Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
So I'm writing this mostly just to put down my thoughts on this movie. It's seemed to spark two distinct groups - those who liked it, and those who hated it. I'll admit now I'm closer to the first group, although as I'll obviously touch on in this post, I think it was far from a perfect movie.
I enjoyed the first movie quite a bit - while it deviated from the original series, Bay did a decent job of updating the characters and bringing the story closer to home. It wasn't a perfect job (see: GMC, specifically Bumblebee; Too much human, not enough robot) but it was a good beginning. I had high hopes from things said in the production of the sequel that he would fix some of the (few) problems that plagued the first one and all the movie to continue to flesh out the Transformers Universe.
Sadly, that didn't happen quite as I had hoped.
First off, I thought the movie was a lot more watchable than a lot of people/reviews seem to. I won't say the visuals were perfect - there were more than a few scenes, especially towards the end, where the use of slow-motion and close ups, especially on the Transformers, made it incredibly hard to watch and/or understand what was going on on screen. Those scenes might actually be the rare occasions where they work better on your TV at home than on the big screen, just because of the reduced field of view and level of detail. But over all, the movie had good pacing, decent acting and what ever you might say, Bay does bring his A game to the action scenes - you just don't get action like you do in a Bay movie.
Secondly, there was more of a focus on the Transformers this time, which was also appreciated. Even in the fight scenes where there were a lot of military, most of it was in support of the Autobots, which was a good thing. Unfortunately, that focus was really limited to Bumblebee and Optimus. Even within the remaining autobots, there still wasn't enough of an introduction to the characters - I'm not even sure they ever said Sideswipe's name. Which is a shame, because he had the makings of an awesome character - but he was hardly ever used. Instead, we got "the twins". While they occasionally had some good lines, my god, they were the second worst thing that got added to this movie. (I'll touch on the first in a bit.) I think Bay was trying to compensate for killing Jazz in the first movie, but instead of bringing back an awesome jive-talking robot, he instead created two annoying wanna-be robots whose best scene was Bumblebee kicking the shit out of them before tossing them out of a desert ruin. And Ratchet, always one of my favorites, got maybe a single line in this movie. Don't even get me started on Arcee - three motorcycles, and the majority of her scenes are getting the crap kicked out of her.
Plus, what's with the "old robot" act with Jetfire? I mean, they could have done so much more with his character, but they completely ignored all of that.
And seriously, do the autobots not realize the need for Air/Sea support? You know you have Starscream, Blackout, et al to deal with, so why are you all ground based? And with Megatron in the bottom of the ocean, you think MAYBE you might want to have an autobot who can check in on him?
It's the inattention to details like this that really bring the movie down from 5 stars to 4. (There are other factors that drop it down to 3.)
However, even with the increased focus, there was still too much emphasis on Sam & Mikela. I know Megan Fox is hot, but I didn't watch this movie to see her - I watched it to see large robots beating the crap out of each other. Nor did I want to hear her whine the entire movie about him not saying he loved her - for the love of god, there are robots trying to destroy the planet. Plus, not only now did we have to worry about watching Sam & Mikela, and John Tuturro (who actually wasn't as bad in this movie as he was in the first), we had Sam's roomate. Remember when I said the twins were the second worst thing added to this movie? Yeah, he's the first. Completely unnecessary and completely annoying, he doesn't serve any real purpose other than to continue to drag this movie down a notch.
Which actually brings me to a good point - had Bay cut the comedy crap - the twins, the roomate, even Tuturro, and just focused on plot and action? Yeah, this movie actually would have been a winner. Sure, the editor needed some ritalin, but really, when you come down to it (or at least, when I come down to it) the worst parts of this movie were where Bay tried to add some humor to the film, instead of just keeping on the straight and level. Give us some robots we care about to accompany Bumblebee & Sam on their world-wide journey, cut the "get off my planet" crap by Jetfire, completely cut the roomate and tone down Tuturro's inappropriate humor, and things would have worked a lot better. To the point where I actually think you could completely re-cut this movie and do so, and improve the view-ability by a long shot.
