I went to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with my brother yesterday. I didn't have high hopes by any means, as you learn when you are a seasoned fan of comic books and videogames but...What a waste if time.
Although I don't like Michael Bay for being such a talentless, unoriginal director, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the first Transformers movie. Nevermind the fact that he changed so much crap from TF lore, and really butchered some characters, not to mention the focus on humans on a movie where the Transformers weren't even the main protagonists of the story.
But it was still an entertaining movie. Flawed, but entertaining. I'm not as elitist as most fans when it comes to comic book/cartoons/videogame movies, its a given that they will change stuff around, and probably screw up our fond childhood memories. You basically come to terms that you will probably be disappointed and head out to the theater. But TF2 brings disappointment from comic books/cartoon movies to new heights.
First off, what is the point of the character list that was published to get everyone all excited in anticipation? Why introduce all these characters when they either end up lasting about a minute on the entire film, or are wasted by insignificant roles. Just off the top of my mind, let's see:
-Sideways: dies a minute after he is shown,
-Arcee: had two useless scenes that each lasted about 30 seconds,
-Scorponok: fatally attacks Jetfire for about 15 seconds then dies,
-Ratchet, Jolt, Ironhide, and Sideswipe: all these guys ended up being as significant as army drones in the background along the humans. Providing covering fire? Might as well not have the robots there at all,
-Soundwave: one of the most loved badasses amongst the fans ends up being in space the entire movie, he doesn't even transform or fight, his trademark vocoder-synthesized voice and sound effects are nowhere to be found,
-Blackout: for someone that is supposed to be 3rd in command on the Decepticons ranks(as far as the movie adaptation story goes) this guy died really damn quick a minute after showing up,
-Devastator: I dont even know where to begin with this one. The only time the Constructicons transformed into their individual selves was to jump in the water to bring back Megatron, and neither one of them showed any of their personalities, talked or anything. Actually, not even the bad-ass Devastator himself said a word the entire movie, save some guttural sounds here and there. They got this super strong, 200ft tall Decepticon and what do they decide to do with him? Put him to waste half of his screen time breaking a pyramid appart before getting killed by a railgun. Really? A freaking railgun kills Devastator? Let's not even talk about the balls mr. Michael Macho Bay put there.
All these great characters wasted. No personality traits shown, barely any dialogue between them. They tried to show a bit of the Megatron and Starscream relationship, and that was executed very poorly. Megatron(who's name should really be Galvatron here) had his tank form and used it for nothing.
There were 5 Transformers that could change into aircrafts: Starscream, Megatron, Blackout, Soundwave, and Jetfire, yet there was no air combat whatsoever. I can't even begin to think of the amazing scenes that could come out of these guys.
One of the only things they did I actually liked, was that it was Soundwave who deployed Ravage(like it should be, albeit it wasn't a cassete tape shooting out of a tape player this time), and the battle scene in the forest with Starscream, Megatron and Blackout VS Optimus Prime.
Its very sad that so many great characters were wasted so badly. I really wanted to like this movie for having a great robot cast, only to find out that most of their roles are brief, insignificant moments within the 149 minutes of tired cliches, racism, Obama bashing, army commercials, horrible jokes, one liners, bad acting, and dogs humping.
The movie was way too long, horrible pacing, and the "dialogue" if you want to call it that, was a simple conjuction of one liners. The humor couldn't be dumber. I don't know who honestly thinks any of those stupid jokes were funny, specially with the reliance on racial stereotypes. The twins who spoke in slang, had gold teeth, it was insinuated that they can't read, and were obviously representing the African American stereotype. Only in Michael Bay movies you hear lines like "I'ma bust a cap on yo ass" and "I'm too old for this". There were obvious hints of Obama bashing. Dog's humping and pot brownie-eating mothers are not substitutes for clever humor, which obviously is way above Michael Bay's brain capacity.
The annoying constant focus on the army, just to show off how much of a boner Michael Bay has for showing how "down" he is with the military gets very old over the course of the movie. And one of the worst decisions he could have made is to add the infamous, stupid "testicles" to Devastator at a key moment near the film's end. Is this really someone's idea of funny? Its an insult to the character.
The final battle of the movie was incredibly anti-climatic. It felt rushed and boring. Specially after a two-hour lead up to a climax that feels like it never happened.
I guess I have nothing else to say that all the other reviews aren't already saying. It just upsets me that not only was it a horrible, utter craptastic movie in every sense, but the robots were butchered and underultilized to an extent where anyone that was a fan of the cartoons is going to be very disappointed by all the wasted potential.
/rant off
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