Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Reviews

[iscariot]

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What. The fuck.
Yeah, since he was laid off from his super-secret government agent job, he now works in a NY deli and runs a super-popular Transformers conspiracy theory website. Like ya do.

And why couldn't an Autobot translate these symbols?
Because Bumblebee is mute and the Racist Twins are poor black robots from the slums of Cybertron who never learned how to read. It's a sad commentary on Cybertronian society. Like The Wire, actually.

Where the hell are the other Autobots?
I don't know. Away. They seem to be unable to be reached. They're probably grieving about Optimnus still. Clearly, John Turturro is the reasonable solution here.

So Turturro translates the symbols.
No, that would be silly. He does, in an incredibly bizarre series of connect-the-dots, lead them to Jetfire, an elderly and deceased Transformers whose corpse is hanging out in the Air & Space Museum.

What good is he dead?!
Ah! Remember the shard? Sam uses it to bring Jetfire back to life!

Not Optimus?
No! This way, Sam can get the symbols translated... so he can, er... find the ancient machine... that can, uh... possibly bring Optimus back to life.

You have to fucking be kidding me.
Moving on! Jetfire teleports everyone to Egypt, including some of the missing Autobots --

Wait, what? Teleports?
Yes, teleports.

Transformers don't teleport.
Jetfire does.

But -- wait a second, he's a fucking jet. He could fly everybody to Egypt, right? And that would make perfect sense for both the character and the franchise!
Well, I guess so. But he chooses not to. The point is Jetfire teleports them all to Egypt where he explains that there used to be 7 or 8 Primes, and they traveled around the galaxy blowing up suns for energon. But they never did it on planets with life.
Well, they had set the machine up on Earth and not noticed all the life running around, and one of the Primes just said fuck it, let's do it anyways. This was evil, so they called that Prime the Fallen and beat the shit out of him although he escaped.

Okay...
So that other mysterious reason that the Decepticons wanted Sam's brain? It's because it contains some very vague clues about the Matrix of Leadership, which is the device that turns on the sun-exploding machine. The Fallen needs the Matrix to blow up the sun and get his Energon.

Hold on. That's what the Matrix of Leadership does in the movie?
Yes. Works the sun-exploding machine.

I'm fuzzy on how "Leadership" covers that.
I didn't name it. But it does sound a little nicer than "Matrix of Blowing Up the Goddamn Sun."
If I may continue, in order to protect the Earth, the 6-7 other Prime hid the Matrix on Earth and made a tomb with their own bodies. Isn't that cool?


No. No it is not. If they wanted to protect Earth, why did they leave the Matrix on the planet? They're a space-faring race, they could have hid it anywhere in galaxy! Second of all, what the fuck does making a tomb of their own bodies do? Shouldn't they have stayed alive to protect the Matrix? Or finish off the Fallen? Or just not die and leave Earth and the entire Transformer race in jeopardy?
Uh...

And why hide the Matrix at all? Don't they need Energon to survive? Didn't they say they go to other lifeless planets? These idiot Primes just doomed their whole species for no fucking reason whatsoever! No wonder the Decepticons are so pissed.
...ahem. Eventually, Sam and crew find the Matrix, which instantly crumbles into dust. Sam puts the dust in a sock because he thinks it will bring Optimus back to life.

Grr.
What follows is the most spectacular part of the movie, as Sam and Mikaela try to run the several miles back to the military camp during a massive Decepticon attack where the military has dropped Optimus Prime's corpse.

Why is that awesome? They could drive back in one of the Autobots and be there in a minute or two.
They don't do that.

What?
They walk.

Of course they do. And I assume the Autobots just mysteriously disappear again until a second before a Decepticon is about to kill Sam.
Yes. Exactly.

I am already incredibly sick of this movie, and I'm just typing questions about it. Sam resurrects Optimus, Optimus kills the Fallen, end of story, right?
Pretty close. Sam dies, though.

Really?
Yeah, for a little while. But then the Transformers in heaven send him back because he still has work to do.

Fuck you.
I'm serious.

Fuck you. There's no way.
It's true. The 6-7 Primes are there in the clouds like Mufasa's head in The Lion King, and tell Sam he's awesome and he needs to live again so he can bring Optimus back to life.

I may be ill.
Then Jetfire appears out of nowhere and rips out his own heart right in front of Optimus to give him his elderly old robot powers. This makes Optimus into a flying badass who defeats the Megatron and Starscream and the Fallen in a little less than two minutes. After the last 30 minutes of the movie have been nothing but explosions -- not all of which have any obvious causes -- it's a bit disappointing.

Anything else you want to add?
Well, only that although Sam jams the Matrix of Leadership into Optimus Prime's chest to resurrect him, a Decepticon takes it out like 10 seconds later and Optimus is fine. Just a little weird, is all.

Can you give me any reason I would want to see this film in theaters?
I can't answer every question, man.

BONUS ROUND!

So it's not as bad as shitting your pants?
Marginally. I honestly had to make a pro and con list to figure it out.

Why on earth would anyone make a film about giant robots but have myriad scenes of some random douchebag's first day of college?
I don't have the faintest clue.

