Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

And the attempt at pathos, my God, Bay takes this thing more seriously than he did Pearl Harbor. A climatic slo-mo sequence features poor Megan Fox running to Shia LaBeouf, her breasts bouncing inside a tank top like this was the opening of Baywatch; she reaches his lifeless body, tears stream down her face, a helicopter blade churns slowly overhead and the orchestra strikes up. Cut to his parents, the military, the robots, and his near-death robot-religious experience; this scene – the worst of its kind since Darth Vader threw his arms to his sides for a good old fashioned why-God-why “nooooo!” in Revenge of the Sith – drags on for a good 10-15 minutes.

With Star Wars in mind, no awful summer blockbuster would be complete without a Jar Jar Binks alien CGI creation that doubles as a racist stereotype. Revenge of the Fallen features no less than two of them, and they may have the most screen time (along with Bumblebee) of any of the robots in the film: Mudflap and Skids are two illiterate, hip-hop Ebonics talkin´ Negrobots that transform into bright red and green Chevrolet vehicles “designed to appeal to young car buyers in urban markets.” Of course, these two characters were created specifically for this film.

But Revenge of the Fallen contains precisely three action scenes that account for maybe 10 minutes total robot-vs.-robot action: a brief Shanghai chase that opens the film, an even briefer Megatron vs. Optimus Prime forest fight, and an extended Egyptian sequence that features an entirely anticlimactic fight between Optimus Prime and The Fallen. The first two scenes work just fine; the third features way too much human stuff and precious little of the robots. But in-between these scenes, to pad out the rest of the 2.5 hour movie there is quite literally nothing.

Oh yeah, there was a movie in here, too. I think. The plot is incomprehensible but here´s what happens: Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) is about to go to college, leaving girlfriend Mikaela (Fox) behind. But before he can go, a piece of the AllSpark, stuck in his jacket for two years since the events of the last film, alights and fills his head with a mysterious robot language; he gives the AllSpark to Mikaela for safekeeping. Meanwhile, Autobot forces – who have been working in cooperation with the US government fighting Decepticons for the past two years – are directed to leave Earth by President Obama, in hopes that the Decepticons will leave with them.

So Sam goes to college, his mother buys some pot brownies and freaks out, he keeps seeing strange symbols, calls Mikaela to come with the AllSpark, a hot college girl tries to seduce him but it´s really a Decepticon in disguise (now that would make an interesting toy – a Barbie that transforms into an evil robot). Decepticons attack, Autobots come to the rescue, Optimus Prime is “killed”, and Sam, Mikaela, Sam´s roommate Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), Sam´s car Bumblebee and The Twins, soon to be joined by ex-Sector 7 Agent Simmons (John Turturro) are left to figure out what to do next. We´re halfway through the movie, and it’s pretty bad so far, but it´s about to get a whole lot worse.