Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel
In Cinemas: 25 June 2009

Sam Witwicky must evade capture by the Deception forces after they return to Earth to take him prisoner. Optimus Prime and the international armies form an alliance with Sam and join him on his mission to protect humankind from the evil Deception forces.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Let’s get something straight right off the bat. I’m not a hardcore fan of the original Transformers animated series, I watched it frequently when I was young, but never to the extent that I was obsessed with it. I was however, a pretty big fan of Michael Bays 2007 live action adaption. Under the watchful eye of producer Steven Spielberg, Bay was able to successfully combine the elements which make up an enjoyable blockbuster. It was cheesy, but given Bay’s previous films (The Rock, Bad Boys, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor) that was hardly a surprise. The point is it was fun; you couldn’t help but smile at the sight of these giant robots – expertly created by the folks at ILM – kicking the crap out of each other.

It’s a pity then, that none of it works for the sequel. Sure, the elements are there, but they don’t connect at all. They’re all separate, there’s no cohesive whole to this movie. It’s just a bunch of sequences thrown together and before you know it, there are comedic relief characters to support other characters and giant Decepticon testicles dangling in your face.

The film begins promisingly enough, with a short prologue revealing that the ancient Egyptians were the first to come in contact with the alien beings from Cybertron. This is followed by a modern day sequence establishing that the Autobots have been secretly working with the American military to find and destroy any Decepticons who are hiding on earth. These opening scenes work quite well, and certainly fooled me into thinking I was in for an enjoyable ride once again. We’re introduced to Sam (Shia LaBeouf) and Mikaela (Megan Fox) again, as well as their parents but it doesn’t take long for the film to fall apart.

Sam is heading off to college, putting a strain on his relationship with Mikaela and somewhat turning his back on Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) who requests Sam’s help.
As you might have guessed, things don’t go according to plan, especially when the Decepticons overhear some information regarding an important artifact they’re trying to obtain. The world must once again be saved by the Autobots, the American military and Sam Witwicky.

There’s no need to describe much more, as it’ll spoil the overly complicated plot…and because I’m not really sure how I’d explain it, the second half of the film makes no sense and I found myself simply sitting there, watching things move in front of me but only knowing that I was uncomfortable and confused – kind of like a baby sitting in a shitty nappy.

Okay so the plot isn’t so great, but the action is cool, right? Not really. The first film suffered from a little too much ‘shaky cam’ – meaning that during the action sequences the camera was moving so much you couldn’t tell who was who. Bay hasn’t improved on this for Revenge, there were many times I was simply watching a colored blur, squinting my eyes and trying to determine who was winning. Often the only time you’d be able to tell is because a robot would have a hilarious one liner after the battle like “I’m too old for this crap”.

To be fair, there is one sequence which was executed very well. It takes place halfway through the film and showcases Optimus Prime taking on three Decepticons in the middle of a forest. It’s exciting and shot well, you can actually see what’s going on. The location makes for some interesting eye candy as well, seeing giant robots using trees for weapons is pretty damn cool.
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to save the rest of the film. The ending in particular becomes boring after a while, it lumbers on for at least 40 minutes.

It was touted that over 40 robots duke it out in this film and most of them appear in the third act. They’re all reduced to nothing but background annoyances though, simply more CGI creations to fill the already confusing frame. There are only so many explosions an audience can take. It’s like eating a delicious cake – if you have a couple of pieces, you have time to appreciate the meal, sure you could have more, but why not save it for tomorrow? The other option is to eat the entire thing, slice after slice after slice until you’re sick and never want to eat a piece of cake again. You run to the bathroom, throwing up on the way, leaving puke all over the hallway and cursing Michael Bay for making you eat so much.

Then there’s the comedy. The initial teaser trailer for this film offered audiences the hope of a slightly darker Transformers movie. Michael Bay himself touted the movie as a lot darker than the original.

The first film had a few cheesy attempts at humour, scenes which didn’t really serve a purpose but were kind of funny anyway, plus they were spread out over the course of the movie so it didn’t really matter. Revenge of the Fallen has these scenes every five minutes and 95% of them are painfully unfunny. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a comedy snob, but I don’t think it’s really hilarious (or appropriate) when two Autobots scream out stereotypical ‘ethnic humour’ lines such as “Imm’a bust a cap in yo ass” and “dats some serious shit right there” . This is doubly un-funny when you see the appearance of these characters, which seem to have been modeled with big lips, buck teeth and large ears.

I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that Michael Bay finds humour in ethnic minorities, and these two auto bots (Skids and Mudflap) seem to help prove my point.
I’m sure it’s not intentionally racist, but I don’t think it can be denied either.

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point by now. I don’t want to come across as someone who went in expecting Citizen Kane, I didn’t! Like I said earlier, I’m a big fan of the original movie. I really wanted to enjoy myself in the theatre with Revenge of the Fallen. Unfortunately, a weak (somehow complicated) storyline, coupled with confusing action and extremely annoying side characters and attempts at humour left me wanting to leave the cinema well before the end credits.

As a fan, it was such a disappointment. You can laugh at how bad Wolverine is, Revenge is just a little sad.

Half a star out of five .