Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Reviews

[f2f]

This one is by Mike Kermode and is by far the gentler one:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermo...rs_190609.html

This one is by Ebert, and contains the following paragraph:

If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...IEWS/906239997

[DJSapp]

Not surprising. Then again, everyone was pretty shocked that he didn't cunt up the first one too badly. Lighting doesn't strike twice, I guess.

[pechelman]

compare that to his original review and its not clear whats different

i thought the first was a pile of crap and fairly aptly described by how Ebert describes this new one as a; "horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments."

then again, i guess im not in the popular opinion

[toast2266]

I'm always amused when people bitch about transformers because it lacks a "plot" or "good acting." Anyone who goes to see a movie like that for the acting and storyline is missing the point. The story is just there to link one glorified explosion to the next, and the explosions in transformers were the best that money could buy.

I haven't seen the second one yet, but I look forward to it. I expect my brain to go mildly numb, things will blow up, and I'll be happy. If I want to watch something intelligent, then I will look elsewhere.

And for the record, Ebert gave two thumbs up to "Knowing" a few months back, so that guy doesn't know his ass from a hole in the wall.

[pointedem]

^ Thank you.

[Labcabin]

Megan Fox

[warthog]

Megan Fox

She could spend the whole movie dressed as the flying nun, and it would still be worth the $9. Plot? WTF? I want hot chicks, cool CGI, and e'splosions. Plots are for feel good Romantic Comedy or drama.

[NorthernSpotted...]

I expect my brain to go mildly numb, things will blow up, and I'll be happy.

Megan Fox

Yeah, but if you have a case of beer, some fire works, and jerry can full of gasoline you can have the same experience without even leaving in the house. Throw in the interenet and you'll even get your Megan Fox fix.

[Tippster]

So there's this internet thingy called bittorrent....

it's free.

[toast2266]

Yeah, but if you have a case of beer, some fire works, and jerry can full of gasoline you can have the same experience without even leaving in the house.

Those are things that I can never (ever) turn down, but sometimes you've gotta mix things up a bit.

[f2f]

And for the record, Ebert gave two thumbs up to "Knowing" a few months back, so that guy doesn't know his ass from a hole in the wall.

i reject your critique of Ebert due to poor grammar.

next!

[NorthernSpotted...]

Fixed it for ya...

So there's this internet thingy called bittorrent....

it's illegal.

I always knew you were of suspect moral character, Tip.

[toast2266]

i reject your critique of Ebert due to poor grammar.

next!

I reject your criticism of my critique of the critic as being pretentious...

[wi3dzmin]

20% on rottentomatoes.

Reviews are awesome.

I hated every 149 minutes. This is so bad it's immoral. Michael Bay is a time-sucking vampire who will feast off your lost time. This is why the movie is so long.

[Tippster]

Fixed it for ya...



I always knew you were of suspect moral character, Tip.

A long time ago I made a choice - to be part of the problem, not part of the solution. I'll pay $$ for a good film, but awful movies are too much fun not to steal.

[toast2266]

saw it this afternoon...

Its true, the plot ruined it. Of course I mean that there was too much plot; the whole middle of the movie where they tried to explain what was happening was more or less a waste. They also decided to put in a couple of jar-jar-binks sort of characters that I could have done without. The beginning and end were pretty good though. Lots of shit blew up, robots beat the shit out of each other, and there were lots of slo-mo jiggling boobs.

Overall, not as good as the first one, but still mindlessly entertaining.

[Tunco]

The Jar Jar-ish bits, where they the illiterate 'black' robots?

[grapedrink]

hopefully this film will flop and someone else can take over the franchise and do it right but this movie will probably make a billion dollars... ah don't worry dec 19th is only a few months away..





"The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!" James Cameron cried Tuesday as he strode onto a stage -- with his 3-D glasses on -- to unveil the first publicly shown clips from his $300 million 3-D sci-fi actioner "Avatar."

The fittingly epic film promo literally added an extra dimension to Fox's presentation at the ongoing Cinema Expo.

"Three years ago, I stood up here and said the 3-D renaissance is coming," Cameron said. "And from what we've seen in the business, we can now say it has arrived."


http://marketsaw.blogspot.com/

[summit]

"I could have done something much more productive with that 2.5 hours... such as banging my head against a wall!" -My friend who has been waiting for this movie for months

Coherency was completely absent from the script, and I suspect that *MASSIVE* quantities of cocaine were involved in the creation. I'm talking a couple of kilos here. It's not that there was a lame plot, it's that nothing made sense at all. We were so confused at many points, I turned to my friend and found him looking back in utter confusion. The movie jumped around so much and the dialog did nothing to clarify anything. At one point, the movie jumped from Washington DC, to Arizona, to Egypt in about 3 seconds with no explanation other than a reference to "spaceportation" a couple minutes later. Well, I guess that's better than yet another 30 minutes of this abortion of a movie movie to explain it.

