Transformers: I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up

I don’t really feel the need to review the plot lines or story development of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. When the second credit of a movie is “In Association with Hasbro” I think it is fair to assume that you aren’t at a screening of Schindler’s List. While there are a few points I would like to make with regard to the film, in general it was fairly entertaining although way too long.

I don’t think any movie critics have written anything even remotely nice about the second Transformers film. From what I have seen, the reviews have been critical of the human character development, the realism of the story, the confusion of the action sequences and the racial undertones of two of the robots. While these are fair critiques, I think it is also important to remember that this is a fantasy story about robots from outer space based on the look and packaging of toys from the 80’s. I mean, can a paid movie critic really say with a straight face “the plot was unrealistic and over-the-top.”

This Transformers film picks up shortly after the previous film ended. Sam is going to college, Sam’s hot girlfriend is the paint girl at her dad’s chopper store (I too like to paint in Daisy Duke’s while posing seductively), Danny from Las Vegas has been promoted to Major, and the good-guy Transformers (Autobots) are fighting top secret missions against the bad-guy Transformers (Decepticons).

As you can probably guess, the Transformers fight, Sam runs, Danny yells Transformer names exactly as they are printed on the toy packages and pretty much everything is blown up in a spectacular manner. As I mentioned previously, you don’t go to this movie to gain insight into orbital mechanics or military strategy.

I thought one of the most interesting plot aspects of this movie was the character of Alice who is a classmate of Sam’s at college. Alice is a hot chick who comes on to Sam and eventually reveals herself to be a Decepticon with a tail that has a tongue on the end. The only reason I mention this part of the movie is because it has a decidedly Terminator feel to it. On the one hand the Decepticons needed the information from Sam’s mind; on the other hand he simply got the information off the shard on his jacket. Why wouldn’t Alice just kill Sam? And as she had him wrapped up in that metal tail with a tongue on the end, what was her plan to take him somewhere if she was not planning to kill him? Wouldn’t a hot chick with a metal tail carrying around another student raise some suspicions?

Of course, the character of Alice was never seen again in the movie and although it caused relationship friction between Sam and his hot girlfriend, the idea that Transformers can also replicate human cells was never re-visited. In my quest to have every movie this summer cross over, I would have made the character of Alice be an Arnold Schwarzenegger look-a-like and then maybe Sam could have had a class with John Connor. Of course, if Alice was Schwarzenegger than the sexual tension would have been really awkward and the metal tail sneaking out of the underpants scene would have been a head-scratcher.

A good portion of this Transformer movie was set in the Middle East. I am mentioning this because a good portion of the first Transformer movie was also set in the Middle East. In fact, if you look closely the village in this movie looks a lot like the village in the first movie. Both times it was blown to smithereens. Both times there did not appear to be any villagers around. While the battle scenes were exciting and loud and fun, I did notice that for some reason all of our (The United States of America) artillery seems to come with a firecracker attached. If you look at the explosions in this movie, every time a bomb is dropped, a missile is fired or a tank fires off a shell the resulting explosion is topped off with a sparkler. Are we buying all of our artillery from the Koreans now? I can’t imagine that there is a Joint Chiefs memo floating around that states “war getting tired, explosions need more showmanship.”

One advantage of setting a movie in the Middle East is the unnecessary filming of Petra. This is a really cool site in Jordan and always worthy of the big screen but what was the purpose of that scene? I personally think it is just bad business to have secrets of the Universe be hidden behind what is portrayed as dry-wall. With all of the technology of Robots from outer space, they hid the key to the sun-sucking machine behind a layer of drywall in the desert? And if the Autobots are supposed to be wise and smart then why would they secretly hide the key to the machine a mere two miles away?

At any rate, this scene would have been a good time to have Indiana Jones in the background doing the three challenges (Penitent, penitent, only a penitent man shall pass).

Skipping to the end of the film, the Decepticons have this sun-sucking machine that they built but was hidden underneath the Pyramids of Giza. Long story short, the Decepticons get the key to the machine and when they turn it on it starts right up and Megatron (Leader of the Decepticons) announces “we will suck the power from your sun with this machine…as soon as it is ready to fire in about five minutes.” Amazing! Even with extra-terrestrial technology that was created to suck the power of the sun there is still a long period of warming up.

So, as you probably guessed, five minutes is more than enough down time for the Autobots to blow up the machine and save Earth. For me, this immediately begged the question why didn’t they just build this thing on another planet? If the Transformers were on Mercury (which is currently vacant) they could turn on the sun-sucker, let it warm up, have a couple cocktails and harness the power of the sun at their leisure.

Don't worry, the film is fun. Stuff blows up, Megan Fox runs in slow motion, John Turturro is good comic relief and Optimus Prime is still the second coolest baby name I can think of (Money Jackson is still number one).

Warren