It’s time to review the easily most
polarizing movie in the Transformers saga. Revenge of the Fallen came out in
2009. I remember being very hype to see it, and it didn’t let me down. In fact
to let the cat out the bag this is my favorite one of Michael Bay’s renditions.
The movie has great pacing,
something that wasn’t really a problem in Transformers 1 either. The first half
of the movie is certainly the better half however…culminating with arguably the
best fight in Transformers; The forest scene. In fact this movie has a LOT more
action than its predecessor. The plot isn’t as strong or cohesive but that’s
really okay with me.
Basically, the autoboots have
formed a “designated strike team” called Nest with humans to hunt decepticons. The
movie starts with Nest attacking 2 Decepticons in Hong Kong. It’s a really exciting
scene. We see some new Autobots here as well such as side swipe and the twin
bike girls (I Forgot their names). Optimus has to take down the giant
decepticon. I love when Iron Hide says, “Punk ass Decepticon”. Before its
defeated it says “This is not your planet to rule…the fallen shall rise again.”
Then
the scene shifts back to Sam Witwicky, who is played by Shia Lebouf(how do you pronounce
his last name lol). Sam is heading to college, so you get a nice family scene.
Basically Makayla (Played by the beautiful Megan Fox) is mad at him and
threatens to break up with him. Although we don’t really learn till much later
in the movie why they are having relationship problems. I thought Sam’s parents
were hilarious in this film. His Dad is trying to teach him “game” with the
ladies. To which Sam says “I’m a one woman kind of guy.” His mom is outlandish
in this film…she embarrasses him at college which I should get to later. We
also see Bumble Bee here as he saves the Witwicky’s from a random assault of
energon transformed appliances.
Energon
is the motivating force for this movie. In the first movie the Allspark (the
Cube) was the source of life for the transformers. Energon is what they need to
live and apparently reproduce…Later there is an intelligence meeting between
Nest and what I assume is the United States department of defense. In this
meeting the movies’ the “dick/asshole” character blabbers out the location of
the last known remaining piece of the allspark. It is at the Diego Gacria, Nest’s
main base. Also this a-hole character spills the beans on Megatron’s location.
He is buried deep in the ocean. Yeah it turns out every one of these movies has
a dick/a-hole character that makes things difficult for our heroes.
Same
goes off to college and meets his new roommate named Leo. Leo and his friends it
turns out are into cool stuff like alien sightings i.e. Transformers. Sam
nonchalantly calls their findings fake and says aliens aren’t real. *Clap
Clap*. Later Sam’s mom gets some brownies with Refer in them. She goes on a tirade
embarrassing her son. I love the scene where after getting her under control,
Sam’s Dad says, “Get the booties” (Sam’s baby shoes) and Sam replies, “Dad I
got the booties!” You see these are good scenes. Unlike Transformers 4 & 5
they don’t feel forced or out of place at all.
I’m not
going through all the details in the movie but long story short the Decepticons
steal the piece of the All spark and use it to resurrect their general, Megatron.
Notice I said general…You find out in this film…just like in every other movie
that comes after, that Megatron isn’t the leader….The Fallen is , hence the
name of the movie: Revenge of the Fallen. Sam gets stalked by a mysterious girl
who has caught the affection of Leo. The girl it turns out is a DECEPTICON! I
would have loved to see this concept explored more. A transformer turning into
a human!? Yes you read right. I believe her name was Alice in the movie. Alice
gets Sam alone in his room to try and steal information from him. It turns out
in the beginning of the movie they showed Same touch the “Cube sliver” and start
to see transformer language. This is very important to the plot of this movie,
which we don’t really find out until…the next big scene!
After
being rescued by Makayla and Leo, Sam gets stalked further by a huge Helicopter
Decepticon named Grinder. Grinder is not Blackout. Blackout was clearly killed
in the first movie. Grinder drops their car in this abandoned warehouse type
building where Megatron and Star Scream were waiting for them. Megatron explains
that he needs to extract information from Sam’s brain….and this little doctor
transformer starts the process. The decepticon party is stopped by an always late
Optimus Prime. Bumblebee is also there. The following fight scene is perhaps
the best fight in ALL OF TRANSFORMERS. Basically its 3 Decepticons vs. Optimus
Prime. Optimus kicks major ass but he is killed by a Megatron cheap shot. Sam,
Makayla, and Leo do escape.
The 2nd
half of the movie is a lot slower and introduces more plot. I think it’s a good
story overall. The movie culminates in Egypt with a showdown between Optimus
Prime on one side and Megatron and the Fallen on the other. I really thought
the Fallen would be harder to beat. Albeit Optimus does get some power ups but
he absolutely wups the Fallen in no time. And Poor Megatron gets f***ed up real
quick too.
Overall
I feel this is a really good movie. Sure, it has some racist things like the “Ghetto
twins” I forgot their names. (no not the bike twins). They talk gangsta like
Jazz in the first movie, but one of them has a gold tooth…it’s like really
Michael Bay? But other than that I feel the movie’s final scene makes up for the
half assed plot. The acting is good and the dialogue. The action is great but
not really the best in the series….I think Dark of the Moon easily trumps this
as far as action goes….
Verdict: 9/10