Transformers 2 Revenge of the Fallen reviews of reviews.
Yesterday morning I was hyped up for the new Transformers movie only to see tons of scathing and terrible reviews of the film. I still went and watched it and I am wondering if the reviewers even saw the same film I did. The reviewers (apparently stuck to their deadlines and not worried about the quality of their work) missed a great many things. In fact at more than one point in the film I wondered if they even watched the whole thing.
Let me address a few items, first from Ain’t it cool news
“Michael
Bay wanted his big cast iron balls in the film and there they are, dangling off
of Devastator in one of the film’s defining dramatic moments.”
Not sure about that “defining dramatic moment” part there, but the “balls” in question are there for two seconds and is a set up for a joke by John Turturro. Know something, it was pretty funny to and not out of place as some people claim. But honestly, if Turturro hadn't of said something I doubt most people would have caught it at all. One of those "not there until someone points it out " things. And of course just like Dr. Manhattan’s blue dong the reviewer makes us believe the “balls” are all over the screen for an abundance of the film when they really aren’t Personally I think this (and Dr. Manhattan’s Dong) is proof Homophobia is alive and well and that if you make anything close to reference to male gentiles, well be prepared for some bad press from the bloggers.
Oh just for reference the “balls” were wrecking balls off of one of the constructicons.
"Then
you get a close up. And they each have bug eyes and a gold tooth."
Of course he fails to mention also that Skids has an uncanny resemblance to Bugs Bunny. Not that it takes away from the tooth or the speech patterns but I found that one fact interesting. Still the two are annoying as can be, so maybe I will let that part go.
But this leads to some things that stick out from this review first up:
"It’s
called TRANSFORMERS. And yet, 90% of the film is spent entirely with the above
collection of tools and occasionally Bumblebee"
Hate to disagree but most of the film is spent with Prime and the humans. The twins do get plenty of screen time but nowhere near 90%. Of course this could be Hyperbole to make humor that is what I thought until I read this and then saw the movie:
"It’s
more about Shia and Megan running around, collecting incompetent sidekicks while
half-assing their way through an Indiana Jones plot."
I have to ask at what point did they collect sidekicks? That never happened plain and simple. They found Jetfire, who is anything but a sidekick (he was a seeker, don’t want to spoil that for everyone). Megan Fox captured a small Decepticon, maybe that is who he is talking about, really I am not sure. Shia and Megan were looking for the Matrix of leadership, not sidekicks. Did he even watch the whole film. Then comes this:
"...it
can’t scrape together enough of a story to be, you know, somewhat
comprehensible. I mean there are a few story elements here that get strung
together into something resembling a MOVIE, but there’s zero through line that
anyone can explain."
Spoiler:
Sam finds a left over piece of the All Spark that fills him with symbols and knowledge (which. Like the last film, set off a bunch of mechanical items into mean little robots that attack everything). Megatron is rebuilt and goes back to his master, the Fallen. The Fallen reveals that the knowledge the all spark cannot be destroyed just transformed. Sam has a bit of a meltdown do to his new knowledge (disproving Einstein in the process). Later he discovers he has knowledge of the history of the Transforms thought lost which Megatron tries to get from his brain. Prime tries to protect him from Megs and is destroyed, Sam runs as Megs reveals the existence of the Transformers to the world. Sam figures out the symbols in his head are leading him to the Matrix of Leadership but is being hunted by everyone after megs says he won’t destroy the world if Sam is brought to him.
Ok don’t want to spoil too much and I left out the sexy Transformer chick at Sam's college, Ravage infiltrating the navy base and a whole host of other stuff. Reviewers might catch all that if they PAID ATTENTION TO THE MOVIE THEY ARE REVIEWING!
It’s like the script was written in one sitting on a Morphine bender, with the writer nodding in and out of consciousness, thinking that he’d already written what happened in his dreams and simply picking back up where the dream left off.
I think this is much closer to how this reviewer reviews his movies than the writers.
OK I will stop on AICN for now and move on to another reviewer, Roger Ebert:
"One
of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine."
Once again, did people not pay attention in this film, Go to your local Wal-Mart and find the toy for Wheelie, does he look in any way shape or form “dog like” that is the Transformer who Humps Megan Fox’s Leg.
"They
take their son away to Princeton, apparently a party school, where Judy eats
some pot and goes berserk."
For the record she doesn’t go berserk, she gets high from “brownies” being sold in the quad. He gets happy and goofy telling the girls about her son and trying to catch a Frisbee from behind a guy. NOTHING MAJOR given her past behavior (more on that later)
But then Mr. Ebert says:
“Later
they swoop down out of the sky on Egypt, for reasons the movie doesn't make
crystal clear, so they also can run in slo-mo from explosions.”
If he had paid attention to the film, when Megatron grabbed information from Sam’s brain he pulled out images of his parents. Later after Sam escapes he gets Soundwave to track them and sends decepticons to capture them for later usage if necessary. Am I the only one who understands these things that are there in FULL color on the screen in front of us all? I never get how people miss such blatant information.
"I
find it amusing that creatures that can unfold out of a Camaro and stand four
stories high do most of their fighting with...fists. Like I say, dumber than a
box of staples."
Suspension of belief cause it looks cool, never mind that they do use GUNS and LASER SWORDS most of the time.
If you read the review you can see that Mr. Ebert probably came into the film expecting to hate it and tried everything he could to put it down, shame as he used to be more professional than that.
But we are not done kids, next up Latino Review
"Megatron
is revived by the Constructicons after they manage to get the All Spark Sam was
holding on to."
