Wow...2nd time viewing was definitely an eye-opener for me.
I saw this in the theater and it was the first movie I'd seen in the actual theater in months, so you can imagine how forgiving I was. That and the whole "I am a fanboy" thing.
However on the 2nd viewing of this wonderfully terrible movie, I was finally distracted by all the horribleness that this movie has in between all the awesome explosions and special effects.
Basically what I found this time is that the movie has 2 completely separate parts to it. The action, battle sequences, special effects and robot destruction are unbelievably GOOD for the most part. Yes, I agree there were times where I was like "WTF just happened, who punched who with what and where the f did that guy come from?" but as a whole I was still impressed with that part. Easily 5/5 for special effects, explosions, transformers,
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Sideswipe cutting that one dude in half and the whole Shanghai sequence
was awesome.
Then we get to the story, dialogue, and characters. Wow...so bad. Unbelievably bad. Insulting to the brain bad. Proof that Michael Bay is whacked out of his mind gonzo bad. I mean special effects and MEGAN FOX RUNNING are one thing, but you must control your ADD!!!
Okay, here's the story of Transformers 2...if you haven't seen it just go see it because it is truly worth your 2 hours 26 minutes just so you can be like W T F Michael Bay.
Transformers 2:
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Okay, so the Autobots and the humans have formed a secret alliance, and are hunting down the Decepticons remaining on the planet. Of course, the black Air Force dude and the Captain from the first one are in charge, and he's a Major now...yet naturally he's in the field watching everyone around him get killed except for him. Um...okay, never mind, focus! So a couple new Autobots have arrived, and they're hunting down these Decepticons. Huge ones, in Shanghai go driving down the highway killing hundreds of people in cars, destroying everything in it's path but don't worry, we can cover that up with a "toxic chemical spill" story. yeah...we'll come back to that.
So Decepticons get killed in Shanghai because they AIR DROP Optimus Prime into the path of the big bad guy and he, naturally, shoots it a couple times, it crashes, tells them that "THE FALLEN ARE GONNA COME BACK AND SHIT MOFO" so Optimus does the naturally bad-ass thing: he shoots it in the head. Also, Sideswipe (A corvette) takes down a new Decepticon (an Audi) quite awesomely, and we're introduced (briefly) to the Twins, who we assume are going to be comic relief.
Awesome! At this point the movie is firing on all cylinders. Why? Because the dialogue hasn't started! It's been all action, all blowing stuff up, all visceral entertainment where your brain has literally shut down and you're just watching pretty colors and explosions. I think they subliminally flashed shots of a naked Megan Fox because I was so happy during this beginning. And then...
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Okay, so now we go look at Shia LaBeoauf's character Sam...and WTF is with this guy seriously. He's in everything and he's not all that impressive in anything. Megan Fox would laugh at him in real life, but this is a Michael Bay movie so here we go. So Sam is off to College. A big expensive college apparently, and his girlfriend is Megan Fox. Right. FOCUS DAMMIT. So Megan Fox is trying to break up with him. And he is super smooth and tells her "ha ha, nice try I'm keeping you interested by giving you a long distance web cam kit so you don't go out and get blasted by the first guy who shows up" and she agrees. Okay. He also says, "Hey, do you want the old sweatshirt I wore the last time we fought alien robots, it's like my old football jersey" (note: Sam was not a very good football player [see Transformers 1]). Wait, what's this? A shard from the original All Spark falls out, Sam picks it up, looks at it and magic symbols get blasted onto his BRAIN! It also heats up, burns through the floor, lands in the kitchen and transforms all the appliances in the house into evil robots (why evil? Um...?). Hokay...so we're dangerously close to derailing here, but I think we can just keep plowing ahead with the hope that we'll be seeing more of the Shanghai type action soon.