Transformers II! Steaming turds in disguise!

Seriously, had we not paid $9.50 a piece, we would have left. The moment the credits rolled and Michael Bay's name came up, I gave a good yell, "should be banned from Hollywood." Seriously, every cliche Hollywood ever came up with was crammed in this movie. Every aspect of the move is melodramatic, campy, and completely overdone. I couldn't take it anymore. I started laughing uncontrollably at many points in the movie that were supposed to be heartwrenching drama or armrest grabbing excitement. All I could think of was this clip from South Park:
[ame="http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155700"]Those Aren't Ideas, They're Special FX - Clips - South Park Studios[/ame]

We sat around trying to think of something worse that we had seen recently. We couldn't think of anything. This was far worse than The Day the Earth Stood Still or 28 Months Later. This movie would have been perfect fodder for Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Seriously, who writes a line like, "I am directly beneath the enemy's scrotum!"??? And we didn't even get so much as a side boob shot of Megan Fox. Not even the cool shots of US military toys could make up for it. The 1980s kids cartoon was better and more thoughtful. This movie licks giant metal scrotum.

* out of *****

[f2f]

Ebert responds to toast2266

ps: i did not expect to see this at the end of the article:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRS90V8BQGo"]YouTube - Robot Chicken: Baysplosions!!![/ame]

[Steven S. Dallas]

mindlessly entertaining.

I'm not sure what this means. Movies that give you nothing to think about are boring as fuck, and that's the worst thing a movie can be. I thought "Knowing" was OK; it at least presented some actual ideas.

If I was really into making CGI, I would probably have loved Transformers; as it is, they're just fake robots making fake explosions. If you want to actually impress or entertain me, I need real giant robots making real explosions- that's actually cool, not just a facsimile of something cool. You may not agree with whatever themes and concepts and ideas a movie presents, but at least they're real.

[toast2266]

f2f - I never said the movie was good by good movie standards (as Ebert is defending against) - I just said that its entertaining. Obviously its not in the same category as some critically acclaimed film (I think he mentioned casablanca). He keeps referring to it as a "film", whereas I would differentiate between a "film" (something film majors watch, that is intended to be thought provoking and "good") and a "movie" (like transformers, that is purely intended to entertain).

SSD - I like fireworks too, which I would also call mindlessly entertaining. They're not thought provoking, and they don't present any actual ideas (unless you want to get into what they represent, which I don't). Of course (as you mentioned) they're real, which is clearly better than watching fake explosions in transformers. If someone would put on a super expensive fireworks show that played every hour that I could conveniently go watch, then I happily would pay my $9 to see that. Until then, I watch fireworks on the 4th and new years, and watch transformers to hold myself over in the meantime.

But I'm just a simpleton who likes to watch shit blow up. Now I'm going to go do my best to avoid drooling and rolling in my own feces.

[Hugh Conway]

Now I'm going to go do my best to avoid drooling and rolling in my own feces.

I dunno, with the right girl that it can be kind of fun.

[Rubicon]

This thing was targeted at a 15 year old with ADD. I think that's about all I can say about it.

I did laugh when he told the frat boy that his friend had gone to get him a tighter shirt and then asked the other guy what size shoe he wore.

[iscariot]

I thought that this review was pretty much spot on...

(The review is more entertaining that the film was)

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/...aqs.php?page=1


Bonus! Rob's Transformers 2 F.A.Q.s!
Posted at 12:00 PM Jun 26, 2009
ROTF_Poster1.jpg
It dawned on me at about 4am last night when I was finishing my review that 2500 words might not be enough to fully describe the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen experience. Additionally, I really didn't get much into the plot, as I was so busy explaining why it was a fundamentally shitty movie. So I took a little time to interview myself about the movie's story in order to help you understand what RotF is all about. Hope it helps!

Are there honestly 46 new Transformers in the movie?
I have no fucking clue. It's impossible to tell most of them apart except for Optimus and the Racist Twins (there's another yellow Autobot who I constantly thought was Bumblebee). There could be 46, or there could be 12. I honestly would believe 12 if someone had said that.

What is the status of the Transformers at the beginning of the film?
The Autobots have joined the military to hunt down the Decepticons. We're told the Decepticons are "doing things," but they appear to be hiding peacefully when the Autobots show up and brutally murder them.

