Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

As the world knows, I am possibly one of the biggest fans in the entire world of The Transformers, and as anyone could guess, after watching the 2007 live action movie, I was basking in my fanboy glory, as wave after wave of people I know, went to see the film, many times with me, and I watched them recover memories long past of childhood toys and fun, or rekindle that spark of imagination and joy that so many of us children of the 1980s have centered around The Transformers, it is to us, similar to what "the force" is to those who grew up fans of Star Wars before it was ruined by Ewoks, you ask anyone that was alive in the 1980s, and they can name off atlast two Transformers, and in most cases sing the theme song, heck Tom Hanks busted out into the original 1983 cartoon theme song on the Tonight Show once in the late 1990s, when showing he can sing as well as act, much to the roar of those watching the taping of the show. Anyway you get the idea, in our gully of the Geek Forrest, a new transformers film is an event. And this one is no exception.

Now, to be fair, to say Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is one of those perfect films that I desire all films to be like, would be untrue, but also to be fair, it falls into the same category as the first film, a great sci fi movie hidden as an excellent action movie, with just one or two things that annoy the general populous and tons of things people can nitpick until the end of time, but also, I think now two films into a franchise that could last many more films, I think thats gonna be the way they all are, and personally, I think thats great, a film shouldn't 100% cater to everyone in its fanbase, thats impossible, and completely improvable, and never a key to longevity, you need to evolve your story into a story that is recognizable to the fans, but also is fresh and different enough for new fans to come on board. And Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen does exactly that, and more so it does it with a style and coolness that not many films ever really live up too.

The film takes place two years after the first film ended, and now its cast are starting to go on with their lives, Sam Witwicky, is off to college on "on the east coast" which I guess is what you do after you apparently save the human race, and a race of alien robots from destruction, his girlfriend Mikaela Banes is working at a custom build and repair shop for cars and motorcycles with her recently released from prison father, she spends her days doing mechanic work and posing provocatively on motorcycles while whispering the word "camshaft" in a sexy tone for no real reason, Sam's parents Ron and Judy Witwicky are apparently heading off to France after they rush Sam off to college to make his room into a Home Theater, I would assume so they can watch more Micheal Bay films, after all that is the only real reason for home theaters. Sam's dog Mojo, now spends his days "dominating" the family's new bulldog Frankie, while Sam's guardian, the brave and awesome Bumblebee is living in Sam's parent's garage, apparently just chilling out like so much robotic Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli, though sadly, Bumblebee's voice box isn't working again in this movie, so you never get to hear Bumblebee say "aaaaay" or give the trademark thumps up most antiquate with The Fonz. As for the other Autobots; Optimus Prime, Ratchet and Ironhide are commanding a joint task force made up of Autobots and Humans that track and eliminate Decepticons that appear on planet earth looking for revenge for the end of the first film, or to simply find the surviving ones, Jazz however, is still very much dead, and very much in two parts, and still very much tossed to the side after his 4 second memorial at the end of the first film.

Trouble seems to be abound when Sam finds a small sliver of the Allspark, the all powerful rubik's cube from the first film, falls out of a jacket that he hasn't apparently worn sense the day he saved earth and all those to live on it, he picks it up, it transmits all sorts of images and pictures and things into his brain, it then glows very hot, causing Sam to drop it, and then melt through the floor and land on the kitchen table below, which, much like in the first film, causes everything electrical to come to life, and as you can guess, its all very mad and wants to beat on some humans, I guess thats the customary thing for robots to wanna do when they're just born these days, still not sure how that works, but hey, whatever gets their swagger on I guess, after destroying a good part of the Witwicky home, Sam calls for Bumblebee's help, who busts through the side of the garage and deals with the world's most angry kitchen set swiftly and with extreme prejudice, for which Sam, for some reason yells at him for, which upsets Bumblebee, no idea why you'd wanna yell at a 20 foot tall war mech that just saved you from a kitchen clock that was out for blood, but, Sam's a pretty confusing guy. After a short scene with Ron and Judy Witwicky talking about how they can't say killer robots did the damage to their home because of national security and that the government will pay for repairs, you see Sam gather "the sliver" off the table and place it in a metal container, he then hands it to his girlfriend Mikaela who shows up not long after the chaos happens, the two of them then go into the garage and explain to Bumblebee that he isn't going to college with Sam, to which Bumblebee starts to cry, because you know, giant war mech's cry all the time, I found this odd because, well come on, you're going to college, you'll need a car, I'm pretty sure a pimped out brand new Camaro is a good choice.

