Film review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), directed by Michael Bay
Transformers happened to other people when I was growing up – most likely because I don’t have any brothers, and my sisters weren’t into those things. I was more into My Little Ponies, and when I say “more into” I mean “well into, innit”.
I haven’t even seen the first of the new Transformers movies, and the only thing I’ve heard of the back story is that there are good robots (Autobots) and bad robots (Decepticons), and that they can transform. My hopes for this movie weren’t high, put it that way.
It’s a decent action movie, some parts are really funny (Sam’s mum, Julie White, getting high on brownies on campus). Other parts are really silly. What was with the crisp-brown sun tans? Megan Fox was sporting one and so was Isabel Lucas, although Ms Lucas’s was even worse. She looked like she’d just popped out of a toaster. Both ladies providing lashings of eye candy for the boys (or girls, as the case may be), and what are we stuck with? Shia LaBoeuf. Somehow, that doesn’t seem fair to me! Although, fair enough, there was also Josh Duhamel.
The story starts out with Sam (LaBoeuf) finding a shard of some sort of magic, metal box which I guess was involved in plot of the first movie. It makes all the kitchen gadgets come alive – with glaring red lights so we know they’re EVUL, of course – and blow up half the house, while he’s busy packing to go to college. His girlfriend, Mikaela (Fox), is staying behind. On campus, he starts seeing these weird symbols and goes a bit loopy and gets hit on by a Hot Girl (Lucas) who turns out to be some creepy human-looking robot out to kill him. Robots turn up and say they need Sam’s help, and then a bunch of more things get destroyed and they end up for a final showdown around the pyramids of Giza, which get demolished by evil robots, but that doesn’t matter because the good robots saved the earth and everyone on it so yay.
No, I wasn’t particularly taken by it. It felt too much like boys with toys and I just can’t get into the whole “look – yellow sports car… now it’s a robot! And look look look – a truck! Nice truck, isn’t it? Well now it isn’t, it’s a kick-ass robot from outer space who is freakin’ AWESOME, DUDE!!” Again, somehow I feel like I did not fit the target audience of this film. Good special effects and all, but it’s a movie for boys, really. Entertaining, sure; blockbuster, sure; would I watch it again? Not by choice.
2 out of 5 … robots? :]