Could there have been more trite, less inspired song for Bumblebee to play when Sam says he's going to college than The Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited"?
No. No there couldn't.

Why can't Bumblebee talk, but the other Autobots can?
Because Bumblebee is retarded, but in a Sling Blade kind of a way. This explains how he kills the living fuck out of a Decepticon later.

Why does Sam's mom buy and consume a pot brownie?
Well, Sam's mom was in a coma for the last 30+ years, which explains how she had never heard of marijuana, and why she didn't understand the consequences of eating it even after her husband specifically told her it was a pot brownie (Sam was unfortunately conceived and born during this period). A better question is why any college student in America would be selling pot brownies at an on-campus bake sale, let alone to a middle-aged woman.

A lot was made of how Shia the Beef's hand injury was written into the film. How was this done?
Well, sometimes Shia had a huge bandage on his hand, and sometimes he didn't.

That doesn't sound "written in" at all.
Well, no actual words are used to explain it. It might be more accurate to say it "shows up sometimes."

Why would a robot need to fart, pee, or vomit? And why would it need testicles?
Michael Bay does not understand what a robot is.

What is the point of the character of Sam's college roommate, and why the fuck does he stay for the entirety of the movie?
I have no clue. He's not comedy relief, because that's covered by 90% of the Transformers themselves. He technically leads the Beef to John Turturro, but surely there could have been another way to do that. Besides, Turturro just leads them to Jetfire anyways. It's all extraneous.

Why can only a Prime kill the Fallen? Why can Jetfire teleport? Why can the Fallen wave a staff and make shit fly around? Why do actual cars and Autobots get sucked into Devastator's maw, but John Turturro and that other kid can run around?
Because... because FUCK YOU, that's why.

Can you explain Megan Fox's appeal?
Yes. She looks like a porn star and has the same acting talent as one, yet for some reason she makes mainstream movies. This tonal disconnect is what's so appealing about her.

If you had to pick a single scene that exemplifies Michael Bay's utter disdain for story and continuity, what would it be?
When five Decepticons sink to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve Megatron's corpse. A submarine tracks five "subjects" going down, and when they get there, one of the Decepticons is killed to give parts to Megatron. 5 -1 +1 = 5, right? No, because the sub somehow tracks "six" subjects coming up. Not only is this very basic math, this is the simplest of script errors. It could not possibly have been more than one page apart in the script. And yet Michael Bay either didn't care to notice or didn't give a fuck. "Math? Math is for pussies. My movies are about shit blowing up, man."

Could you sum up the film in one line of its dialogue?
"I am standing directly beneath the enemy's scrotum."

[pappag]

Holy fuck that review is priceless. Excellent find.

[summit]

Holy fuck that review is priceless. Excellent find.

agreed!!

[MarsB]

Can you explain Megan Fox's appeal?
Yes. She looks like a porn star and has the same acting talent as one, yet for some reason she makes mainstream movies. This tonal disconnect is what's so appealing about her.

Quoted for posterity. Perfect summation.

[DJSapp]

Well, much to my own personal dismay, the Mrs. finally managed to drag us our to this shitshow. I knew it was going to be bad, but holy fuck.

We're in the Air and Space museum. The one in Washington DC. When you knock down the big ass hangar door, you think you would see DC, right? Not A RANDOM AIRBASE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING DESERT? And then, they teleport to Egypt, where the Jordanian troops are coming to help (WTF? At least they got insta-gibbed so they didn't have to attempt to explain this) to go fight a big battle, but the old crotchety man robot doesn't arrive at the battle until 45 minutes into it, and he leisurely strolls up WHEN HE COULD HAVE FUCKING TELEPORTED OR FLEW DIRECTLY TO IT.

The only redeeming factor is that the Mrs. admitted I was right. This movie was seriously a series of scenes with no connection between them, and in the few scenes they did try to connect, they were linked by explosions that made you forget about the lack of coherency.

Oh, and this movie needed about 10000000000x more of that green day song. Seriously, did they really need to play that shitty ass song no less than three separate times during the film?

[El Chupacabra]

Bump because this "movie" came out on DVD, and I rented it.

I think the review that iscariot posted above really sums it all up. Holy crap, this was awful.

I paid $1 thru Redbox to watch it, and it wasn't worth it.

[doughboyshredder]

I couldn't make it past the first thirty minutes. Absolutely horrible movie, all the way around. Awful.

[toiletduck]

The reviews were the best thing about this movie. I really loved Transformers as a kid, the first movie was promising as a starting point, and then I had to sit through this abomination in the hope it'd redeem itself for shitting on my dreams. This thread getting bumped just reminds me of the pain it caused.

[crackboy]

Bump because this "movie" came out on DVD, and I rented it.

I think the review that iscariot posted above really sums it all up. Holy crap, this was awful.

I paid $1 thru Redbox to watch it, and it wasn't worth it.

i just wacthed it on redbox. and man it was awful but in a totally awesome way. you need to go in knowing its going to be awful and then get amused by how awful it is.

similar to the keanu reeves corollary

[Phill]

Bump because that review that iscariot posted is one of the funniest things i've ever read.

[PrinceMotors]

I really love that movies it was full of excitement and adventures too i prefer to give two thumbs up for it.