Director Michael Bay's latest offering is a sequel to his 2007 hit movie Transformers. The high concept/low content director is the king of manic and hyper (one second per camera shot) action movies -- a style known as Bayhem. (Rhymes with "mayhem"...)
Expectations were high and box office gold is guaranteed. However the result is a huge disappointment of equal scale to this behemoth of a movie. Where the first Transformers film seemed to be a little underwhelming and needed a bit more action. This film is the polar opposite. It is saturated with action to the point where it is impossible to taste any kind of good quality entertainment
Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox Star in Latest Transformers Film
The film starts off in good fashion, with a thumping action scene as the autobots find and destroy evil decepticons. This is followed by an unnecessary chunk of time spent with Sam Whitwicky (Shia La Beouf), his girlfriend Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) and his parents including the annoying terminally hysterical mother.
At about forty-five minutes in, Mr. Bay finally decides to be clear on the plot of the film, seeming to forget that this is an action movie, 45 minutes of character development and relationship building are not required especially when this is done so poorly. The film then trudges along with tagalongs Banes and his irritating college roommate Leo spitz who provide nothing to the film in terms of entertainment or plot progression. Ridiculously attractive as Megan Fox, may be the allure soon wares off. Not even the arrival of John Turturro can provide a significant light to this film. His is a phoned in pay day performance. And this is a major problem; the film focuses more on the human characters than it does on the protagonists/antagonists of the title: The Transformers. They are used almost exclusively for the action till the point where too much of a good thing is bad for you; car chase after car chase, fight after fight, explosion after explosion including some dodgy CGI in which a fighter plane carrier is destroyed.
There are some positives: The humanoid female decepticon, the grand fight between the decepticons and the autobots in the forest. But the positives are far outweighed by the negatives. The potentially exhilarating grand finale is spoiled again by action that goes on forever and ever to the point where the senses are desensitised and the euphoria collapses.
The Problem with Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
There is yet another problem with Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. Something disturbing: The ‘racist robots’ or minstrel-bots. These are two autobots that display all the characteristics of negative black stereotypes including the gold tooth, the self proclaimed illiteracy, the break dancing, the jive talk the silly fighting with each other etc. This is degrading and adds insult to injury for anyone who has to sit through this long and awful movie.
When asked in a podcast who would like this film, Guardian film critic Xan Brooks replied “Morons.” Previous to viewing this film such a response may seem condescending. However on painful hindsight the film is essentially for morons and it must be added for very young people and young people. Young people not old enough to remember truly great action movies like Terminator 2: Judgement Day or Die Hard etc. Young people not old enough or educated enough to recognise and appreciate racist stereotypes.
