 The battle for Earth continues in this action-packed blockbuster from director Michael Bay and executive producer Steven Spielberg. When college-bound Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) learns the truth about the ancient origins of the Transformers, he must accept his destiny and join Optimus Prime and Bumblebee in their epic battle against the Decepticons, who have returned stronger than ever with a plan to destroy our world. Storyline: A youth chooses manhood. The week Sam Witwicky starts college, the Decepticons make trouble in Shanghai. A presidential envoy believes it's because the Autobots are around; he wants them gone. He's wrong: the Decepticons need access to Sam's mind to see some glyphs imprinted there that will lead them to a fragile object that, when inserted in an alien machine hidden in Egypt for centuries, will give them the power to blow out the sun. Sam, his girlfriend Mikaela Banes, and Sam's parents are in danger. Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are Sam's principal protectors. If one of them goes down, what becomes of Sam? Written by Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman on October 13, 2009 -- The fallen shall rise again. Transformers was a fun, entertaining, and altogether novel moviegoing experience. Though based on preexisting characters, Director Michael Bay reworked the look and feel of the world once only realized in the animated and physical toy realms, creating more robust, lifelike, and fluid robots and pitting them one against another in terrifically choreographed action scenes that perfectly blended the gritty tone of modern warfare with a Science Fiction edge. Though the film stirred controversy amongst longtime fans of the characters for the redesigned Autobots and Decepticons and suffered through a somewhat problematic script that relied a bit too heavily on comic relief which mostly fell flat against the mesmerizing power of the ultra-realistic action and special effects sequences, the movie worked thanks to the dazzling visuals, decent storyline, and serious tone to be found outside of the weaker comedy routines. Considering the smashing box office success of the film, Paramount was quick to green-light a sequel, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was born. The filmmakers and digital effects artists haven't missed a beat in keeping with the original's look and feel, but Fallen takes Transformers' problems, multiples them a hundred fold, and makes for a completely underwhelming and mostly disappointing experience. While packing for college, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) finds a shard of the "All Spark," the previously-destoryed cube that has the ability to animate mechanical objects into transforming robots. The object soon fills his head with mysterious alien symbols, several times causing him to lose control of himself as he hurriedly scribbles his visions on any surface available. Meanwhile, a Decepticon known as Soundwave is in orbit around Earth. He intercepts a government transmission that reveals both the location of another shard of the All Spark and the resting place of the Decepticon's deceased leader, Megatron. Successfully rescued and resurrected, Megatron returns to Mars where he meets with The Fallen, an ancient Decepticon that once ruled over Earth centuries ago. Only the death of the Optimus Prime and acquisition of the Matrix of Leadership -- its resting place coded into the symbols Sam envisions -- will allow The Fallen to return to Earth and complete his task of destroying the planet once and for all. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen seems more interested in comic relief than exciting action sequences, awe-inspiring special effects, and most importantly, telling a good story. Though the effects are superb and the action scenes feature the obligatory barrage of gunfire and explosions, it seems the filmmakers are hell-bent on masking the uninteresting story with copious amounts of comic relief, and the result is a movie that quickly grows long in the tooth and becomes borderline unwatchable at several junctures throughout. Comic relief is taken to a whole new level here; there are very few instances where Revenge of the Fallen's drama or action aren't interrupted by pointless absurdities that not only slow the movie down, but greatly detract from the few things it does right. Whether a pair of fast-talking Autobots (Mudflap and Skids) disguised together as a rusty ice cream truck, both of whom eventually transform into their own vehicles and give Jar Jar Binks a run for his money as two of the most unlikable and annoying characters in modern movie history; zany and pint-sized Decepticons that act like small children rather than killer robots; or the worst offender of them all, Sam's mother; Revenge of the Fallen's "laughs" equate to far too much fat and are the primary culprits in the film's sloth-like 150 minute runtime. Trimming out most of the excess (the key word in "comic relief," after all, is "relief," meaning it comes occasionally and not repetitiously) and slimming the movie down to a leaner 115-120 minutes probably would have worked wonders for it, mediocre story and all. Though these same problems were evident in the far superior Transformers, the novelty of the experience and tighter story helped in masking them. However, they're far too overstated here to be overshadowed by the admittedly Oscar-worthy special effects. Even the action can't really find its stride. In true Michael Bay fashion, there's lots of fast cuts, swirling cameras, and some slow motion shots thrown in, perhaps, to try and add some kind of balance to the mayhem. Complicating matters are the complexly-assembled Transformers that have so many moving parts that viewers often simply can't get a grasp on what's transforming, what's an arm, what's a leg, or what's a mouth (not that the mouth really matters, because most all of them do is spew pointless, overly dramatic, or otherwise nonsensical or even incomprehensible lines). The Autobots -- as annoying as they can be outside of Optimus Prime -- are at least colorful and fairly easy to recognize (including "Jetfire" who looks more like Davy Jones than a Transformer). On the other hand, all of the Decepticons look virtually identical; Starscream, Megatron, and The Fallen all share the same design cues and a bland gray color scheme. Only Devastator -- the most poorly translated of all Transformers from the original character to the "thing" that's in this movie -- features a colorful body, but since the character looks like the contents of a scrapyard were randomly glued together in the vaguest of shapes resembling some sort of creature, it really doesn't matter, anyway. Though the characters are wonderfully rendered and inserted seamlessly into the real-world environments, it's difficult to appreciate the artistry of the special effects when they either share similar design cues, lack color, fall victim to a camera that moves too fast, or as the case often is, all of the above. The human characters, too, are uniformly lame and, for the most part, pointless. Most are around only for more comic relief; only Shia LaBeouf delivers a somewhat genuine performance, probably because his character is given minimal comic relief duty. It's funny how that works. Excessively bloated, lacking in focus, far too kinetic, and hedging its bets on inane comic relief, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a borderline disaster of a movie. Though it retains a similar look and feel to its vastly superior predecessor, Fallen accentuates the negatives in an effort to mask the weak plot, and worst of all, the movie just isn't much fun. With a third installment supposedly in the works, one can only hope that it will forego the bad comedy in favor of a leaner, meaner, more aggressive picture that also returns the sense of wonder and fun found in the first film. Still, there's an artistry here that transcends the bad script and excessive runtime; Michael Bay's style might be a bit too much when taking into account all that's going on in most every frame, but there is no denying that the man is a talented filmmaker and knows how to put together a movie that people want to see. Though the movie may not be up to par, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen arrives on Blu-ray as a two-disc package that represents the pinnacle of the format. Featuring a brilliant film-like picture quality, one of the best lossless soundtracks yet, and a plethora of bonus materials that truly convey the grand scope of the Herculean effort that goes into making a movie like this, the technical specifications make this package a winner, even if the movie could have been better. (Based on Comic Book) Cast Notes: Shia LaBeouf (Sam Witwicky), Megan Fox (Mikaela Banes), Josh Duhamel (Major William Lennox), Tyrese Gibson (USAF Master Sergeant Epps), John Turturro (Simmons), Ramon Rodriguez (Leo Spitz), Kevin Dunn (Ron Witwicky), Julie White (Judy Witwicky), Isabel Lucas (Alice), John Benjamin Hickey (Galloway), Matthew Marsden (Captain Graham SAS), Andrew Howard (Special Air Service Forces), Michael Papajohn (Cal), Glenn Morshower (General Morshower), John Eric Bentley (Aide). IMDb Rating (07/31/14): 6.0/10 from 250,723 users IMDb Rating (09/11/10): 6.0/10 from 95,498 users
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