Anyway, these new robots start blowing shit up, with machine guns, missiles and all sorts of new projectiles. They come up to Sam's room, and can't seem to shoot him even though he's a FOOT in front of them. They start blowing the house up, Sam yells (for the first of many times) "BUMBLEBEE!!!" and Bumblebee shows up, blows all the new little appliance transformers up along with half of the house. Then the police show up and the Witwiki's remember that they have to be quiet because of National Security. Don't worry, none of your neighbors saw the 30 foot GIGANTIC YELLOW ROBOT blowing shit up in your backyard. Sooo...yeah, Sam picks up the shard, gives it to Megan Fox (Mikaela) and we're off to college.
Okay, so we're still hanging on, but this movie is getting...messy. But oh there's more!
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So once we get to college we find, oh how convenient, that Sam's roommate is a super geek who runs a alien robot website...and sells kitty calendars...and has hacked the dorm to make sure all the hotties are in his dorm. Okay, that part was actually kinda clever because it finally explains why EVERY SINGLE WOMAN is gorgeous in these movies. Not sure if any of you have been to a college dorm, but for every fine ass lady hanging out in her P.J.s in the hallway, there are about 49 fat, drunk, ugly, lonely ladies covered in tears. Well then, I have gotten off topic.
Okay, so back on the home front we find that one of the appliances that was transformed by Sam when he dropped the shard (see, that's the plot summary so far), is still alive, and is following Mikaela around because it knows she has the shard. Back at college, we are introduced to one of the more entertaining sequences of the film (that doesn't involve robots), when Sam flips out in his Astronomy class, reads the entire textbook in 37 seconds, interrupts the professor to tell him that "Einstein was wrong" and then proceeds to write a bunch of symbols on the chalkboard while muttering. Very funny, could have gone a lot of places with this concept but...well, it gets overwritten by something far less entertaining. A ROBOT HUMAN HOT CHICK TONGUE MACHINE! Sam goes to a frat party, freaks out again, writes symbols in cake, ridiculous hottie shows up and takes an interest in Sam (a random lap dance? okay!) and then Bumblebee shows up. Wait, what? I did laugh out loud (again) when the frat guy is like "is this your car on my lawn freshman?" and Sam says "We're just going to go and find you a tighter shirt" to which his friend says, "There isn't a tighter one, we checked!" then they fist bump. Funny stuff! Uh oh, here's the hottie jumps in Bumblebee, they drive off, she gets sprayed with coolant and she gets removed from the car. Hoookay. Meanwhile, Sam has stood up Mikaela on their first web date! Oh my!
Just...wow.
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Okay, so Sam calls Mikaela to tell her of his freak out, she catches little appliance transformer puts him in a metal box and then GETS ON A PLANE WITH IT, and she comes to his college. Sam continues his mental freak out, painting symbols all over his dorm wall, and naturally the other hottie that got covered with coolant the night before has showed up and is all over Sam. You know what's going to happen next, yup the old "current girlfriend walks in to find you making out with new girl who is actually a robot in disguise and is about to attack you with her tongue." Man if I had a nickel for every time I typed those words. So Mikaela sees this, is sad, leaves, Sam tries to leave and we're treated to a giant tongue attack, followed by the hottie transforming into a robot sequence which apparently cost $2.5 million to make. For a 2 second bit. Attaboy, Michael Bay..way to spend it wisely. You could've probably paid 19 other writers that instead. But here we go, she transforms, walks through the college blowing shit up, Mikaela hot wires a car (oh god), crashes her into a lamppost which kills the evil robot (huh?) and the hot wired car gets picked up by a helicopter and flown to the waiting arms of the Decepticons! Oh, did I forget to mention that some Decepticons have resurrected Megatron and he's flown to Saturn to find his master who wants him to find what's in Sam's brain? Damn, forgot to mention that part. Okay, that happened too.
So they stick some stuff in Sam's brain, he projects it and they discover that there's a source of Energon on this planet, the autobots show up and a grand melee ensues! Okay, we're back to awesomeness as Optimus Prime takes on 3 Decepticons and beats them down until Megatron stabs Optimus in the back, killing him. Awesome battle sequence, crazyness, and Sam yelling "OPTIMUS!!!!" for the first of many times. Everyone is sad.
