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Transformers Revenge Of The Fallen
The Holy Grail of many films, especially those in the action oriented Sci-Fi genre is to achieve the grand status of the franchise. Once that is done the studios have a highly marketable brand name to continue the story and, of course, the all important box office. The problem inherent with this plan is getting past the dreaded curse of the sequel. Traditionally the first sequel is plagued with problems and general chilly reception from the fans. Looking back the only sequels to have surpassed or at least equaled the original basically is a short list with ‘Aliens" and ‘Godfather II’ at the top. In the case of the ‘Transformers’ the move to a fully fledged franchise is a reasonable certainty but the sophomore dip is evident in almost every aspect of the production with the possible exception of the special effects. ‘Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen ‘. Normally that would be the kiss of death for a hopeful film franchise but considering the flick cost $200 million to make but managed to earn that sum back in less than a month going on to almost half a billion dollars in box office even before the extremely lucrative home theater releases. That distinguishes this movie as one of the greatest money makes to be consistently panned by the critical community. In other words the producers literally laughed all the way to the bank. So when the question of the possibility of a third film comes up the answer, if the bean counters have anything to say and they usually do, the answer would have been ‘coming soon to the Cineplex’. By the way, IMDB Pro has ‘Transformers 3’ listed as in production. This is the kind of flick that really doesn’t have to worry about negative reviews. The cartoon version and the associated toys have been wildly popular for over a generation creating an unshakable fan base. If you are part of that group no bad press is going to deter you and there are more than enough loyal fans to generate the kind of revenue this movie did. In any case while this installment is admittedly nowhere up to the standard set by the first live action movie it does hold together as a reasonably watchable Saturday evening viewing with some friends. Worse case you can always play the home game edition of ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ . The main contributors of the script here were Ehren Kruger and Roberto Orci. Kruger’s experience is mostly in the arena of thrillers and horror with Americanized remakes of the Japanese ‘Ring’ films plus ‘Scream 3’ and ‘The Skeleton Key’. Orci has built his reputation predominately with television but even there the shows he has been associated with are well known for exceptional wring including work or J.J. Abrams; ‘Fringe’ and ‘Alias’. Unfortunately these talented men must have been having an off day or two while coming up with this screenplay. It is overly ambitious trying too hard to juggle a myriad of extremely different genres. At the most fundamental level it has to pick up where the first movie left off employing somewhat plausible explanations for what has occurred for both the human and robotic characters. To this they tossed in a multinational government conspiracy to keep the existence of the alien machines secret. Then, just to make things overly complicated there is an emotional rough spot between the young human leads with a three act pacing directly from the romantic comedy playbook. The start of the film goes way back in time to show how early models of the autobots came to earth and had contact with primitive man. This helps introduce the origins of the animosity between the two factions; Autobots and Decepitcons. In current time Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is preparing to leave home to attend college. His father can’t wait to turn Sam’s room into a home theater while mom is crying over his baby shoes. Fearing the stress of a long distance relationship Sam and his hot out of his league girl friend Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) land to remain mutually faithful but Sam’s Autobot guardian Bumblebee is more worried about the rule preventing freshmen from having cars. While packing Sam comes across a small fragment of the ‘All Spark’ which gives life to the Transformers. The story begins to go off track with new alien Decepticons and Autobots show up. The evil robots resurrect their leader Megatron while the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime, sacrifices himself to save Sam. By touching the fragment of the All Spark Sam now has information in his brain that can restore all Decepticons and destroy the sun and therefore the earth. With all the robots tracking Sam a few seem to be for comic relief including on that sounds like a robotic Joe Pesci. Scenes with these robots serves more to disrupt the narrative and mood than helping it. Ss if this wasn’t enough Mikaela suspects Sam of cheating on her rushes across the country to his dorm room only to find a hapless Sam caught between his bed and an overly lustful coed. Of course since there is more in line for them they make up by the end. There is also a brief time utilized to go into some of the highpoints of Transformer lore as established by the animated series just to make sure they are kept happy. Such discourse actually had minor impact on the actual story line. The one aspect that does work here is the special effects; they are the new definition of state of the art. The Blu-ray edition is even brighter and more colorful than I thought possible. This will be the new go to movie to show off your new system. The audio and video are as close to reference quality as possible. The effects are so realistically done that you will believe they really exist. The channel separation is exceptional. All the speakers in the 7.1 DTS-HD MA 5.1 sound track is loud. It can be tuned down but lets face it the audio was mastered to result in bleeding from the ears. This is not a film for late night viewing unless your neirhbors are watchin it with you. This is for diehard fans only. Commentary By Director Michael Bay And Writers Roberto
Orci And Alex Kurtzman Posted 01/04/2010 |
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