Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

A minor improvement over its nigh abominable predecessor, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen follows Shia LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky as he finds himself once again embroiled in the ongoing battle between the peaceful Autobots and the villainous Decepticons – with the chaotic storyline kicked into gear after Sam inadvertently becomes a vessel for thousands of years worth of Cybertron history (thus paving the way for the return of a mythical transformer known as The Fallen). It’s as convoluted a set-up as one might’ve expected based on both the original movie’s trajectory and on filmmaker Michael Bay’s admittedly consistent body of work, which – for better or worse – ensures that fans of this sort of thing will find exceedingly little to complain about (and, conversely, cements the film’s failure among detractors). There’s also little doubt that the movie is at its worst during its more overtly action-oriented moments, as Bay’s notoriously kinetic directorial choices (eg rapid-fire editing, swooping camerawork, etc, etc) – coupled with the absurdly articulated nature of the title creatures – transforms such interludes into an almost meaningless jumble of colorful images (with the one exception to this a relatively decent fight scene that transpires within an open clearing). And while the cast boasts such genuinely talented folks as LaBeouf, John Turturro, and Josh Duhamel, Bay’s relentlessly slick sensibilities leave the actors with little to do but wear expressions of either awe-struck fascination or horrified alarm (and it’s not surprising to note that only Megan Fox seems completely at home within the pervasively inauthentic atmosphere). Despite its myriad of deficiencies (eg the presence of two jaw-droppingly racist bots, an ongoing emphasis on eye-rollingly juvenile instances of humor, etc, etc), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen generally remains far more watchable than it has any right to be – yet it’s just as clear that the movie’s ludicrous running time of 150 minutes (!) ensures that it runs out of steam somewhere around the halfway mark. The film’s ridiculous overlength is never more evident than in the build-up to the frenetic climax, as scripters Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman pepper the proceedings with a whole host of superfluous elements – most of which, unfortunately, seem to involve Turturro’s character – that seem to exist only to add needless minutes to the final product. The expectedly excessive battle that closes the movie only cements Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as a hopelessly overblown piece of work, and it ultimately goes without saying that films of this ilk should top out at 90 minutes (at the most).

** out of ****