Forgot to mention a convenient plot device that was introduced a while ago: so the National Security Advisor has shown up at the secret NEST compound a while ago to play the ignorant, annoying as fuck politician who claims that the Autobots might need to leave because they're causing all this trouble. While he's summarizing everything nicely, Soundwave (yay, Soundwave!) has hacked into the satellite and heard everything, including where the shard is, and where Megatron is. That's how they resurrected Megatron. Plot device covered? Okay good. So now that the whole college campus has been devastated, Optimus is dead, they airlift his body and drop it on an airstrip, guess who shows up to tell them that their operation is terminated? Yup, the NSA. He even strips the Major of his rank! Oh my! We're so far gone here I just don't know what to do with myself. The battle was cool though....
Sam is sad, Megatron hacks into the world's media outlets and makes Sam a wanted man. The Twins have some dialogue, where Sam asks them if they can read the symbols and they say "Nah, we don't read too good" Oh my, 2 of the 3 "black" characters are illiterate, nice work Michael Bay...no one will take that the wrong way. So now we need to figure out who can read the symbols in Sam's brain. Sam's roommate suggests none other than ROBO WARRIOR! Wow, perhaps those 19 writers I suggested above could've come up with something better than ROBO WARRIOR. But oh well, I guess I'm focusing on the wrong things. Even though he's the most wanted man in the world, Sam heads into NEW YORK and waltzes into a deli where none other than John Turturro is working for his mother. I wish I could say I was happy to see him. We discover that he can't read the symbols either, but a Decepticon could. Gee I wish we had a Decepticon lying around. Oh yeah, Mikaela does, in the trunk, in a box. Wow... Little Decepticon tells them that he can't read it but one of the ancient "Seekers", who Turturro happens to have a picture of laying on the table, can, and little Decepticon happens to be able to project their locations on a map and woah, one of them is super close!
This is getting ridiculous...NEED MORE EXPLOSIONS.
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Hokay, so we head to a museum, where we get a couple humorous incidents with stun guns. I guess these are magic stun guns that incapacitate guards for HOURS, but no worries, we find the Seeker and it's an SR-71 Blackbird! Oh cool, this could be fun. Sam points the shard at him, and he transforms but oh no...he's a Decepticon! Wait, didn't they say that you need a Decepticon to read the glyphs in Sam's head? Why is it suddenly a surprise that he's a Decepticon!?!? Damn you brain, just STFU and look, pretty robots! Okay, so we are introduced to JETFIRE, who is old, falling apart and has a SCOTTISH ACCENT. Why in the sweet lord of Bad Boys II do these Transformers have accents?!?!?! Why are the Twins black? Why is Jetfire scottish? Why, Michael Bay, WHY???
Soooo...Jetfire tells them that he's not a Decepticon, he switched sides. Which, for those of you who didn't watch the original show, was a moment where I actually smiled because it is something that kept true to the original! Jetfire was a Decepticon under control of Megatron who switched sides (meaning he switched his decal from Deceptcon to Autobot) in the cartoon. Yay, Michael Bay and your artistic integrity! Anyway, so Sam whips out a 8 foot knife and carves the symbols into the ground. Jetfire reads them, says "Yes, yes, this is my mission" and teleports them to EGYPT. "I told you I was opening a space bridge, didn't I?" Ah, another nod to the old cartoon, they used space bridges to transport to Cybertron & back. Cool! But...not.
Okay, so Jetfire tells the story of The Fallen, where the original job of the Primes was to go find suns to harvest for energy, as long as the suns don't support life on any planets. When they found Earth, one of the Primes said, "Screw these Earthlings, let's harvest this sun anyway!" So they fought, all the other Primes took the key to the sun-harvesting machine, took it into the mountains, and sacrificed themselves to ensure that it was never found by the one prime that they now call "The Fallen". This movie was at about 1 hour and 50 minutes of it's runtime and we finally have the PLOT! Why The Fallen came back to Earth, why he needed the symbols in Sam's head, why Optimus was so important (only a Prime can stop him), etc. Wow, it took nearly 75% of the movie, but I think now we know what's going on.
...