Anyway, as much as I'm ranting here, I did think it was worth seeing. It's not a great film, but it could have been, and if you can get past the stuff that should have been cut out, there's a lot of substance there to enjoy.
I enjoyed the first movie quite a bit - while it deviated from the original series, Bay did a decent job of updating the characters and bringing the story closer to home. It wasn't a perfect job (see: GMC, specifically Bumblebee; Too much human, not enough robot) but it was a good beginning. I had high hopes from things said in the production of the sequel that he would fix some of the (few) problems that plagued the first one and all the movie to continue to flesh out the Transformers Universe.
Sadly, that didn't happen quite as I had hoped.
First off, I thought the movie was a lot more watchable than a lot of people/reviews seem to. I won't say the visuals were perfect - there were more than a few scenes, especially towards the end, where the use of slow-motion and close ups, especially on the Transformers, made it incredibly hard to watch and/or understand what was going on on screen. Those scenes might actually be the rare occasions where they work better on your TV at home than on the big screen, just because of the reduced field of view and level of detail. But over all, the movie had good pacing, decent acting and what ever you might say, Bay does bring his A game to the action scenes - you just don't get action like you do in a Bay movie.
Secondly, there was more of a focus on the Transformers this time, which was also appreciated. Even in the fight scenes where there were a lot of military, most of it was in support of the Autobots, which was a good thing. Unfortunately, that focus was really limited to Bumblebee and Optimus. Even within the remaining autobots, there still wasn't enough of an introduction to the characters - I'm not even sure they ever said Sideswipe's name. Which is a shame, because he had the makings of an awesome character - but he was hardly ever used. Instead, we got "the twins". While they occasionally had some good lines, my god, they were the second worst thing that got added to this movie. (I'll touch on the first in a bit.) I think Bay was trying to compensate for killing Jazz in the first movie, but instead of bringing back an awesome jive-talking robot, he instead created two annoying wanna-be robots whose best scene was Bumblebee kicking the shit out of them before tossing them out of a desert ruin. And Ratchet, always one of my favorites, got maybe a single line in this movie. Don't even get me started on Arcee - three motorcycles, and the majority of her scenes are getting the crap kicked out of her.
Plus, what's with the "old robot" act with Jetfire? I mean, they could have done so much more with his character, but they completely ignored all of that.
And seriously, do the autobots not realize the need for Air/Sea support? You know you have Starscream, Blackout, et al to deal with, so why are you all ground based? And with Megatron in the bottom of the ocean, you think MAYBE you might want to have an autobot who can check in on him?
It's the inattention to details like this that really bring the movie down from 5 stars to 4. (There are other factors that drop it down to 3.)
However, even with the increased focus, there was still too much emphasis on Sam & Mikela. I know Megan Fox is hot, but I didn't watch this movie to see her - I watched it to see large robots beating the crap out of each other. Nor did I want to hear her whine the entire movie about him not saying he loved her - for the love of god, there are robots trying to destroy the planet. Plus, not only now did we have to worry about watching Sam & Mikela, and John Tuturro (who actually wasn't as bad in this movie as he was in the first), we had Sam's roomate. Remember when I said the twins were the second worst thing added to this movie? Yeah, he's the first. Completely unnecessary and completely annoying, he doesn't serve any real purpose other than to continue to drag this movie down a notch.
Which actually brings me to a good point - had Bay cut the comedy crap - the twins, the roomate, even Tuturro, and just focused on plot and action? Yeah, this movie actually would have been a winner. Sure, the editor needed some ritalin, but really, when you come down to it (or at least, when I come down to it) the worst parts of this movie were where Bay tried to add some humor to the film, instead of just keeping on the straight and level. Give us some robots we care about to accompany Bumblebee & Sam on their world-wide journey, cut the "get off my planet" crap by Jetfire, completely cut the roomate and tone down Tuturro's inappropriate humor, and things would have worked a lot better. To the point where I actually think you could completely re-cut this movie and do so, and improve the view-ability by a long shot.
Anyway, as much as I'm ranting here, I did think it was worth seeing. It's not a great film, but it could have been, and if you can get past the stuff that should have been cut out, there's a lot of substance there to enjoy.