transformers 2: revenge of the fallen review…

what does it say about a film when you leave the theater feeling guilty that you liked it?

i could say t2:rotf was stupid and leave it at that. there are plenty of other reviewers with more refined writing skills that would probably sum up the movie the exact same way.

michael bay is a household name. it’s synonymous with big budget films dedicated to the proposition that one man can make a loud popcorn flick with shallow character motivations, lots of explosions and slow motion shots of people walking slowly to the camera. bay can make someone’s trip to a colonoscopy look urgent, glorious, and attractive. it’s what bay is paid to do — produce blockbuster films to bring in blockbuster money. even his harshest critic will admit he has a verified talent in terms of creating iconic shots and a sense (although artificial and forced) of urgency that caters to a general audience wanting an escape.

bay is the ford mustang of movie directors. his movies are pretty, action packed, implausible and good at going forward fast in a straight line.

too bad most roads curve.

t2: rotf opens with a simple basis — transformers and humans have met before. in fact, transformers have been our inspiration for the pyramids, airplanes and automobiles. now, it makes sense that the autobots would come to earth and pose as general motors vehicles. they created general motors. it’s the sort of thing you’d expect from a michael bay movie — imagine plot holes as barrels of radioactive waste. dump enough dirt on top, and the problem disappears — no harm, no foul, right?

optimus and his band of robots have joined with the american forces — that’s right, they’re working for us — to eliminate decepticon threats around the globe with seek and destroy missions. makes sense, relatively speaking, so far. meanwhile, sam witwicky (shia lebeouf) hopes to live a normal life by going to college. that would be easy if sam didn’t have an autobot in his garage and megan fox for a girlfriend. fox played a strong female role in the first film only to return in the sequel to serve as eye candy. her first moment of screentime shows her leaning seductively on a motorcycle painting a she-devil onto its chassis.

rawr.

fox’s character, mikaela, has her own plans for her future — working in her ex-convict father’s motorcycle shop. while the autobots try to uncover the secret behind a cryptic message concerning the fallen, sam and mikaela worry about how they’ll maintain a long-distance relationship.

if it were possible to handle these separate plot lines in parallel fashion with no mixing involved, bay might have no problem — but muscle-car bay weaves his storylines with the dexterity of a speeding vehicle taking hairpin turns with all of the tires blown out on the right side. sam becomes infused/possessed with cybertronian symbols when he comes into contact with a piece of all-spark. his parents try to get over their only son leaving the nest with a vacation in paris. mikaela captures a decepticon. sam disproves einstein’s theory of relativity to be false in his astronomy class taught by the actor who plays dwight in the office (rainn wilson). the decepticons steal another piece of all-spark protected by the government and resurrect megatron. mikaela finds sam kissing another girl in his dorm room. bumblebee still has no voice. sam’s parents get kidnapped. the fallen wants to harvest the energy of the sun and tells the world to give him sam.

these aren’t really twists and turns as much as it’s just michael bay the mustang plowing through corners heading to the finish line in the straightest line possible road, warnings be damned. each new event throws a little dirt into a plot hole or ignores it completely. when the heroes, accompanied by two transformers mudflap and skids (more on these offensive ones later), venture to the smithsonian looking for one of the oldest transformers, they meet jetfire, a decepticon in the form of an sr-71.

he’s modeled after the fastest jet on earth, but get this, he’s so old, he needs a cane to walk. he also has a british accent. and a beard. and he can teleport. so he does. cos it’s faster. to egypt.

once soundwave, who’s spent the entire movie attached to a satellite, notifies the decepticons, autobots and villains alike beeline it to africa for a showdown inferior to most of the action scenes in the first movie. there’s no sense of attachment to the autobots because the movie goes down the x-men route giving bit parts to every transformer except optimus who, unfortunately, spends most of the movie in traction. when he is onscreen, optimus has the monopoly on coolness — he’s the wolverine of this movie. when he’s not around, the rest of the autobots, ironhide, ratchet and sideswipe (his introduction was amazing) play soldier shooting at decepticons and getting shot at along with the human soldiers.

the other characters serve no real purpose except to make the audience laugh or cringe. john turturro returns in this movie, though his role is a bit more serious and furthers the plot…somehow. in addition to bumblebee, sam’s three new sidekicks — leo spitz (ramon rodriguez) and the twins (the aforementioned autobots mudflap and skids who, in a few words, can be construed as an offensive stereotype ala most of the characters in the star wars prequels) act as a trio of comic relief that fails. there’s just too much comic relief in this movie. interspersing action with bits of well-times comedy is entertaining — but bay overdoes it like an obnoxious class clown that just won’t quit.

regarding the issue involving the twins(link), reviewers have called them worse than jar jar binks, and not just because they’re annoying. both have monkey shaped heads, one has a gold tooth, and neither of them can read (they admit they’re illiterate). i wonder why this didn’t raise enough of a red alarm that it should have been cut or at least toned down. in the first movie, jazz’s first words are, “what’s up, little b–ches?” and his transformation sequence uses a distinct break dance move called the windmill. you can’t call an alien robot african-american, but why does he act and talk like the token black character. is it any coincidence that jazz is the only autobot that dies(link)? and if the twins aren’t enough to bother the racially sensitive — the butcher working for ex-sector 7 reggie simmons (turturro) is the cherry on top.

stupid is the word to describe transformers 2. i write this with some hesitation since i’m a wannabe film student who will probably never get half the budget bay does to make one of his movies. he is obviously talented, and what he does well, he is perhaps the best at it. all the blame for the flaws of this movie can’t be placed squarely on his shoulders — the writers share some of that burden. but bay is at the helm, and what he allows and rejects end up shaping the final product. it’s his name on the director’s chair and he gets the first credit at the end of the movie. if he does come back for a third helping, here’s to hoping he shows a little restraint on the gas pedal and a keen eye on his rearview mirror.

2.5/5