Welcome back to “Is It Really That Bad?”

This next film is a little complicated to explain. I am torn. To give you a little history, I am too young and I missed out on the Transformers phase. My brother, however, is old enough and was crazy about the Transformers. I say that because after watching the original Transformers, I was amazed. I thought it was quite good. Sure, it wasn’t going to win any Oscars for acting or directing, but the action was top notch. I will admit that I am quite the Michael Bay fan. He doesn’t necessarily make ‘smart’ films, but they’re fun, nonetheless. Anyway, I was quite pleased with the first one that I didn’t understand why people didn’t like it as much as I did. I was not surprised that people did not like the second film, Revenge of the Fallen. Like I said, Bay doesn’t make ‘smart’ films, but this is neither smart, nor fun. I don’t like calling movies bad unless they truly are. Especially with a subject as diverse opinions of films. Though I think we can all agree that this is a bad film. With a rating of 20% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s universal. I said I was torn, so with that, let’s get on with the review.

Directed by Michael Bay, written by Ehren Kruger and Roberto Orci, and stars Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, and Tyrese Gibson. It was released in the summer of 2009 in regular and IMAX theaters. (More on that later)

Things to know beforehand:

Acting: Really?

Dialogue: HAHAHAHAHAHA

Casting: Original Cast returns

Cinematography: If you love epic 360 camera pans, lens flare, and slow motion with all of the above, then you’ll love it.

Score: Pretty good.

Dreamworks/Paramount Pictures

So all you need to know from the original is that there are robots and there is a civil war going on between the Autobots and the Decepticons. There was a cube that was very important and was destroyed along with the leader of the Decepticons, Megatron. Now on to the second film. It starts out in 17,000 BC. There are some hunter that come across a huge structure. There they find a huge bot that kills them all. Now back at the present day, we are taken to China where a new division of the military has been created, NEST. Their task is to take out the remaining Decepticons on planet Earth with the help of the Autobots. As an action chase scene concludes with Optimus Prime taking out one of the Decepticons out, his last words are “The Fallen will rise again.”

I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!

Now we are taken to Shia LaBeouf’s character, Sam, as he is preparing to leave home to go to college. He calls Megan Fox, Mikaela, and as they speak, Sam drops a piece of the cube from the first film. He touches it and a lot of information gets sent to Sam’s head. He drops it and falls into his kitchen where a burst of energy is sent out causing all of the appliances to turn into little Decepticons and begin to attack Sam and his family.

I will kill you, before you kill me!

Sam runs out of his house and calls out to Bumble Bee who destroys all the little Decepticons. At this point, Sam tells Bumble Bee that he isn’t going to college with him. He wants to live a normal life and a robot car isn’t normal. So Sam goes to college with no Camaro. Mikaela shows up to send off Sam and he gives her the piece of the cube to take care. One of the bots survived and follows Mikaela.

So now we are in a military base where the Autobots regroup and such. The president appoints a representative and tells Optimus that a war is coming and that if it does, they have to leave. Optimus thinks this is a bad idea because the Decepticons will destroy the humans, whether the Autobots are on Earth or not. Meanwhile, a Decepticon satellite hacks into a US Military satellite and gathers information on the whereabouts of the remaining piece of the cube and the location of Megatron. They end up shooting a bot down to destroy the base and retrieve the piece to revive Megatron. They end up finding Megatron at the bottom of the ocean, revive him, as they leave towards a location in Space where the remaining Decepticons live. Here we meet The Fallen. The oldest and strongest of the Decepticons. Their plan is simple, kill the last Prime, that being Optimus and take the information Sam has in his head, by any means necessary.

As Sam settles into his dorm, he meets his roommate named Leo, a conspiracy theorist, horny virgin. Pretty typical. There Sam sees a SMOKING HOT GIRL. Dare I say hotter than Megan Fox? You decide!

Please don’t make me choose

This girl is after Sam’s… assets and will stop at nothing to get to him. Bumble Bee, however, manages to cause a scene at a frat party and takes Sam to see Optimus, where he asks for Sam’s help. Sam wants nothing more than to be a normal college student and decides not to help Optimus. Sam gets more and more crazy as he starts seeing the symbols of ancient writings. Anyway, back to the SMOKING HOT GIRL! Well her role would be short lived as she turns out to be a Decepticon out to kill Sam as he, Mikaela, and Leo escape the school and  getting killed by her. Though they do run into Starscream and Megatron. They manage to capture Sam and try to dissect his brain, only to be saved by Bumble Bee and Optimus Prime. Cue the giant robot fight. Well, in the end Starscream and Megatron “outbox” Optimus and manage to kill him. Because of this, the President orders that NEST be dismantled because the Autobots can no longer defend the humans and if they leave, the Decepticons will too.

From then on it is your typical third act with, gaining information on how to defeat the Decepticons, reviving Optimus Prime, killing the Fallen, giant robot fight,  with Starscream and Megatron retreating, lens flare, and explosions.

So much lens flare!

If you couldn’t tell, the plot is the most basic of basic. (Huh?) I said earlier that Michael Bay doesn’t make “smart” movies, but this is insulting. It isn’t even fun. I purposefully didn’t go into detail about the Twins because they piss me off so much and they are so annoying that spending any time on them would be a waste. The attempt at humor falls flat, one liners that come off very cheesy when they are not supposed to, and slow motion camera pans out the ying yang. It’s Battlefield Earth all over again with the slow motion!

BUT

Not that butt. Mmm…

I said I was torn. I did watch it on Blu-Ray on a 50 inch screen with a great sounding home theater system and let me tell you IT ROCKED! The amount of detail put into the all of the bots is outstanding. Not only that, but the way the picture looks is spectacular with the film grain left in. It definitely has to be seen to be believed. With that, the audio is top notch as well. All the different sounds mixed together blend so well. Nothing seems too loud or too soft. Everything sounds so clearly from the huge explosions to the whispers in the library. It’s a shame I saw this after Avatar because this is a film to show off your home theater set up. Of course Avatar trumps it, but if you have a new tv and new home theater set up, at least rent Revenge of the Fallen and show it off to your neighbors, at least the end sequence. I was throughly impressed by the technical aspects of this film, and that is at least one thing that we can expect to see done well in the third film. Although I will say that when it was released in IMAX theaters, there were scenes shot with IMAX cameras much like in The Dark Knight. When you watch the Blu-Ray version of The Dark Knight, the IMAX scenes look better than those shot on regular cameras. Though here, everything looks quite the same, maybe that was an aesthetic choice by Bay, but it left me a little disappointed, but that’s just me.

On the topic of Transformers 3, with the recent news of Megan Fox leaving, and now Rosie Huntington-Whiteley of Victoria’s Secret fame, being cast, it actually got me a little more excited. Although Megan Fox is one of the HOTTEST WOMEN IN THE WORLD, her acting is tremendously stiff and boring. Although this will be Rosie’s first ever film, I wait with anticipation of the possibility that she can impress me. If she can impress me with her modeling, then I look forward to seeing her in Transformers 3.

Don’t forget the popcorn

• Fin