Transformers 2

So I have really made an effort to not let this blog become a page for ranting. You can ask my wife, I am good at ranting. I go off and it will sometimes be almost an hour later that she stops me because she just doesn't want to hear it anymore. So if you don't want to read a long rant skip this post. Also if you don't want spoilers (though in my opinion this movie is already spoiled) skip it. That said, let's begin:

I wasn't going to write this up for the aforementioned reason of trying to not be whiny all the time. Unfortunately I got a forward from my boss because A&M always shows movies on campus for two bucks after they leave theaters and this Friday it's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Here's the review that was in the email:

The battle for Earth has ended but the battle for the universe has just begun. After returning to Cybertron, Starscream assumes command of the Decepticons, and has decided to return to Earth with force. The Autobots believing that peace was possible finds out that Megatron's dead body has been stolen from the US Military by Skorpinox and revives him using his own spark. Now Megatron is back seeking revenge and with Starscream and more Decepticon reinforcements on the way, the Autobots with reinforcements of their own, may have more to deal with then meets the eye.

And here's the review from Netflix:
Unlikely hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and his foxy girlfriend, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), return with tough-as-nails Capt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) to assist the Autobots in another epic battle against the evil Decepticons in this supercharged sequel to the 2007 megahit. Blockbuster impresario Michael Bay brings his trademark pyrotechnics to the proceedings, while comic whiz Rainn Wilson joins the cast as a college professor.

Please do NOT go see this movie because you love Rainn Wilson. I think he's hilarious but (1) he's only in five minutes of the film and (2) it's straight up garbage. I'm going to take my time dissecting this so be prepared to read for a while.

If you haven't seen the first movie, don't worry. It was decent. Worth watching even.
Here's basically what happens in the second movie (sorry if some of this is out of order):
-5 minute narration from Optimus about how he and a bunch of other Autobots(henceforth "A") teamed up with an international group of human soldiers to hunt down the remaining Decepticons(henceforth "D") for the past two years.
This drug on way too long, and it attempts to catch you up on a bunch of background they didn't want to actually film.

-This team bungles some mission in Hong Kong or Shanghai (I can't remember which) and ends up causing a lot of collateral damage. The D here is ENORMOUS and as he's finally dying he utters out something about "The Fallen". There are a couple of Autobots here from the old show like Arcee that are seen but there is no character development so people who never saw it have no idea. Also the introduce the obnoxious twin robots that are "ghetto" and spend the whole time cussing and fighting each other. And by whole time I do mean the whole movie.

-The government decides to shut down the project and suggest the A's go home because, since the AllSpark is gone, the D's are only sticking around to kill A's. The A's consent but believe that the D's are planning something based on what the D in Shanghai said about "The Fallen". Meanwhile Sam Witwicky is leaving for college and his girlfriend Mikaela (who has the IQ and personality of a meter stick but can somehow rework cars and motorcycles?) attempts to breakup with him. He says they can work it out long distance, blah blah blah.
Where are the transformers in this scene?

-Sam drops a piece of the AllSpark from the hoodie he wore in the first movie, gets blasted in the eye with symbols and spends the rest of the movie freaking out and spouting off gibberish. A bunch of household appliance come to life and Bumblebee has to blast them. One remote control car-bot gets away.
-Sam moves to college and leaves Bumblebee.
Somehow, even though Bumblebee's voice got fixed at the end of the first movie, it is broken again and communication with him is forced to rely on cheap laughs from related songs and radio clips played through his speakers. Yeah, because that didn't get obnoxious by the end of the first one.

-Insert thirty minutes of overdone college move-in humor. He meets some fellow nerd/techies and the form a gang to make money uploading viral video.
Again, where are the transformers?

-Evil tiny car bot attacks Mikaela for piece of AllSpark. She captures it and decides to take it to Sam. The thing cusses at her a bunch. Actually the whole movie cusses a bunch. Like over the top, unnecessary for a movie based on toys for little kids.

