Transformers Revenge Of The Fallen
The last Transformers film was an entertaining action summer popcorn flick with a simple storyline and full to the brim with non stop action to blow you out your seats. It was fun and certainly worth a sequel, does Revenge of The Fallen live up to the first?
The same cast of characters are in this with a few new inclusions which really don’t go noticed as they feel shoe horned in for a fresh feel. I can’t even remember any of the names which is quite embarrassing but they are only used a few times so you just have to go by face, this goes for the original cast to, one guy plays an excellent role but I think his name is said twice in the whole thing, he’s the butcher in this, you’ll know what I mean (Seymour Simmons played by John Turturro actually, I checked wikipedia), he’s great. Strangely the main characters mum gets loads of screen time, I just wanted her to shut up, she isn’t entertaining, but maybe she’ll remind you of how embarrassing mums can be?
There is a new female character that could have been put to better use and the new robots are unmemorable. Apart from the two twins who are irritating and you will wish they weren’t in, both speak in stereotypical gangster talk bickering and talking of popping caps in asses, they should have been scrapped, though the kids laughed so who knows, he just annoyed me. Existing characters also get the shunt with Bumble Bee just being there for the fights and none of the old ones bar Optimus Prime getting much time.
The storyline this time involves the evil transformers hunting for the existing pieces of the cube to try to find something obviously no good for mankind. It is incredibly simple and even feels like a video game storyline at times in the way that they are all basically on a scavenger hunts for pieces of power. It isn’t a very good story but it is an excuse for the robots to be kicking the crap out of each other so it’s all good. Some of the comedy is a bit rubbish and there is a cringe ‘say you love me’ side story going on which you really wish wouldn’t be there, but hey it’s Megan Fox (she plays Mikaela Banes) its ok. She seems even more beautiful in this film and I have to say I couldn’t keep my eyes off her whenever she was on-screen; she steals the robots spotlight for me, lovely stuff!
The main character didn’t leave much of an impression on me this time; Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) was a funny geek in the last one holding on for responsibility. In this one he’s a bit of an ass, he improved towards the end but he needed a better script for the earlier segments, his twitching moments when he writes random stuff down is hilarious as is his attempts to ward of the rival woman. Not in a good way either. To think he is Mikaela Bane’s boyfriend, they are only going out because he saved the worlds’ ass in the last film, blates.
Best character in the film obviously!
The action is where it’s at anyway and it’s good in Revenge of The Fallen. The robots are bigger and more varied and it is chock full of them. Hundreds of explosions, robots throwing each other all over the place and blowing stuff up, it’s great and really exciting. Sometimes you can’t make out what is actually going on but the chaos I feel add to the tension. The destruction of the robots is pretty vicious in this film; it would easy be an 18 if they did this to real people, with spines and eyes being pulled out. The music goes with it all but I really wish they’d pull something special out for the final final fight, it was pretty damn cool and deserved damn cool music to go with it. I suggested Stan Bush’s song ‘The Touch’ for it, would have been so amazing.
Though if you take the film as the whole with the poor storyline, bad new characters (actually the room-mate guy. Leo Sptiz is pretty awesome and is the only character who delivers genuine laughs though his role is unimportant to the film as a whole), action, Megan Fox and pace it is a bit all over the place. It goes on for far too long, they could have cut some of the army tactics bits and maybe even one of the cube shard pieces as they really didn’t serve much purpose other than to make it longer. I was feeling quite fidgety before calming down for the excellent finale and a film shouldn’t do that.
As a film to see over the summer I don’t think you can do much wrong with this however, it is a summer popcorn film like the last and it has enough good bits to keep you sitting through it. Certainly not a masterpiece but I don’t think they were ever aiming for it to be. Less bad comedy and more plot next time!
