Film Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

It is with a heavy heart that I hereby renounce my allegiance to Michael Bay. That’s it, I’m done. He is, by far, the worst thing to happen to cinema in the last 20 years, and I’m including Paul W Anderson and Uwe Boll when making that statement. Up until now, I had defended his films. Sure, they haven’t been perfect but they have at least been cool to watch. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is not only boring but it reeks of arrogant filmmaking and disgusting stereotypes with heavily racist overtones.

Not only that, but the things you think are funny, Mr. Bay, they aren’t funny. The things you think make a good film, make a good music video.  Sure you can sustain a sequence for 3-4 minutes but where is the plot? Where is the characterisation? Are you a director or are you a special effects co-ordinator because what you consider to be a film is vastly different from the legions of directors that came before you.

The biggest problem with this film is that it is lazy and sloppy.  The writing is terrible, the characters are horrid and the logic behind the plot is just plain dumb.  Transformers should be an easy franchise to do well.  There is a rich history of the shows and comic books that are just waiting to be mined for a good story to tell.  Instead, we are given a version of Transformers that takes everything people thought was cool about them, and replaces it with everything people hated about the Star Wars prequels.  People don’t like wise crackin’ robots modelled after black stereotypes. They don’t like dogs having sex with each other for laughs, robots humping legs, mothers on pot or an hour of slow and boring so-called plot with no robots in it.  This is Transformers dammit, who the hell cares about whether the human characters can make it in college. 

The original series had human characters but they weren’t the focus, they were supporting characters.  That’s what Bay doesn’t understand.  We are going to see a movie with giant robots fighting each other.  Human characters should be secondary.  How hard is it to put robots in a robot movie?  You had a massive budget, try making a few less explosions and hire a bloody writer that knows what he is doing.

Despite the venom I now feel for Michael Bay, it wasn’t always so.  He was once a great action director.  Bad Boys and The Rock had style and were expertly crafted while also having excellent scripts as well.  Somewhere along the line, Bay lost his way and started to think that because his movies made lots of money, that they were actually good.

There are a few scenes in the film that are actually quite fun.  Many of the battles between the Autobots and Decepticons are done well. Although, I really wish that Bay would learn what a wide angle is.  For most of the battles it is hard to follow who is fighting who and it’s difficult to follow the action.  The fight between Prime and Megatron was great and mirrored the animated film quite a bit, which I enjoyed, but naturally Bay doesn’t have the balls to kill off Optimus like they did in the 80s film. 

As someone who grew up on The Transformers, i still hold out hope that someone will do it right one day.  Hopefully, when Hollywood finally realise Michael Bay is a hack and he can no longer make more sequels; some smart executive will come up with the idea of getting JJ Abrams to reboot it.  If he can revive Star Trek, he can pretty much do anything.

If you really want to waste your money you could go and see this for the cool explosion factor but if you actually care about seeing a good film, wait for TV for this one.  There are so many more far more deserving films that would like your movie going dollars. 

Oh yeah, and Megan Fox is in it and, yes, she’s hot. I Figured I should throw that in there since every other review on the planet seems to focus on her and those ever pouting lips.