But there's only so much he can do here.
I still contend that the specially-trained squad of soldiers led by Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson are far more interesting, have better character dynamics than the Transformers and would make for a better summer action movie. Heck, they'd probably make for a better "G.I. Joe" movie than the one we're getting in August, which now might not be the worst movie of the year thanks to "Transformers."
Bay has said that he does not want to helm another Transformers sequel —thankfully — as it's a grueling experience. The amount of work he put into the project is obvious and it clearly must have been taxing and grueling to make because that's exactly how it feels to sit through it.
PG-13, Action,
150 minutes
Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, Peter Cullen, Frank Welker, Charles Adler, Hugo Weaving, Ramon Rodriguez, Glenn Morshower, Tom Kenny and Isabel Lucas
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
