Movie Review – “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”

Reviewed by Gary Pollard (first aired on RTHK Radio 4’s “Morning Call”)

A review of a movie like “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” may be superfluous. What critical criteria can you honestly hope to apply to a movie that is based on a set of Hasbro toys?

There had been marketing of toys based on movies before, but this began with a toy that was a neat concept, and that people were determined to turn into as many franchises as possible.

In a coincidence that George Orwell could not have imagined, the toys hit the store shelves in 1984. They are plastic robots that can be twisted and rearranged to become vehicles, assorted devices, or animals. There’s even one Transformer that turns into the Death Star from “Star Wars”.

In order to make the toys make sense, Hasbro hired a couple of writers to come up with a story that would give kids some clues on how to play with them. In that story the Transformers come from the planet Cybertron. They are split into good guys and bad guys: the heroic Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, and the evil Decepticons, led by Megatron.

Marvel Comics introduced one version of the Transformers story. A cartoon TV series for kids introduced another slightly different one. They varied in the details, but essentially both included the Transformers coming to Earth for one reason or another and waging war with one another on our planet.

The concept has gone through a lot of incarnations since then, finally making it to the big screen in what we might laughably call live-action form in 2007.

Directed by Michael Bay it was more of a collection of promotional concepts than it was a movie. Hasbro made deals with dozens of companies, introduced a viral marketing campaign, arranged for comic book prequels to be released, as well as new toys and books, The company also arranged as much product placement in the movie as it could, most notably with GM and eBay.

To the dismay of those who believe cinema is a great art form, it grossed roughly US$708 million worldwide, making it the thirtieth most successful film ever and the fifth most successful of 2007. And it is trash. Everything in it is product. And that includes most of the actors.

But, of course, it made a ton of money, even if many came out of it feeling cheated, so a sequel arrives in the form of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen “

Being in a bit of a hurry, I went to a fast food restaurant before entering the cinema. There was a child of about eight there with his favourite Transformer toy, obviously planning to take it into the cinema. That eight year old kid deserved a better movie than this. While I was watching the film, another child next to me was clearly getting bored. And yet it was people of his age it was all aimed at.

As “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” was being prepared there was a writers strike in Hollywood. Of course, that doesn’t need to have posed any obstacles here because there is barely anything involving any layer of craft or skill in the writing. Ehren Kruger, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci did the cut and paste job that passes for story creation here.

“Revenge of the Fallen” begins two years after Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and the Autobots have saved the human race from those evil Decepticons. With a title like “Revenge of the Fallen” you can be sure that while the Decepticons may be down they are not out.

Sam is concentrating on his first day at college. His girlfriend, Mikaela (Megan Fox) is concentrating on getting into the tightest shorts and tee-shirt she can find. As I said, everything here is product, and Fox is packaged as sex bomb. This is apparent from the very first shot of her. In the first movie she had her body suggestively arched as she looked under the hood of a car. In this one she is crouched over the seat of a bicycle, hot panted derriere pointed to the lens. When we see her in close-up her lips are so covered in red gloss it looks as if the make-up department dripped red candle wax on them. It’s as if Michael Bay thinks that all you have to do to create a sex-bomb product is shoot her in the style of Maxim, or some other not so high quality men’s magazine.

In terms of the robot story, well there’s a bad robot under the sea. His buddies want to bring him back to life. There’s a good robot who gets defeated in a fight and apparently killed. Sam Witwicky wants to bring him back to life. To do that he needs a shard of something or other. But the bad robots also want the shard so they can smash up our pyramids and find the machine underneath which will basically switch our sun off. Oh, none of this matters for an instance.

There aren’t any human characters you can care about, so everyone plays their role for laughs. It’s one of those movies that so unsure of its ability to create any emotion it just sends emotion up.

There is lots of noise, a smidgeon of coarseness, two racially dubious robots who talk to each other in jive talk, a reappearance by John Turturro as Agent Simmons, lots of swirling gleaming metal, loud music from Steve Jablonsky that seems to be taking steroids so it can sound like Hans Zimmer having a fit.

Here’s a question. What’s more boring than those kung fu films with fights that feel like they are dragging on for half an hour at a time? The answer is: a movie in which computer generated robots bash each other for what seems like half an hour at a time. And they have plenty of time to do it. You have to sit through two hours and twenty seven minutes of this garbage.

Teen fan boys will defend it, although they will probably regret it once they grow hair on their upper lip. Bay should be made to apologise to the kids out there who probably could imagine better stories themselves while playing with their own Transformers. It’s all big, dumb and clumsy, and that’s about all it is. It’s also apparently pretty much all Michael Bay is capable of.