Review: Transformers-Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

[Homer Yen]

Transformers 2: They're Loud and They're Proud
by Homer Yen
(c) 2009

I'm sure that many of us remember the cheesily-animated, Saturday
morning cartoon where robots could transform into all manner of
vehicles like cars and tanks and airplanes.  And, in the theme song,
the lyrics declared: "Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil
forces of the Decepticons."  Autobots good; Decepticons bad.

In a sense, all of that Saturday morning goodness has been preserved
for the Transformers sequel.  Well, the animation/visual delivery has
certainly evolved a thousand-fold since those 80s cartoons.  But the
goofy dialogue and the one-liners and the improbability brings me back
to my childhood.  Autobots still found a way to win, Starscreen found
a way to reinforce his image as a bungling lieutenant, and Saturday
mornings was just mindless fun.

We are at the height of the summer and moviegoers look for a
combination of low-cost entertainment coupled with high levels of
escapism.  These Hollywood execs certainly know that and this time
around, they give us even more battling robots; more action sequences;
and more special effects than you can absorb in one sitting.
Particularly wild was one of the final scenes where a brave hero
scales the great pyramid as he pursues a behemoth of a robot in the
hopes of helping mankind avoid annihilation.

Why is humankind in danger of being destroyed?  The lore behind the
battle between Autobots and Decepticons is brought to light in this
installment.  The robotic race needs "Energon" to survive.  This
energy source is harvested by a special device that sucks up the power
of the sun, thereby destroying it in the process.  A "prime directive"
of sorts forbade the robotic race from destroying suns if it would
harm other life forms.  Somewhere along the way, a faction of robots
began to ignore that mandate, which created the civil war that is
mentioned in the lyrics of the Transformers theme song.

The bottom line is that the Decepticons will stop at nothing to secure
the energon by destroying Earth's son.  The Autobots, working in
conjunction with the humans, do everything they can to foil their
plan.

That's all fine and good.  But, given the enormity of the task, it
failed to capitalize on what could have been a wonderful story arc.  I
think about monster trilogies like "Star Wars" and "The Lord of the
Rings" and even "Pirates of the Caribbean".  Those were operatic
pieces that soared with emotion and triumph.  And I think that somehow
"The Transformers" could have also taken a similar approach.  In fact,
it needed to.  The robots seemed more like toy tie-ins rather than
Messiahs.  The film is virtually bereft of character development.
Yet, it is quite a spectacle to behold.  Robots transform from one
form to another with more reckless abandon.  An all-out battle at the
end of the film between the good guys and the bad guys is lots of fun
to watch.  Optimus Prime opening a can of whoop-a** on Megatron is
better than watching the MMA.  Sure, I liked the first Transformers
movie better.  But, this is the definition of a summer film.

Grade:	B-

S:	1 out of 3
L:	0 out of 3
V:	2 out of 3