What?
Yeah. The Decepticons aren't apparently doing anything, then the Autobots show up, the Decepticons run for their goddamn lives, and the Autobots hunt them down and brutally murder them. It's kind of weird.


Why is the U.S. military helping them?
Supposedly to help keep the Transformers a secret from the public. Although since the climax of the last film was a massive firefight involving 50-foot robots and took place over five miles of downtown Los Angeles and the beginning of this film wrecks several miles of Shanghai, China, they seem to be incredibly shitty at their job.

How does the U.S. military help them?
Well, not at all, actually. They just kind of come along with guns and stuff, and act like they're going to help, but the Autobots do all the work.

Why is the U.S. military in this movie at all, then?
Because Michael Bay has a huge erection for jets and tanks and aircraft carriers and considers giant robots only a necessary evil for the film. At least 15 full minutes of the film's 150-minute run time is nothing but footage of jets and tanks and planes without any robots or actual action whatsoever.

How is Sam Witwicky dragged back into the fight?
Well, he finds a fragment of the Allspark shard. You know, the Allspark that he spent all last movie being told he shouldn't give to Megatron, but when he gave it to Megatron, it killed Megatron. That one. Anyways, the shard makes the Beef see symbols and act like more of an spaz than usual.

So the Decepticons want the shard? Why?
Uh... to bring Megatron back to life?

What?
That's what they said.

But the Allspark killed Megatron in the first movie.
Yes.

...and now it can also bring him back to life.
It's very powerful, this Allspark.

Uh-huh. So what's their plan to get it?
They send a small R/C car who talks like Joe Pesci in Casino to get it.

Shouldn't they have sent Starscream or somebody?
Look, there's another Allspark shard and get that one anyways, so it doesn't matter.

Well, then why do they give a shit about Sam?
The symbols. In his head. That the shard of the Allspark gave him.

They weren't in the other shard?
Apparently not.

So how do the Decepticons plan to get the symbols, I guess?
Well, the Decepticons have very cunningly created a hot chick robot who they enrolled in the same college and put in the same astronomy class as Sam. And they made her a huge slut.

Wait.
Waiting.

There's a slutty Decepticon?
Yeah, she's a real ho. The Decepticons apparently have an incredibly powerful slut-making program, because she has it down, man. Anyways--

Didn't Sam touch the shard and get the symbols stuck in his head on his first day of college?
Yes.

So the Decepticons made a slutty robot to attend his college and enrolled her in classes and put her in on-campus housing just in case Sam ended up being important at some point in the future?
Apparently. It was an elaborate plan, but it sure paid off.

How so?
Well, not at all. The slut-bot made out with him for a little bit then immediately tried to kill him, neither for any apparent motive or gain.

It sounds preposterous.
Doesn't matter, because the Decepticons use the shard piece they do have to resurrect Megatron! He's back! Ooo! Scary!

Why is this scary? All he wanted was the Allspark, and now it's gone.
...because he has a boss! He's called the Fallen, because he's so evil! He has an evil plan to use a machine on Earth to blow up the sun and make energon! Or something! It's not very clear.

Now you're just making shit up as you go along, aren't you?
Best not to think too much about it. Anyways, the symbols in the Beef's head are a map to where this machine exists, so the hunt is on and Sam shortly is captured by other, less slutty Decepticons in one of the many instances where Bumblebee inexplicably abandons the Beef so he can conveniently be in trouble.
Then a robot called the Doctor who speaks gibberish with a German accent shoves things up Shia's nose and gets the symbols.

That's that, then, right? The Decepticons win?
No! Because Optimus Prime saves Sam before they cut off his head, which has another treasure inside!

Really? What is that?
No one really bothers to explain this, actually. Suffice to say, the Decepticons continue to want Sam. Oh, then Optimus Prime fights three Decepticons at once and dies.

Where the hell were the other Autobots during this fight?
I don't know. They were with him before the fight, but then they disappear and show up right after he dies. But they appear sad about Optimus dying. Marginally. I mean, they don't get any screen time or dialogue to convey any feelings or anything, but there's some sad music playing for a little bit afterwards. I assume this means the robots that are off-screen are grieving.

Well, if one shard brought Megatron back to life, can't Sam just use his shard piece to resurrect Optimus?
Yes. He could.

Well?
He doesn't.

Why not?
I'm not sure exactly.

Then what the hell does he do?
He decides get those symbols that were in his head translated to figure out what the Fallen's up to.

Which Autobot does the translating?
Err... none of them. Actually, it's John Turturro.


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