Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen fell and took its revenge on me.

I am no fanboy, but I did not have the heart to see either of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies in the theater. I had rented Transformers (2007) last year. This weekend, I finally got around to viewing the sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009).



As one who grew up with the animated television series, I was surprisingly satisfied with the 2007 film. The voices of Optimus Prime, Megatron and Starscream gave proper homage to the 1980s US animated cartoon. Even Jazz (my childhood favorite) had echos of his original character (although it understandably fell short without voice actor Scatman Crothers). One was pleasantly distracted from the film’s underdeveloped story and ubiquitous product placement by its nostalgic appeal.

“The enfeebled dialog grates on one’s skull and begs the question: with so many talented screenwriters in the world, how could none be available for consultation during the mere six hours it took to write this script?”

Revenge of the Fallen has none of that charm and is without a suitably redemptive substitute.

The voice actors for Megatron and Starscream sound nothing like their 2007 film or cartoon counterparts. Megatron is demoted to a generic megalomaniac villain and Starscream his typical sycophant sidekick. Even their robot forms were difficult to tell apart from each other.

For some reason, the film’s creators did not focus on easily recognizable robot characters, but rather felt compelled to engage in masturbatory displays of arbitrary complexity. Transformations between robot and alternate forms sometimes drone on with absurd results. (Where was Ironhide hiding all that bulky weaponry in that GM TopKick shell?) At the same time, some of the sequences feel uncharacteristically unpolished. (The brief scuffle between Megatron and Starscream on a New York building top seemed like a throwback to the mid-90s Beast Wars CGI television series compared other parts of the film.)

Despite being almost two-and-a-half hours long, we are left without any real insight into the Transformers’ existences. Almost every attempt at plot development feels like an annoyance to be disposed of before the next discordant special effect. The enfeebled dialog grates on one’s skull and begs the question: with so many talented screenwriters in the world, how could none be available for consultation during the mere six hours it took to write this script?

Given its rich history, the franchise deserves better. Yes, the premise of an ancient alien race of shape-changing robots in search of energy to fuel a civil war is ridiculous. But in the hands of a skilled artisan, this could have been a dark, dare I say intellectual, epic metaphor for the tensions between greed, guardianship, power, honor, corruption, and self-preservation. Instead, this film’s creators seem to have about as much respect for their audience as Ken Lewis has for the American taxpayer.

To (ironically) quote (a younger) George Lucas, “Special effects are just a tool, a means of telling a story. People have a tendency to confuse them as an end to themselves. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.” (“From ‘Star Wars’ to ‘Jedi’: The Making of a Saga,” 1985.)

But hey, that’s just one guy’s opinion....



Update: It looks like I'm not the only one who hates this movie.