The fact that I fell asleep halfway through the first installment did not bode well for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but perhaps if I’d seen it through to the end I would have been better prepared for the astoundingly poor 147 minutes of my life wasted on it.
The narrative was so utterly ridiculous that it’s hardly worth trying to explain the plot; but I might stray into spoiler territory on the journey through the film’s varying levels of fail: so if you’re at all bothered about what happens to Shia, Megan and their autobot friends then look away now.
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the good stuff: the transformers do look pretty cool and everything from a Dyson vacuum cleaner to heavy duty mining equipment gets its turn. That satisfying clunk of metal parts sliding into place doesn’t get old, and nor does the magical way that the animators make something so big come from something so small.
Yes, the animation is definitely impressive.
What a shame the same can’t be said of the plot. Like a kid hopped up on additives and e-numbers, it skits from idea to idea without any attempts at coherence. Director Michael Bay references his contemporaries left right and centre: not in slick Tarantino style but a clumsy cacophony of plagiarism.
Seen those big scary mining-equipment Decepticons before? Try Disney’s Hercules. What about those little cute ones at the beginning? Gremlins. Given the Emperor/Fallen’s relationship with Vader/Megatron, I was surprised to discover that Megatron wasn’t Sam (Luke Skywalker)’s father. I could go on (the going away to college skit – every teen movie ever), but I think you get the idea.
And what about the Fox-factor?
Well, it says a lot that someone with such a bit-part is basically the face of the film. Even Sam doesn’t seem to care about Megan Fox’s Mikaela all that much, and she spends the entire film tottering around after him trying to illicit a declaration of love, poor lamb.
Speaking of pointless characters, let’s address those soldiers. They stand around here, they stand around there, hold a couple of video calls and occasionally fight (pointlessly) against the Decepticons. They are utterly redundant – but for the fact that one of them is the rather attractive Josh Duhamel, and the other is the token black character, who comes out with token lines worthy of Not Another Teen Movie (another homage, perhaps).
Oh dear me, much like this review, Transformers:ROTF goes on forever. The vague attempts at comedy and emotion do nothing to temper the tireless sequences of transformers smashing up buildings, people and each other. It’s loud. It’s long. It’s a film for little boys who like playing with toys – and guess what? You can collect the whole set.
What’s really frustrating is that it could have been so much better. Transformers was prime fodder for creating a brilliant Hollywood blockbuster, but so much went into creating the convincing robotics and paying the Blowing Stuff Up department that perhaps there was no money or will leftover to write a decent script or develop characters instead of caricatures.
They opted for infodumps and boring, hackneyed what’s-his-names. And have you noticed that I haven’t even mentioned Optimus Prime? Speaks volumes.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is out today.
Image via reelmovienews.com