You then next see the other Autobots as they runamuck (hehe original transformer references rock) through the city of Shanghai where the Autobots have tracked atleast one Decepticon, who happens to be hiding in the form of the largest vehicle on the planet, a Terrex Excavator, though unnamed in the film this character is called Demolishor, this is where you are introduced to some of the new autobots in the cast, most notably Sideswipe, a silver new body style Corvette, the triplet female motorcycles; Arcee, Chromia, and their unnamed on screen third one, Arcee is pink, Chromia is blue, and the unnamed one, given its purple color scheme and keeping with the female auotbot names, I'm lead to believe is ment to be Elita-One, this is also where you meet most debated characters in the film, "The Twins" Skidz and Mudflap, seen here both combining into the front and back half of a 1950s style ice cream truck, love or hate these two, the decal on their alt mode's side, "Decepticons can suck my popsicles" is epically hilarious, after this scene The Twins each take their own alt mode and then proceed to spend the rest of the movie drawing more hate from the transformers fandom then when Megatron's head CGI rendering leaked to the internet before the 2007 film.

Once you've been introduced to each of them, Demolishor transforms into his freakishly huge robot mode and starts to make a mess of the city of Shanghai, as is the custom with giant robots that are featured in the trailer for films about giant robots, as he does this, another Decepticon is detected, this time a high end sports car, though unnamed in the film as well, his name is Sideways, he is however quickly cut in half by Sideswipe in a scene thats to show us just how bad ass Sideswipe is, as the fight with Demolishor rages on, eventually Optimus Prime is called in, and after a fight through the city that causes even more property damage, and after harbingering the return of The Fallen, Optimus Prime ends the fight in the only way a hero of his nobility and stature could, by shooting Demolishor right in the face, heroically. From here you go abit more into learning whats been going on in the two years sense the first film, and you also meet Soundwave, who's so bad ass he spends the whole movie floating over the planet in some strange almost Satellite like form, I guess much like his original counterpart, Soundwave is just too awesome for us humans to handlehe does send down his "pet" Ravage though, so I guess thats something. You also see the Decepticons discover Megatron's body and steal the chunk of Allspark that was in the care of this Autobot/human task force (called NEST), and soon Megatron is revived and in the mood to kill him some humans, you are also introduced to The Fallen, who really only plays a small role in the film which bares his name, I found that confusing, but I didn't care, I was too busy being assaulted by awesome to care. You also meet Wheelie, the decepticon turned autobot radio control truck who spends his time in film being burned in the eye with a welding torch, locked in a case, swearing randomly and doing that thing to Megan Fox's leg that dogs do when they REALLY like you, all of these things would be funny on their own, but add to them that Wheelie is voiced by Tom Kenny who is using his trademark SpoungeBob Squarepants voice during it all, it just makes it even funnier.

With out giving away key plot points or too much detail, the movie shifts up into its fastest gear and then hits a nitro boost to give it that just enough super fast paced action to keep even the hardest of the hardcore fan happy and the motion sicknessest of the motion sickness suffers out there vomiting into their popcorn buckets. During this you find out what happened to Agent Simmons after Sector Seven was disband at the end of the first film, and you meet Jetfire who swears alot, is really old, really grumpy, has a cane that transforms as part of his alt form, and can use Spacebridges to travel from place to place, a Spacebridge in this version of the Transformers is basically a teleportation system that takes you from one place, and tosses you out in another, it doesn't seem to be all that safe, with the tossing everyone in the air all willy nilly and such instead of a nice soft landing, but hey, Jetfire himself is awesome for an old grumpy aussie slang speaking robot, oh and Devastator, the simple minded giant decepticon death machine of death shows up, and after causing alot of property damage and apparently almost beaten by The Twins, he eventually gets shot in the... crotch? i guess is the best way to explain that, with a railgun, and I seriously wish I was making that up, but I'm not, it really happens. Also the Fallen himself shows up for the end fight, which is strange because you really only see him for about 20 minutes tops in the whole film and you are left wondering why a secondary character got their name into the title.

There is alot more to this movie, but really with out spoiling it I can't really go on, but trust in me when I say that the film was just as amazing as I'd hoped it would be and I hope none of you take my light hearted tongue in cheek review of the film with negative connotations I truly loved it and am already crying for the next one to come out, sure there are alot of confusing things, mostly nitpicky things that didn't ruin the film for me by any means, but just sort of bugged me; like how certain decepticons seemed to be in more then one place at a time, and others came back from their deaths in the first film or there were two cons that shared the same alt mode, also lack of screen time for awesome newer characters like Sideswipe that really only feature in the first 10 minutes then hardly do anything the rest of the film, the ton of unnamed characters on both sides, and Alice, if you wanna understand why Alice bothered me, google these words "Transformers Kiss Player" and watch your mind shatter into thousands of bits. Also on the controversy of The Twins, though i can see where people find them racist or annoying, I can understand this way of thinking, but, we all need to remember, in every single part of the Transformers mythos, there has been atleast one character that you either hated or loved, in the movie universe, I'm assuming that role will be The Twins.

So, if you've not seen this film yet, I just have to ask, why are you sitting here reading the end of my review, get yourselves out there and see it! This, like the 2007 film before it, and all of those which will follow, are going to always be a happening, just like this is, you gotta be a part of it, fan or not.

Oh and just for fun, I'll leave you with these lines...

"Oh my friend, he went out to find you a tighter shirt"
"there isn't one.."
"yeah, we checked"

you will laugh yourself silly at it when its time comes to pass.


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BC