-D's patch into government satellite and watch conversation where military details all the secrets they don't want D's to learn. D's then find Megatron's body, revive him and take him to their secret moon base where an ancient D, The Fallen, is residing with a bunch of D's trying to creating a D factory.
WHAT?! None of this made any sense. The satellite D was named "Soundwave", who was an actual D in the old show. He was like a boombox or something and had a bunch of mini-D casette tape robots that would help him out. This was the one time where they took the name of an original character and put it on something else that made more sense for the story. Okay that's cool. You can hack into the government's most secret satellite, I'll accept that. But that took you thirty minutes. What were you doing for TWO YEARS???? Just floating around in geosynchronous orbit waiting for this exact conversation??

-There's a bunch of backstory about the Fallen being Megatron's master and that's why Megatron came to earth. The Fallen wanted to use the Matrix of Leadership (MoL) to start a machine on Earth that would create Energon (transformer energy-food/fuel) but destroy the sun and all life on Earth. Ancient "Primes" stopped him by taking the MoL and killing themselves to seal it away. He's been waiting on the moon for thousands of years for revenge.
What's all this stuff about The Fallen? The fallen was never in any Transformers show before now. And in the first movie Megatron just came to Earth for the AllSpark so he could make a massive army of D's. If you're gonna create something original at least follow your own story. Continuity fail. Also the MoL was from the comics and old show. I didn't read the comics but in the animated movie it bestowed a fancy upgrade on Hot Rod and made him into Rodimus Prime after OP died. In the animated series it is closer in function to the AllSpark from movie 1, not just a key for the SunHarvester. The SunHarvester plot isn't bad it just doesn't really mesh with the first movie.

-Sam goes to a party and starts doing the symbol freakout when he decides to leave. Bumblebee has shown up for some reason (I can't remember)and as they start to leave, some college "hottie" gets in and starts trying to blatantly seduce him. She pretty much tries to prostitute herself out to him while some jock is chasing him out of the party. She climbs into the passenger seat and starts seductively describing cars and stuff. They get back to his dorm and she conveniently gets him onto the bed around the same time Mikaela is arriving to show Sam the evil toy car. Insert overdone "She tried to kiss me" scene - (WHERE ARE THE ROBOTS THEY NAMED THIS MOVIE AFTER?! What does this have to do with anything?!) - but wait! Turns out the girl who for some ridiculous reason is way too attracted to shia labeouf is actually a D! A chase scene ensues which ends with Mikaela smashing Robot McSkankgirl against lightpole in her car. Okay...so you somehow pretended like the last thirty minutes were not irrelevant and were actually an assassination attempt...but...if they could look like people, why didn't they just impersonate AirForce personnel and get all the government secrets TWO YEARS AGO??

My memory is kinda fuzzy about the details of what happens next. I was kinda losing interest on account of no robots fighting.

-Somehow Sam gets separated from the group and captured by Megatron. The D's try to torture him into giving them the information from his symbol brain blast and then try to take it by force by cutting his head open. I was thinking about doing it myself so the emotional appeal was kinda lost on me here.

-The Autobots show up and Sam gets away with OP. They end up in some forest and the best scene of the whole movie takes place where OP pulls out two swords and fights off four or five D's including Megatron to protect Sam. I think he kills a couple and then ends up getting killed. Yes, that's right Optimus Prime dies. The other A's show up and carry Sam away to safety. Nice timing, where have you been?


-Somehow (again, losing interest so I don't remember as well) Sam and Mikeala end up at the Smithsonian, while the A's are being told they have to go home by the government. Sam and Mikaela end up ressurecting an SR71 Blackbird who happens to be a really ancient D (but for some reason he doesn't mind helping.) He gives a lot of backstory on the Fallen and somehow they end up in Egypt looking for the MoL, with that annoying government guy from the first movie, Sam's nerd friend and the ghetto bots (Skids and Mudflap).

