HuffPost Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

After seeing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I felt a little like the boy who cried wolf.

After all, I've already tarred both Night at the Museum 2 and Land of the Lost as the summer's biggest big-budget crimes against cinema. And now here comes this latest steaming pile from director Michael Bay to blow them all out of the water.

I sat through this $200-million movie's hubristic 147 minutes (the longest, most painful sit since Australia), stunned into semi-consciousness at how something that cost so much could make so little sense.

It's hard to exaggerate what a depressing mess of a film this misbegotten monstrosity is. More depressing still, it will attract lemming-like multitudes to multiplexes this weekend, further convincing Bay of his own genius.

This is what we've come to: movies based on cartoons that were marketing tools for toys. The most important name in the credits isn't Bay's - it belongs to Hasbro. I know that any day now, I'll read the announcement that Bay has signed someone like Adam Sandler to play Tony the Tiger in Frosted Flakes: the Movie.

Like the 2007 reboot from which this unholy spawn springs, Transformers 2 is about robots from outer space - good ones and evil ones - who decide to have it out on Earth. According to this film's prologue, it's been going on since the days of the cavemen (in this case, with a politically correct group of racially diverse Neanderthals).

Modern-day Earth weapons apparently are useless against these so-called Autobots. That doesn't stop the U.S. military from sending troops to fight them with conventional weapons (apparently no other army on Earth is willing to engage).

Once again, the key to everything is a teen named Sam, played by Shia LaBeouf, who hasn't looked like a teen for a number of years. But the plot is merely an excuse for endless demolition-derby effects: explosions; flying masonry; more explosions; blindingly incomprehensible computer-generated sequences of these walking scrapheaps fighting like pro wrestlers - and did I mention explosions?

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Comments

[truthfulb]

What is it with you people and knocking this great movie. I guess yo uhad to like transformers the cartoon as a kid to get into it. Because I liked both movies and to me this one was better than the first one. I did not go see the movie looking for a message but to get away and just be entertained. It was edgy, funny, action packed and squeezed in a moral or 2. I got to see devastator a robot formed when the construticans formed together as one. I laughed at the two twins robots and the other robots in the movie for comedy relief. Shoot the parents had my side hurting with laughter. I guess I need to raise my expectation when I go see a movie because the movie is worht going to see 3 more times and own brand new on dvd

[digital]

The first movie was one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life, I wouldn't expect this one to be any better.

Has Michael Bay even made a film that is good? Seriously?

[dkuz09]

No.

[Grulg]

I like the Big Robots. This should be fun.

[ICBluejay]

Wait until the trainwreck that is GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra comes out. That'll make this one look Shakespearean.

[Clavis]

Never mind that. What about Megan Fox's booty?

[JDSalinger12]

The author here may not like this movie but all the kids will. It is targeted to them and not adults. Also, expect the transformers toys that came out just recently to sell really well too. Kids will want them after seeing this movie.

Best,
John Marshall
http://www.transformersmovie2leaderoptimusprime.com/