Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

There’s an inherent dichotomy about this movie that is noticeable from the title itself. Take a look at it. It’s not Transformers 2. No. It’s the more grandiose Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. Heaven forbid that this film present itself as merely a sequel to a special-effects blockbuster based on toys that were huge in the 80s. No, Transformers attempts to take itself seriously, which is fine in principle, except at the same time it also wants to be the knockabout, special-effects blockbuster based on toys that were huge in the 80s.

Autobots and Decepticons can be two things at once, but this movie can’t, and it’s on this fundamental issue does the whole thing capsize itself.

If you’ve seen the first Transformers movie then you’ll know exactly what to expect. Personally I thought that film worked well up to a point – such as Shia Lebeouf’s amusing performance as he struggled to get the girl whilst grappling with how his car had a mind of its own, and the initial introductions and skirmishes between Autobots and Decepticons. Then I felt Transformers became over-populated with unnecessary and fatuous characters, and the action simply became a tiresome exercise in amazing effects evoking little emotional or dramatic thrust.

This sequel applies the ‘bigger and better’ rule of sequels, and that includes the problems that were in the first. Given the Transformers had already been introduced the film should have been able to proceed with little in the way of exposition. Instead Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen starts thousands of years B.C. to kickstart the most convoluted plot about a war between Autobots and Decepticons that has been fought and left dormant. On Earth. Throw in a bigger, badder guy than the chief villain – Megatron – of the first film, and some stuff about ‘Primes’ and a missing key and a cryptic treasure hunt that plays like a ditched idea from The Da Vinci Code and you have an overlong and frustratingly pointless excuse for big robots to throwdown against each other.

I mean, look: Transformers is a movie about big robots slamming seven bells out of each other with a bunch of human characters thrown into the mix to serve as an emotional anchor for the audience. From such a simple premise to such an overwrought experience defies logic. A film like this doesn’t need a major plot, it just needs a reason to have action spectacle. In attempting (and failing) to be epic Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen bloats the running time and drains the battery life out of the audience.

There’s no question the effects are amazing. I didn’t notice a particularly impressive leap from the previous film, but then the previous film’s effects were genuinely awesome. Here it’s just more of the same done with slightly more detail, given more screen-time and, you know, bigger. But save for an opening search and destroy in Shanghai opening sequence, and an Optimus Prime versus multiple-Decepticons rumble (which brings to mind King Kong versus T-Rexes in Peter Jackson’s King Kong; a comparison that Transformers can’t compete against) the action and effects fill the screen with light and noise and still bore. (And director Michael Bay’s habit of overusing slow-motion doesn’t help at all.)

The innocent exuberance of Shia Lebeouf’s Sam Witwicky from the first film isn’t as fresh second time around, though there’s no doubting that Megan Fox, as his girlfriend Michaela, running around in a vest top is an effect more special than any intricate rapid robot transformation. (Here, for sure, Bay’s fondness for slow-motion works just fine!)

As with the previous film, an assorted ragtag of characters pad out the cast to such an extent that John Turturro’s returning Agent Simmons, who was annoying in the first film, is one of the more enjoyable turns here – highlighting just how tedious the rest are.

I think I’m over ‘Bayhem’ – unless his next movie gets some hot buzz and killer reviews his brand of style-over-substance, more-money-than-sense filmmaking belongs back in the 80s with those Hasbro toys that started this whole mess in the first place. If you really, really liked the first Transformers then there’s every chance you’ll enjoy this second outing. I didn’t particularly love the first film but, for me, this second instalment is far less entertaining. It’s a basic premise that should have produced an effectively streamlined blockbuster to bust all blocks this summer; instead it’s a bad film in the disguise of a family-friendly blast of good cinema.