-After finding the MoL, Sam sends a message to AF Capt. Lennox from the first movie who sends a message to his CO. Lennox and Tyrese change course of some cargo planes that are carrying the A's and ejects a government guy with a parachute into the dessert. (This was funny, but I assume he will be discharged at some point). Sam and gang begin making their way to meet up with Lennox, thinking MoL will revive OP. The MoL crumbles into dust, which Sam scoops up into his handy small cloth bag. (Where did he get this? This might have been explained, I just don't remember.)

-In an effort to slow down some D's following them, the ghetto bots, gov. dude, and nerd friend stop to fight in a construction zone (?). Enter the Constructicons, another reference to the old toys/show/comics. These are a bunch of construction vehicles that transform together to form a giant D called Devastator. He pretty much trashes all of the good guys without actually killing anyone (unfortunately, because these are the most annoying characters, besides Megan Fox). Devastastor starts destroying pyramids to find the SunHarvester.

-The A's with Lennox start fighting a bunch of D's. Sam is trying to get to OP with his magic dust. (I'm fuzzy here because it was about two hours and I was just tired.) I think that at some point Megatron or the Fallen gets a hold of the fairy dust which does nothing for him, and then the MoL magically reforms in Sam's hands. He brings back OP. OP fights the Fallen with some extra parts from the Blackbird (I still don't know what the point of this guy was. I think he was just some comic relief and story telling. I'm not really sure what side he was on. He is called a D when they ressurect him but then he helps the good guys?)

-The gov dude calls some ship off the Mediterranean Coast that just happens to have a secret weapon that he knows about. He gets them to shoot it at the coordinates and kill Devastator. (Really? You killed Devastator in one shot? Two A's with alien guns got thrown around like rag dolls but your secret human weapon killed him in one shot?)

OP kills the Fallen. Megatron and Starscream and any other D's flee like little girls. Everyone is happy, blah, blah, blah. OP has some closing monologue about freedom, etc. There will probably be a third movie that I will not see.


Okay to fair there are a few things I liked about this movie. The fight scene with OP in the woods was sweet. Soundwave was cool. I liked that they actually showed the tension between Starscream and Megatron. Sorry I didn't talk about that but it was only a sentence or two here and there.

Megan Fox is the worst actress ever. There was waaay too much cussing in this movie. Also there was too many unfunny sexual references even beyond Megan Fox and the Prostituticon at Sam's college. The RC-D humps Megan Fox's leg, Sam's dogs hump each other, Devastator just happens to have two hanging wrecking balls between his legs, etc.

In reference to the synopsis above I assume they get this information from the people that made this movie because most of that is impossible to discern from the movie:

*The first line talks about the battle being for the universe not for Earth. Which is true except that it's all about draining the sun and killing everyone on Earth. But that's all.

*About Skorpinok, you can hardly even tell what's going on when they are resurrecting Megatron at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. They rip apart someone in the background and shove parts onto M, and then bring him back with a piece of spark the stole from a gov facility.

*Also it says that Starscream returned to Cybertron, which is possible, but it didn't say it was Cybertron. It looked like the moon to me. But that's giving them the credit of following the animated series where there was a base on the moon.

*I'm sure there were a lot of things like this, where they intended something but it was never said outright, so we don't know.

Also there is no character development with anyone new, except maybe the Fallen. Starscream and Megatron are developed a little. Nothing is developed with the relationship between any of the A's, especially since there are a bunch of new ones. They just all get shoved into the background. I assume we are supposed to know Skorpinok's name from the old shows or the toys. That's the only way I knew it since they never said it.

I guess maybe I just had my hopes too high for this film. I thought there would be character development and rational plot lines. I was wrong. Just a bunch of senseless explosions, swearing and sex. If I wanted that I would watch something from Terentino or Frank Miller. Actually those guys put a little plot in there though. So Sin City may have been better than Transformers 2.

Feel free to leave comments disagreeing or clarifying any of the parts I left fuzzy. Again sorry this was so long and angry I just felt like I was going to bust every time somebody brought up Transformers 2. I'll be good now that I have it down on paper. Or blog. whatever.