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Okay, so somehow the NEST team has boarded a C-17 with all the Autobots (who are being held in nets...yeah...nets), they've tricked the NSA director (who is on the flight...um...ok?) into parachuting off the plane, they have managed to fly 18 hours into Egyptian airspace without the NSA director wondering where they were going or why they were flying for so long, or WTF he's going flying on a military Cargo plane, and now they are going to drop Optimus into the desert so that somehow Sam can resurrect him. Oh, did I mention that they found the tomb of the primes, found the matrix and it became space dust and Sam put it in his sock for safe keeping? Does it matter? Nah.
So Megatron and The Fallen head to the top of the pyramids, Devastator emerges (which should've been a lot cooler than it was), eats one of the Twins (YAY!) but he fights his way out (BOOO) and then Devastator climbs the Pyramid to unearth the machine. John Turturro contacts the Navy (is that number on Google?) and has them fire a rail gun to the pyramid, which kills Devastator. O M G
Meanwhile Sam and Mikaela are running to Optimus (Mikaeala running in slow motion most of the time, YAY) and a bunch of Decepticons have shown up to battle with the Autobots & humans. In the midst of all these terrible plot devices and horrendous dialogue, there was some really awesome battle sequences going on.
Okay, here's where it gets a bit dodgy though: as Sam & Mikaela are running to Optimus' corpse, suddenly the Decepticons spring a trap! It's Sam's parents! Who were kidnapped in France! Didn't I mention that? Meh, it doesn't matter. They run, Bumblebee kicks some ass (Sam yells "Bumblebee!!!" again) and then they have to run from an air-strike. Which naturally, the do without casualties. Other than everyone around them. Sam runs to Optimus, but right before he does Megatron shows up and KILLS SAM. YAY! The end, game over, Sam's dead, Megan Fox does a little weeping and crying, says "I love you", and they can't revive him. I failed to mention the little "who's going to say I love you first" bit that was thrown in there but it really didn't matter. They could've been saying "I motorcycle you" and I couldn't have cared less.
So there you go! Tough break, eh? Oh no, we're not done yet!
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So Sam is dead, Optimus is dead, The Fallen and Megatron are activating the machine which will destroy Earth's sun and kill us all. Bummer...except that suddenly, Sam is visited by the PRIMES! They tell him "high five, way to go, you done good, kid. we've been watching you a long time and you're really, really under-qualified to have a girl as hot as Megan Fox all over you, so here, let's bring you back to life and oh, all that space dust? Yeah, it's going to be the matrix so go give that to Optimus." Now I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I don't know A) How they could bring him back to life. B) How they could turn space dust into a magical metallic object or C) What the fuck is going on anymore.
But hey, Sam's alive! He tells Mikaela he loves her, stabs Optimus in the chest with the Matrix and hey look at that, Optimus is alive again. OOPS! Not yet! The Fallen transports over, pops Optimus in the gut, steals the Matrix and teleports back to the Pyramid where he uses the matrix to turn on the sun-sucking machine! Oh Balls! I guess we're done, since there's no way to fix this one now...or is there? Ah yes, Jetfire shows up and says "Here Prime, take my parts" rips his guts out and the Autobots use him to reassemble Optimus. !??!?! Optimus is now a big bad-ass warrior who goes up to the Pyramid, shoots ONE SHOT into the sun-sucking machine and destroys it...yeah they really needed a Prime to do that. Why didn't they just drop a MOAB on top of it? Or fire a missile? Or have ironhide shoot a rocket into it? I'm just confused now. Optimus battles with The Fallen and Megatron, beats them both down fantastically, and Megatron & Starscream flee while The Fallen gets his head ripped apart. Megatron leaves with "This isn't over" but God help me, I wish it was.
Wow...just amazing at how awful that could be. I'm almost ashamed of my 5/5 that I gave this back on the OIL forums because I was in full fanboy mode. I mean the first one at least had some merit because it wasn't filled to the brim with unnecessary stuff...at least that one was (relatively) simple: All Spark: Keep away from Decepticons. This one was just all over the place and...well it was just sad. Megan Fox running can only make up for so much.
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
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Originally Posted by gigi
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