Transformers:
Revenge Of The Fallen

It is a world where amazingly gorgeous women like Megan Fox get turned on by guys who look like Shia LaBeouf and Dwight Shrute. Where is this strange, magical land and how can I become a citizen?

LaBeouf is back as Sam Witwicky - our hero from the first movie who just wants to move on to a normal life as a normal college freshman. As he begins to meet his new roommate, Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), go to parties and attend classes, Sam starts to have strange visions of ancient scientific formulas and writes them out in unknown hieroglyphics (co-star Megan Fox might have a beautiful face, but Sam has A Beautiful Mind). While Sam is looking for normalcy, it turns out fate, circumstance and an evil Decepticon leader known as The Fallen (voice by Tony Todd) have other plans.

What is Sam seeing?

Can Optimus Prime and the Autobots come to the rescue?

Will the Decepticons find the energy source they seek to take over the world?

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is good when it is good, but extremely, shockingly, horrifyingly bad when it is bad. Director Michael Bay knows how to blow stuff up in real time, slow motion, fast motion and every motion in between, so it should not be a surprise to anyone when he focuses more on action than subtlety. You get some decent transformer fighting scenes with the kind of violence that would earn the movie an R rating if these were humans inflicting such damage on each other (but it’s kind of cool when the transformers destroy each other).

However, the serviceable (but lacking in density) story from writers Ehren Kruger, Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman is supported by some of the most ridiculous, sophomoric and absurd dialogue you have heard in a movie this year (and Eddie Murphy had a movie come out this year, so that is saying something). The team tends to strive for comic relief much too often, which leads to silliness that undermines an otherwise decent action movie. Sadly, Optimus Prime (voice by Peter Cullen) deserves much more meaningful speeches with that regal, booming, deep voice, while other transformers are more clownish than heroic. Which brings me to the worst part of Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen.

Two of our Autobot heroes, Skids and Mudflap (voices by Tom Kenny) come off as the worst racial stereotypes in move history. I heard a fellow reviewer comment that he felt it was the worst stereotype since Jar Jar Binks, but I think these guys make Jar Jar Binks look as intelligent as President Obama. Skids and Mudflap sound like they were ripped out of a 1970’s KKK recruitment film with their jive talking. One even has a gold tooth! Unfortunately, you have to see it to believe it. Even then, Bay may have to call George Lucas to learn how you can combat the inevitable fall out.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is too long as its final 45 minutes is just one sequence that drags and drags and drags. LaBeouf shows he is a better actor than the material as he adds an urgency and emotion that isn’t there without him pushing the dialogue as far as it can go, but the action is cool and the story is easy to follow and understand.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material.