Review - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Revenge of the Fallen delivered what Michael Bay promised – big robots, big action, big movie. None of these factors create a good film however, which is something that I feel that Transformers provided. Unlike the first film, which was well balanced between the Transformers, the Humans and the action this sequel suffers from a lack of humanity. The film focused on the Transformers and their role on Earth and what had happened in the past 2 years since the end of the first film – hunting down the remaining Decepticons and apparently some new ones as well, with the help of some new Autobots that have also arrived on Earth. Unfortunately the film focuses on these new supporting Autobots more than the previous films support crew (with the exception of Bumblebee) that were barely provided with 5 lines between them.

The failings of this film was that there seemed to be no real thought in regards to the need for breathing room in the film. There were very little low points, constant eye-candy involving majestic special effects in ridiculous fight sequences. Even the few quiet moments during the film were not without incident; the quietest portion of the film was the college sequence which was riddled with transformer(esque) events as well as a meeting with Optimus. It really felt like the human characters could not exist without a transformer holding their hand. I thought the Shia LeBeouf’s acting was noteworthy – displaying the promise that Steven Spielberg has stated that drew him to the young star and it was nice to see Hugo Weaving have the chance to deliver more lines as the imposing Megatron. The Transformer battles were stronger than before, but unbalanced in comparison to the first film – Megatron was near invincible when attacked by all the Autobots in the first film but in this he was pressed to defeat Optimus Prime when he was one of 3 Decepticons fighting him at the one time. On that note the Fallen was pathetic, when compared to the presence demanded by Megatron in the first film he was nothing. Even compared to the combined Transformer that appeared briefly he held no presence. A very action heavy film which was left lacking in the story department.

Story – 6.5
Lead Cast Performance – 7
Supporting Cast Performance – 8
Special Effects – 9.5
Audio – 9

8/10