Thursday 3 December 2009

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

TOE NEE TODD!! TOE NEE TODD!!!

There, that's the good stuff out of the way.

I think that I'm going to write the script for the next Transformers movie in the hope that something can be salvaged from this dirge of mediocrity. I'm going to send that script to Michael Bay sealed with hearts and kisses, and then I am going to cry when I see Unicron appear as a billowing cloud of death who is preceded by some Decepticon herald, who probably rides a flying surf board and is voiced by Laurence Fishburne.

Lets pick apart the plot, shall we.

The Autobots have joined forces with a top secret human organization in order to- hang on, lets back up a minute so I can explain that...

This is a top secret organization ran at the highest levels of (US) government in conjunction with the Autobots who have to maintain their secrecy in order to avoid panicking the populace with the knowledge that alien robots are living amongst them. Of course this will inevitably lead to all the conspiracy theories about government cover-ups including the painfully annoying "l33t" hacker support character who is convinced that the government is hiding something....

Apparently no one in Los Angeles happened to notice the giant death machines brawling in the streets and generally ripping the city to shreds in the first movie (although this does follow on from the somewhat unbelievable 'cover-up' skit during the end credits of the first God-awful movie).

So, back to the Autobots and this secret organization. Basically they are traveling the world and destroying any Decepticons that they come across, note that I said 'destroying' and not 'capturing'. I find it odd that the good guys would be so actively involved in ethnic cleansing.

Spike (Sam) meanwhile has continued to act as one of the most grating characters ever conceived and has now decided that he doesn't want to hang out with Bumblebee anymore because... Bumblebee is retarded or something, it's wasn't made very clear but it didn't shine a favorable on everyone's favourite Volks Wagon... sorry, product placement, product placement, everyone's favourite Ford Mustang GT500 Buy Today.

The sole purpose for Megan Fox being in RotF is to give the nerds like me something to ogle because we're never liable to actually get close to a real woman and it's nice to see tits every once in a while, luscious, perfectly formed, sumptuous...

Sorry, lost my train of thought there.

Megan plays the role of the stereotypical female support character of any 80's action flick, she just wants to be loved by the hero, even if he is Shia LeBouf and his nose, and contributes nothing else to the movie other than her aforementioned cleavage. Which is a shame because she was one of the more interesting characters from the first movie.

I'd love to say something more about the Transformers themselves, but much like the first movie they are largely background scenery and most remain unnamed. And why not, it's not like it's supposed to be a movie about the Transformers or anything. Devastator (yes he was a tank and died in the first movie but shut up, he had a brother or something) had all the potential to be awesome, from the moment I saw the dump truck and the digger I knew something good was about to happen... how he became a walking mouth I'm not quite sure but I suspect that a more appropriate nomenclature would have been 'Dyson'.

John Turturro makes his contractual reappearance as the nutty secret agent who for some reason now runs an internet site giving out details of all the alien involvement on Earth from files stolen before he left Sector 7, and then he rejoins S7 when Spike turns up and everyone accepts him as an agent no questions asked. Glad that all worked out for him. Of course he teams up with the annoying "l33t" hacker guy who always knew that something was going on and now he wants to be a part of it but is going to act a total pussy any time that something happens because he is the other comic relief or something.

Basically you can tell that the action sequences with the robots where all shot before an actual script was drafted. That isn't a lie. They filmed the action then wrote the script around it, hence the lurching plot, hashed dialogue, and many, many fight sequences. Guess that they wanted to squeeze more money out of the Optimus Prime model after they realized that it cost $35,000 every second he was on screen in the first movie.

And Spike conveniently has a second and unknown surviving shard of 'THE CUBE' and it has allowed him to see ancient Cybertronian symbols... and why not.

I guess it's about time I got to the summary because the patience of the average internet user is usually somewhat shorter than the average gnat's willy. Transformers RotF is watchable but frankly there are better ways to waste 2 hours, like having your genitalia pummeled by a middle aged woman named Mistress Pain.

I actually preferred that other pile of nonsense Terminator Salvation, at least it's plot tried.

Rating: D