Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen Review
by Homer Yen (homeryen88 AT gmail DOT com)July 21st, 2009
Transformers 2: They're Loud and They're Proud
by Homer Yen
(c) 2009
I'm sure that many of us remember the cheesily-animated, Saturday morning cartoon where robots could transform into all manner of vehicles like cars and tanks and airplanes. And, in the theme song, the lyrics declared: "Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons." Autobots good; Decepticons bad.
In a sense, all of that Saturday morning goodness has been preserved for the Transformers sequel. Well, the animation/visual delivery has certainly evolved a thousand-fold since those 80s cartoons. But the goofy dialogue and the one-liners and the improbability brings me back to my childhood. Autobots still found a way to win, Starscreen found a way to reinforce his image as a bungling lieutenant, and Saturday mornings was just mindless fun.
We are at the height of the summer and moviegoers look for a combination of low-cost entertainment coupled with high levels of escapism. These Hollywood execs certainly know that and this time around, they give us even more battling robots; more action sequences; and more special effects than you can absorb in one sitting. Particularly wild was one of the final scenes where a brave hero scales the great pyramid as he pursues a behemoth of a robot in the hopes of helping mankind avoid annihilation.
Why is humankind in danger of being destroyed? The lore behind the battle between Autobots and Decepticons is brought to light in this installment. The robotic race needs "Energon" to survive. This energy source is harvested by a special device that sucks up the power of the sun, thereby destroying it in the process. A "prime directive" of sorts forbade the robotic race from destroying suns if it would harm other life forms. Somewhere along the way, a faction of robots began to ignore that mandate, which created the civil war that is mentioned in the lyrics of the Transformers theme song.
The bottom line is that the Decepticons will stop at nothing to secure the energon by destroying Earth's son. The Autobots, working in conjunction with the humans, do everything they can to foil their plan.
That's all fine and good. But, given the enormity of the task, it failed to capitalize on what could have been a wonderful story arc. I think about monster trilogies like "Star Wars" and "The Lord of the Rings" and even "Pirates of the Caribbean". Those were operatic pieces that soared with emotion and triumph. And I think that somehow "The Transformers" could have also taken a similar approach. In fact, it needed to. The robots seemed more like toy tie-ins rather than Messiahs. The film is virtually bereft of character development. Yet, it is quite a spectacle to behold. Robots transform from one form to another with more reckless abandon. An all-out battle at the end of the film between the good guys and the bad guys is lots of fun to watch. Optimus Prime opening a can of whoop-a** on Megatron is better than watching the MMA. Sure, I liked the first Transformers movie better. But, this is the definition of a summer film.
Grade: B-
S: 1 out of 3
L: 0 out of 3
V: 2 out of 3
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