{"id":4259,"date":"2009-06-24T21:01:27","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T13:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=4259"},"modified":"2018-03-14T11:24:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T03:24:59","slug":"transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/06\/24\/transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen\/","title":{"rendered":"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-transformers2\" Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen<\/a> (2009) \u2013 <\/em>at Cathay Cineleisure. I\u2019ll say just this: if you want to get through a Michael Bay movie, you have to accept some things \u2013 that the film is going to be packed with seamlessly computer generated imagery, there\u2019s going to be lots of explosions, camera quick-cuts, and too many indulgent moments that the director is just plain showing off.<\/p>\n

To be honest, I didn\u2019t think Transformers 2<\/em> was that bad, especially if you consider that the review of the film in The Straits\u2019 Times Life section today rated it half<\/em> a star out of 5 stars. There\u2019s stuff that jaded sci-fi and fantasy film fans won\u2019t have seen too often before, or at least not as well done as it\u2019s here.<\/p>\n

Like the Island of an aircraft carrier exploding and then nearly splitting in two right in the middle. There was a similar scene in The Sum of All Fears <\/em><\/a>from a few years ago, but Bay\u2019s version is far more stunning visually. Or a Decepticon with huge wheels rolling down a highway.<\/p>\n

The action scenes are kinetic too. Human weaponery and equipment are largely sidestepped in this sequel except for the last major battle involving a navy cruiser with a railgun. For much of the movie\u2019s action sequences, it\u2019s Autobots and Decepticons going mano-a-mano, two-on-one, three-on-one \u2013 just about every combination of a robot gang bang you can think of.<\/p>\n

The cast of human characters are really supplements in the Transformers films. Most of the leading cast return. Shia LaBeouf returns as Sam and is as fun to watch as he did before, though the whole subplot of him being imbued with alien powers is just silly. Megan Fox still plays Mikaela and has even less to do in this film but still gets a lot of screen time. Outside wearing low-cuts and displaying her bod, she contributes nothing to the film. It\u2019s fun though to see Sam and her running, jumping, avoiding, explosions to the point she\u2019s covered in dirt and grime \u2013 but her lipstick coverage is still flawless. John Turturro rounds up the trio returning as ex-<\/em>Agent Simmons, and he gets the film\u2019s best lines.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, a couple of actors who were merely annoying in the first film are just outright gyrating in the second film now. I\u2019m referring specifically to Sam\u2019s parents played by Kevin Dunn and Julie White. Just awful. Their inane dialog about the irrelevant \u2013 I\u2019m guessing in a vain\u00a0 attempt to add context and character development \u2013 will feel like hot pokers stabbed through your ear holes.<\/p>\n

This time round too there\u2019s another irritating human fly in the form of Sam\u2019s roommate Leo, played by Ram\u00f3n Rodr\u00edguez. The guy over acts, is given stupid lines, and has no significant role in the story but he shows up a lot in the film.<\/p>\n

There\u2019re a lot more Transformers bots in the sequel too: all the \u2018bots who survived the first film return, and are joined by a huge cast of new bots. However, it\u2019s crazily difficult to tell at any point during a fight scene what is going on \u2013 when all the Decepticons and several of the Autobots all look alike, and that the camera seems to be controlled by crazed chimpanzees on steroids. Only Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and the two new twins Mudflap and Skids are distinguishable and only by virtue of the colors of their armor.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

On the overall, one just has to accept Bay for what he can do, and what he just can\u2019t. Given a huge budget, he can make visually stunning stuff. You just have to accept that it\u2019s not deep, and just not especially memorable.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) \u2013 at Cathay Cineleisure. I\u2019ll say just this: if you want to get through a Michael Bay movie, you have to accept some things \u2013 that the film is going to be packed with<\/p>\n

Read More Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","wpcat-10-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}