Actually the shard was being held on a naval base, Sam’s shard stayed with Megan Fox (which is why Wheelie was trying to steal it). Again pay attention to the film
"I'm
also curious as to why Megatron feels the need to extract the information from
Sam himself if The Fallen has known about the device's location for so long.
See, The Fallen needs the Matrix of Leadership to activate the Energon device,
and since he was around at the exact location of where the Prime's hid it (again
via flashback), why is he using Megatron to try and locate its whereabouts from
Sam?"
Again pay attention to the film. Sam gained his knowledge from the All Spark which contained the location of the Matrix. The Fallen was not looking for the device, he was looking for the matrix to activate it. Megatron never said he was getting the device location from Sam.
"Optimus
rips apart the head of one of the Decepticons. At first I thought it was
Megatron, but it wasn't. Then I thought it was Starscream, but nope, he was
standing there a minute later. So I have no clue who it was he killed since the
action was such a god damned mess to try and follow."
At the time I thought it was Blackout (from the first film which is now dead, one of my gripes with the film was fill ins for dead robots), but found out it was a replacement for Blackout called Grindor, Point is I was watching the same exact film and knew right way whose head was being ripped off. Not sure why of all the action scenes that was so hard to follow, beginning to think I might be a super-genius catching all this stuff (or should I say shit to sound cool) that no one else seems to notice.
I
mean, they wasted ten minutes with Sam's Mom eating pot brownies and tackling
Frisbee players on the lawn. I'm not kidding.
Sorry but he is kidding, that scene was a minute tops.
And for the record on this sequence, it was shorter than the sequence from the first film in which Judy has had too much to drink and asks Sam about his "happy time." If you saw the first film you know exactly what I am talking about. I don't think many of these reviewers did (Or they don't remember it well cause they act like Sam's Parents have suddenly changed, nope same characters. They are silly, odd, kind of funny, and a bit naive and love their son dearly).
"My
favorite Autobot Ironhide is in
the film but you lose him about halfway through and I have no idea what happens
to him."
Waited at the base until the final battle, see him pretty plain there. Again I wonder if the reviewers are watching the entire film or not.
"I
prayed that Bay had finally taken some of the criticism from moviegoers to heart
and decided to make a fun, serious
action film"
And I think the underlined section there lets all of us into the problem the reviewers have with this film. They wanted the film to be all seriousness and no fun whatsoever. While some parts of the comic relief fail miserably overall the comedy aspects work for a good laugh in a movie that could have been entirely too dark for its own good.
“Never take life too seriously, you will never get out of it alive.” -Bugs Bunny.
Normally you would think this would be the end, but there is one more reviewer to review, Harry Knolls
"He
adored Mudflap and Skids - which is more disturbing than anything else. The
amount of foul language popping out of their mouths is astonishing, especially
with the shit, bitch, muther..., ass, pussy, etc..."
Harry Knolls goes on to say:
"Shame
on you Steven. Kids will be lining up for this - and they'll be met with dog
fucking,"
So I guess “Fucking” is ok in a movie review but not so in a movie, oh wait I forgot that the bots actually never drop the f-bomb, so what was all that about again? Let's never mind the fact that Knolls and AICN are notorious for their overuse of "colorful metaphors" to sound all hip and cool to the younger generations. For more on this refer to Star Trek IV The Voyage Home, Kirk and Spock cover this much better than I can.
Sorry I just couldn’t resist pointing out the hypocrisy.
"An
extended sequence of Mom hopped up on pot brownies on a reefer madness binge."
Where was I when a Minute became an “extended sequence” in a two and a half hour film? Still all she does is talk to some girls about Sam (in the most embarrassing ways possible) and then tries to catch a Frisbee and knocks over a guy. Then Dad picks her up and carries her off. About a minute and a half tops and kind of funny actually.
The
film is padded by an hour of completely unnecessary, worthless, offensive and
repugnant sequences that do nothing but tread water.
But of course he never goes through the trouble of pointing out what sequences these are, not even a hint. Truthfully I am hard pressed to find that much that could have been cut.
In fact Knolls goes into no details about the movie with the exception of what has already been written. He rambles on much more about the executives and editors and other people that work on the film, why I have no clue. Talk about unnecessary, I wish there had been a point somewhere in his "blog." Oh and trails off about his nephew liking the film. Yes the movie treads water but a child is caught up in it for 2 and 1/2 hours. Try getting kids into something for that long. Go ahead grab your kid, nephew, niece or whatever and pop in 2001: A Space Odyssey, they won't get into it at all, hell go with Seven Samurai as well, lose them a few minutes in. Apparently the reviewers didn't realize that fact.
So what are my thoughts, there is tons of stuff people are blowing out of proportion with this film. My only gripes would be Skids and Mudflap (who are just plain annoying, but are off screen enough to be ok with).
Apparently the dead decepticons from the first film were replaced (as I found out later) but this is never explained in the film and is quite confusing even to a long time fan like myself. The biggest example is Blackout (who was replaced by Grindor who looks exactly the same) and Bonecrusher (who appears for a moment in the final battle). These could easily have been done as different vehicles in order to make the less experienced viewer be able to see rather easily
But overall I liked the film, at least as much as the original.
While I generally am one of those people who really just thinks everyone should express their opinion and that be it, the massive blasting of this film right off the bat made me think I need to speak up cause really the reviewers are being very unfair in this case at least. Very few people mentioned the great final battle or the way Prime finally really shows his stuff against Megatron (and Starscream and Grindor) in an awesome sequence. Soundwave was great (granted he was just a satellite) and Ravage was cool as hell. But that gets glossed over by people trying to make a name for themselves I suppose or those who just don’t get the idea.
