Movie Review : Transformers : Revenge of The Fallen

So I finally went and saw the movie. I was really put off it but the circumstances came together and I found myself in a cinema hall waiting for it to start. How was it? Well, let me put it this way:

1. If you are just looking for a way to kill some time and have no expectations whatsoever and is content to be dazzled with special effects and explosions, then this movie will trill you no end.

2. If you have any expectations whatsoever and hoping that this second installment would somehow be better than the first one, then this movie will do nothing but disappoint you.

Unfortunately I ended up in the latter statement. Yes, I was quite disappointed with it. That was even after I knew that it would be disappointing. So here's my rant on this movie and how Micheal Bay managed to destroy the Transformers image with his latest movie. SPOILER ALERT ahead! Stop reading if you have not seen the movie.

Things I will hate Micheal Bay for:


1. He destroyed the noble image of Optimus Prime.

If you are a fan of the Transformers cartoon series than you would know that Optimus Prime is the noblest of the Autobots. That he will always uphold justice and see to it that everyone, humans or robots will be treated fairly. Micheal Bay's version is just like Dirty Harry. He has no qualms about blowing the head off a down and out Decepticon. He even made him say, "Any last words?" before pulling the trigger. That one scene is just wrong! It seems like the Autobots and the Decepticons have just traded roles. You would be forgiven if you label the Autobots as the villians if you just saw the part where they are in Shanghai and have no prior knowledge about the giant robots.

2. He ripped ideas from other movies for this.

Micheal Bay blatantly ripped off ideas from Star Wars, The Terminator and Stargate. The part where the Fallen and the newly resurrected Megatron converse can be lifted straight from Transformers and planted into Star Wars with the Fallen playing the role of Emperor and Megatron playing the role of Darth vader and it would not seem out of place at all! I just went like, "Hey! How come I'm watching Star Wars all of a sudden!?"

And you won't believe how he ripped off the Terminator. You can't miss it. It's just so obvious. Watch out for scenes when Sam is in college and don't tell me you didn't feel a bit surprised.

What about Stargate? Like the idea that the Pyramids were built by aliens is entirely original! At least Stargate had a great backstory to justify it.


3. He thinks his audience is stupid.

Bay expects us to buy his idea that while the Transformers battled it out in the heart of a city at the end of the first movie, this incident is now all covered up and no one believes that giant alien robots exist regardless of the fact that the giants robots destroyed almost half the city in the first movie.

Bay thinks that we cannot count. In one scene 5 Decepticons went down into the ocean to retrieve/resurrect Megatron from the bottom. A submarine sonar tracked 5 objects going down. While down there one of the robots produced a small 'doctor' bot, no bigger than an octopus, to repair Megatron. In resurrecting Megatron, one of the Decepticons were destroyed for parts and when they went back up to the surface, the submarine registered SIX contacts. Hello??!! 5-1+1 is still FIVE! And don't tell me the 'doctor' bot is being tracked as it was not tracked going down and sonar do not pick up objects the size of an octopus. It they did then sonar would be useless and the screen would beep non-stop as fishes and octopusses pass by.

Bay wants us to believe that NONE of the Autobots can read Cybertronian - a language from Cybertron, the Transformers' home planet! Only the Decepticons can read it. So what freaking language did the Autobots use back home on their planet?! English?!

The soldiers in this new movie still shoot at the Decepticons with their puny machine guns. Haven't they learned from the previous encounters in the last movie that their assault rifles hardly even tickle the Decepticons? Have it not occurred to them to try something bigger, like a bazooka or something? Or were they too dense to notice that the enemies are at least 18 feet tall and made entirely of alien metal?

Bay also wants use to believe that Transformers can breed. These hulking metal beasts need stuff like scrotum and apparently Optimus Prime is a, get this, DESCENDANT of the original Primes of which there were 6 or 5, I'm not sure but it doesn't really matter. The Fallen is one of the original Primes and as to why he did not breed and create a host of evil descendants, only Bay knows!!! Also when the Transformers die, they ultimately either go to Transformer heaven or rot in Transformer hell (they didn't show this but hey if you already have one then why not the other, huh?). And if you're really, really, really lucky like Sam, you just might end up there when you die but you'll get rejected coz you're not a robot and come back to life!

Also when you're being chased by a jet plane and being fired at would you rather stay in a car and speed to your destination or would you leave the car and run on foot knowing that your destination is only a couple of miles away? Well, according to Bay's logic it will make more sense to leave a car and run to your destination, prolonging the journey and danger unnecessarily. Brilliant!

That's only some of the things that I care to rant about. The movies is full of plot holes the size of the moon and is just an excuse to show the special effects. The story does not make sense but hey you have things blowing up every other minute!

Rating : Negative 5 stars if you're a fan of the original cartoon series. If you're not, then you're free to rate it any way you like.