The Rundown
The Autobots fight against a plot that refuses to make sense. They lose.
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Review by Geoff Scaplehorn
When the first Transformers film came out, it walked a fine line between spectacular eye-candy and mindless drivel. Personally, as a child of the eighties, I loved every stupid moment of it. The plot was sheer silliness, but it looked spectacular and Shia LeBeouf managed to give a gawky element of humanity to what might have otherwise been a generic two-hour long explosion.
In his review on this site, Ben Rawles gave the first film 9 out of 10. I don’t know whether I would have scored it quite as high – straight after walking out of the cinema, yes; in retrospect, no – but it was a pure, unapologetic Hollywood popcorn flick with giant robots, which is to say the film was exactly what it should have been. It made me wish I were six years old again.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (or, really, Transformers 2) does not make me nostalgic for my youth. Remarkably, it makes me nostalgic for 2007, and the idea that maybe Michael Bay isn't as bad a director as I thought. It makes me wish Bay had just remade the first film, but with bigger special effects.
At first glance, this is exactly what Bay has done. The opening series of explosions (I hesitate to call them scenes, because that might suggest some kind of contiguous story) are brash and loud and impressive and almost entirely impossible to figure out what’s going on.
Then Bay tries to feed us a lump of plot, which is so mind-bogglingly inane that it hurts to try and digest. Somehow, all the fighting at the end of the first film between the giant robots in the huge metropolis filled with people who owned Nokia camera phones (if you’re going to use product placement…) was successfully covered by the US government, so the Autobots (led by Optimus Prime, whose optics are now firmly inserted into his drive cylinder) now work in tandem with the military to find and destroy the evil Decepticons. They do this as clandestinely as possible, using such secretive methods as making half of Tokyo explode.
Then Shia LeBeouf goes to college, and the film loses its credibility.
It’s not that LeBeouf is an unlikely college student. In fact, yet again he’s one of the best things about the film, except this time it’s because the rest of the film is so awful that he could have actually shat himself and produced a high point. No, what really ruins the film at this point is that Bay becomes convinced that he can do Comedy.
LeBeouf’s on-screen parents return in pointlessly expanded roles, leading to an over-extended non-sequitur where his mother gets high and wanders round the campus. Shia’s stoner dorm buddies turn out to be conspiracy theorists that just need that one vital bit of evidence proving the existence of the giant robots that keep blowing up cities. Megan Fox’s tits, jointly playing Shia’s girlfriend, get jealous when the Decepticons send evil tits to the college to tongue Shia to death. John Turturro nails his talent to a wall and phones in a performance so bored you could build a house out of it.
Even worse – and, again, in the name of Comedy – the Autobots have two new ghetto robots who make Jar Jar Binks look like one of the most well-written characters in cinema history.
From here, all the action in the world can’t save Transformers 2. Perhaps if the plot started making sense, and Bay lost the Comedy after the initial burst… but it doesn’t, and he doesn’t. The characters flit from fight to fight, ending up in Egypt for some clichéd claptrap about the original Decepticon or some such rubbish.
The special effects are good, although it’s difficult to see what’s going on because all the robots – particularly the Decepticons – seem to be the same colour, and all the action scenes are filmed in that annoyingly fashionable shaky-cam that people like Michael Bay seem to think is a substitute for talent.
The thing is, every time you think the film is about to get better, Bay ruins it. Shia goes to meet a great Transformer scientist, and all the geeks get excited because Jetfire’s about to appear, and then Bay makes one of the most iconic robots in history into a grumpy old man robot. It has a walking stick as part of its transformation.
And then there’s Devastator, the giant robot in the trailer and the pièce de résistance of the entire film, formed when six other robots combine in a mountain of special effects that probably cost more to create than the rest of the films released in 2009 put together. It takes forever to construct itself, and then turns out to be a six-second nob gag before being taken down by the moron twins.
It’s not like I’m asking for Citizen Kane here. Remember: I thought the first film was good.
Michael Bay’s talent is often debated amongst film fans, with people in favour regularly citing the Bad Boys films alongside the first Transformers. Transformers 2 firmly destroys this argument: it is derivative nonsense that firmly believes that a bunch of PG-13 breasts and special effects alone can make a film watchable. They can’t. Avoid.
