Review: 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'

There’s not a whole lot to say about Michael Bay’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” From the first shot to the last, the whole affair is such a mess that for 151 minutes you just wait for the end. Not a single scene, not one, is coherent or capable of holding your attention. The humor is juvenile in a potty mouth kind of way, the performances don’t mean much because no one’s playing anything other than a cartoon, and the action is no more stimulating than watching kids play with action figures.

Numbing doesn’t begin to describe the experience. The movie is simply awful, Bay’s worst since “Bad Boys 2.”

Sam (Shia LeBeouf) and Mikaela (Megan Fox) are still together, but he’s on his way east to college and a long distance romance via webcam looms. His first day at school, Sam’s brain starts to go haywire just as the Decepticons ready some kind of comeback that can only be accomplished with what’s in Sam’s head. With the help of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and a number of “comic-relief” Autobots, Sam and Mikaela outrun explosions as big robots fight over something that could kill the sun or something.

The plot is borderline incoherent. Large swaths of lengthy exposition make up mythology for no other reason than to allow for another action set-piece. Everything finally lands in Egypt amongst the pyramids for a “big climax” where the stakes never feel real and it appears no one seemed at all interested in trying to create any sense of danger. No peril, no tension, just directionless mayhem – much of it in pointless slow motion – and Fox always posed like Victoria Secret model, even while on the run.

Just as President Bush did in the first film, President Obama does take a few hits here. The president is named and his National Security liaison, a posturing, snotty Paul Begala-esque simp who disrespects the military, takes the same appeasement, anti–American Leftist position we saw in Iraq. Rather than blame the bad guys, the President blames the good guys for attracting the bad guys and demands Optimus Prime and the Autobots leave Earth until “every diplomatic option” with the Decepticons is explored. To Bay’s credit this is handled with some subtlety, much more subtlety than the cinematic attacks on Bush these last few years.

As usual, Bay’s affection for the military is obvious and sincere. He portrays them as they are: professional, compassionate and valorous. They just deserve a better movie, but that’s true for all of us.

As far as all the noise about “jive-talking” ‘bots Skids and Mudflap being some sort of “racist” characterization, that’s simply absurd. Both are completely over-the-top in the satiric department. Like the flamboyant gay man we see everywhere today or Randy Quaid’s portrayal of a redneck Southerner in the “Vacation” movies, there’s not a hint of a mean-spirit anywhere in sight. Is Wednesday “Innoculate Blacks From Satire Day?” You see, I’m all confused, because last week’s uproar from part of the gay community over “Bruno” fell on a Wednesday, too. Anyway, CAIR must be happy. That leaves them the six other days.

Other than the awful shaky-cam (which thankfully doesn’t rear its ugly head here), the first “Transformers” at least qualified as dumb summer fun. You certainly couldn’t argue you didn’t get your money’s worth. What went wrong with “Fallen” started with the script and ended in the editing room. And that’s unfortunate because we won’t see many big-budget studio films with the guts to tweak Obama or the decency to portray our military and country in the positive way both deserve.