Spoiler Warning: Post contains major spoilers for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

One Sentence Review

Transformers, a good film not in disguise

My Thoughts

My initial impression of Transformers 2 was that it was a lot better than the first film, but I still don’t like the design of the Transformers compared to the original cartoon. For fans of the original cartoon like myself, there are a ton of references which will be familiar like the Matrix of Leadership, seekers as well as plot elements that seem ripped from the cartoon. Despite these homages, I still wish the designs of the transformers were closer to the originals where possible.

In terms of the plot itself, while relatively coherent there are a few elements that made me wonder what Sam was thinking, mostly surrounding the all spark fragment that he obtains, and for someone as overly analytical as myself these detracted somewhat from the film, though I still enjoyed it.

First problem the allspark fragment has  just caused household appliances to come to life and attack you so do you a) hand it over to the autobot in your garage for safe keeping or b) give it to your girlfriend. Call me stupid but I would give it to the autobot, as he is more likely to be able to take care of it and keep it safe.

Second problem, Optimus Prime has just been killed by a resurrected Megatron who appeared after the decepticons stole a different All Spark fragment suggesting this was used to bring him back to life. So do you mention this fact to the autobots and try to use it to repair Optimus Prime, or do you use it to awaken a transformer you know nothing about who a captured decepticon guided you to. Once again I think I would go with the former option.

Another problem was with the use of Sams parents who were kidnapped by the decepticons, then later release them to “trap” Sam when he is already being chased. Sam at this point had been in hiding for a while as the decepticons were after him. Now if I was in charge of the decepticons and had captured his parents, I would announce to the world I had them and used them to Blackmail Sam, threatening to torture and kill them if he doesn’t turn himself in to them within a set time frame. Even if I did not use this tactic, I would at least keep hold of them in order to make Sam come to me, rather than free and chase them.

Other problems I had with the film was that unnecessary humour was put into the film, in what I assume was an attempt to lighten the dark tone of parts of it. Now I have no problem with odd jokes, but the first 20-30 minutes of the film at times felt more like a bad teen comedy than an action film. There were also similar elements crow-barred in later on, notably the whole Wheelie is a leg humping dog bit.

Another issue I had was that Megan Fox’s character Mikaela was largely superfluous to the plot, and to me seemed to be included simply so that there was some attractive “scenery” in some shots. I could not be bothered with the whole Sam, Mikaela romance sub-plot and if she had been removed entirely from the film I doubt that it would suffer that much, and it may have been possible to get the run time down to around 2 hours.

My final issue was that it was hard to understand what some of the transformers were saying and I would have welcomed subtitles, which is what I will be using when I get the DVD.

All gripes aside though I did thoroughly enjoy the film, I thought the actions scenes were well implemented, and the plot while flawed was enjoyable and kept me interested throughout the film. While the film is long at over 2 hours I did not think that the film dragged though admittedly parts could have been tightened up.

The thing about action films is that as long as the plot is half decent and not incoherent is that the plot does not matter, what does matter is the quality of the set pieces and these were top notch though I thought the final battle was a little short given the build up to it and what was at stake. The Bottom line is, if you enjoyed the first transformers film you will enjoy this and the reverse is also true.

While Revenge of the Fallen is not the best film in terms of plot, it is an enjoyable romp with Giant Robots, and at the end of the day that is what I went into the cinema expecting to see and so was not disappointed.

My Rating

8/10