In his review on this site, Ben Rawles gave the first film 9 out of 10. I don’t know whether I would have scored it quite as high – straight after walking out of the cinema, yes; in retrospect, no – but it was a pure, unapologetic Hollywood popcorn flick with giant robots, which is to say the film was exactly what it should have been. It made me wish I were six years old again.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (or, really, Transformers 2) does not make me nostalgic for my youth. Remarkably, it makes me nostalgic for 2007, and the idea that maybe Michael Bay isn't as bad a director as I thought. It makes me wish Bay had just remade the first film, but with bigger special effects.
At first glance, this is exactly what Bay has done. The opening series of explosions (I hesitate to call them scenes, because that might suggest some kind of contiguous story) are brash and loud and impressive and almost entirely impossible to figure out what’s going on.
Then Bay tries to feed us a lump of plot, which is so mind-bogglingly inane that it hurts to try and digest. Somehow, all the fighting at the end of the first film between the giant robots in the huge metropolis filled with people who owned Nokia camera phones (if you’re going to use product placement…) was successfully covered by the US government, so the Autobots (led by Optimus Prime, whose optics are now firmly inserted into his drive cylinder) now work in tandem with the military to find and destroy the evil Decepticons. They do this as clandestinely as possible, using such secretive methods as making half of Tokyo explode.
Then Shia LeBeouf goes to college, and the film loses its credibility.
It’s not that LeBeouf is an unlikely college student. In fact, yet again he’s one of the best things about the film, except this time it’s because the rest of the film is so awful that he could have actually shat himself and produced a high point. No, what really ruins the film at this point is that Bay becomes convinced that he can do Comedy.
LeBeouf’s on-screen parents return in pointlessly expanded roles, leading to an over-extended non-sequitur where his mother gets high and wanders round the campus. Shia’s stoner dorm buddies turn out to be conspiracy theorists that just need that one vital bit of evidence proving the existence of the giant robots that keep blowing up cities. Megan Fox’s tits, jointly playing Shia’s girlfriend, get jealous when the Decepticons send evil tits to the college to tongue Shia to death. John Turturro nails his talent to a wall and phones in a performance so bored you could build a house out of it.
Even worse – and, again, in the name of Comedy – the Autobots have two new ghetto robots who make Jar Jar Binks look like one of the most well-written characters in cinema history.
From here, all the action in the world can’t save Transformers 2. Perhaps if the plot started making sense, and Bay lost the Comedy after the initial burst… but it doesn’t, and he doesn’t. The characters flit from fight to fight, ending up in Egypt for some clichéd claptrap about the original Decepticon or some such rubbish.
The special effects are good, although it’s difficult to see what’s going on because all the robots – particularly the Decepticons – seem to be the same colour, and all the action scenes are filmed in that annoyingly fashionable shaky-cam that people like Michael Bay seem to think is a substitute for talent.
The thing is, every time you think the film is about to get better, Bay ruins it. Shia goes to meet a great Transformer scientist, and all the geeks get excited because Jetfire’s about to appear, and then Bay makes one of the most iconic robots in history into a grumpy old man robot. It has a walking stick as part of its transformation.
And then there’s Devastator, the giant robot in the trailer and the pièce de résistance of the entire film, formed when six other robots combine in a mountain of special effects that probably cost more to create than the rest of the films released in 2009 put together. It takes forever to construct itself, and then turns out to be a six-second nob gag before being taken down by the moron twins.
It’s not like I’m asking for Citizen Kane here. Remember: I thought the first film was good.
Michael Bay’s talent is often debated amongst film fans, with people in favour regularly citing the Bad Boys films alongside the first Transformers. Transformers 2 firmly destroys this argument: it is derivative nonsense that firmly believes that a bunch of PG-13 breasts and special effects alone can make a film watchable. They can’t. Avoid.
People
Directed By
Michael Bay
Written By
Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman
Produced By
Kenny Bates, Michael Bay, Ian Bryce, Allegra Clegg, Matthew Cohan, Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Brian Goldner, Don Murphy, Steven Spielberg, Mark Vahradian
Starring
Shia LaBeouf,
Megan Fox,
Josh Duhamel,
Tyrese Gibson,
John Turturro,
Ramon Rodriguez,
Kevin Dunn,
Julie White,
Isabel Lucas,
John Benjamin Hickey,