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Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: Patriotic Kaz on June 26, 2009, 11:54:07 PM

Title: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on June 26, 2009, 11:54:07 PM
I don't know why everyone said the plot sucked I didn't think to highly of it but it was average for a action flick, not to mention people are going to see it to watch Megan Fox (man she is hot) and the special effects (which are awesome). Overall i say the plot drags it down to a B but Dallas Morning News gave it a C...

Favorite scene has to be when the tiny decpticon bows down and swears allegiance to McKaylle then dry humps her leg for the next minute... and after that when the green twin gets his gold tooth knocked out
Title: Re: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Post by: Miyabi on June 27, 2009, 05:23:33 AM
I thought the movie was very good.  I loved the storyline.  My biggest problem was that I thought it was WAY more sexual than it should have been or needed to be.
Title: Re: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Post by: CthulhuKefka on June 27, 2009, 05:58:34 AM
I gave it an A-.

It was incredibly well done visually, definitely an improvement over the first film. I liked some of the new transformers, especially Sideswipe, and it was fun to see Arcee again (don't ask me why, nostalgia factor maybe  :)).

And the forest fight with Optimus was AMAZING.
Title: Re: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Post by: Comfortable Madness on June 29, 2009, 02:47:45 PM
I gave it a B+. When going to see a movie based on a children's cartoon I don't expect anything but a servicable plot. I went to this movie expecting to be entertained and in the end I was very entertained. The Transformers themselves, the mass amount of them this time, were awesome and really how could they not be. Michael Bay did a good job this time in using slo-mo in during the robot fights to better let us see what exactly was happening. The entire fight scene in the forest is just amazing. Also, Shia LeBeouf, adds a ton of comedic moments. The scene where after getting choked by the "fembot" where he then proceeds to scream like a little girl had me in tears. Anyone knocking this movie for its plot is just putting to much thought into it.
Title: Re: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Post by: firstRainbowRose on June 29, 2009, 10:00:55 PM
I thought it was awesome.  It was very funny, but I agree with Chris.  The amount of sex was kind of annoying.  It was funny in the first one, but these times it was just unessary.

I DO like that they didn't reuse a whole bunch of old cliche's, and the one that they did use (the pyramids) were done in a way that was at least a little different.

*SPOILERS*

My issue was 1: why wouldn't the guys who were in the pentagon realize that the reason they couldn't contact the army men was the same reason the contact lines went down in the first movie?  I mean the guy kept on freaking about it, yet SOMEONE in the room had to have been around the last time.
Title: Re: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Post by: Chaos on June 30, 2009, 11:03:16 PM
Solid C+. The first third of the movie was a tightly scripted, hilarious piece of work. Then it began to fall apart, with two major inconsistencies and a few downright forced fight scenes. Come on, right after the fight with Optimus in the forest, then all the Autobots arrive? Seriously? Great timing there. Or absolutely terrible timing, depending how you think about it.

I think Howard Tayler's review gave it a very fair review, which I agree with immensely.

Quote
Transformers: ROTFL (Rolls On The Floor, Laughing)
Posted June 25th, 2009 by Howard Tayler

I saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen yesterday, and it was not my favoritest thing ever. Here are the rankings as they now stand:

1. Star Trek

2. Up

3. Terminator: Salvation

4. Angels & Demons

5. Transformers: ROTF

6. Land of the Lost

7. Night at The Museum 2

8. Wolverine

I got my fill of giant robots beating the cybersnot out of each other, yes. I even liked some of the bits that other reviewers despised (specifically, the twin robots “Jar-Jar” and “Binks,” or whatever their names were.) And the film had me completely gripped for the entire first Act, which concluded very powerfully.

But then we switched movies. It went from exciting and powerful with a touch of humor to being silly and stupid with a touch of “why am I still sitting here?” And there was the big Act II Continuity Flaw, in which a Transformer who has been hiding in the National Air & Space Museum (which we all know to be in the heart of Washington, D.C.) pounds his way out the back through a hangar door and steps onto an airstrip somewhere in Nevada - arid landscape with mountains on the horizon, nary a city in sight.

I can understand taking certain shortcuts for the sake of the story, but this knocked me right out of the film. I stopped believing in Transformers, and started seeing the whole thing as a dumb cartoon for kids, only with too many boob-cam shots for me to be comfortable treating it as a kids’ show.

That’s a high crime right there. When a film-maker manages to convince me to put on my suspenders of disbelief, it’s okay for him to tug on my pant leg from time to time. Ripping my pants off sideways and then giving me a wedgie? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Anyway, that was Act II. Act III had another continuity problem, this one more obvious. Four people in car, one freaking out. Somebody tases the freaker-outer, and he slumps. Cut IMMEDIATELY to car exterior, swerving to a halt. All four people jump out heroically. I actually spoke out loud… “It was nice of them to wake him up.”

But Act III’s big crime was that it meandered. Oh, sure, there were giant robots blowing the crap out of stuff and each other, there were Constructicons being all huge and dangerous, and our heroes were being all heroic and outnumbered, but it just went on and on and on. With lots of boob-cam.

By the time the film ended I didn’t care. I wanted to get out of the theater into sunlight and the real world. I wanted to go to the gym. You know the old theater saw, “Leave ‘em wanting more?” This movie was like a buffet of mediocre all-you-can food at which I unwisely ate enough for three days and then left, swearing I would never come back.

Perhaps appending the “L” to ROTF is misleading. But I bet this movie would be riotously entertaining with a group of like-minded friends shouting at the screen, or maybe just RiffTrax. In fact, that might get me to sit through the whole thing again.

I know the screenwriters are capable of better--we all saw Star Trek. The rushed script really just killed this movie, making it feel overall a shoddy piece of work. Action is great, I love action. I thought the movie was hilarious overall, but I simply cannot excuse pointless action scenes that are utterly forced. Not good storytelling, pure and simple.

Spoilers:

The perfect example of stupid action scenes was the entire sequence where Sam, with his bag of dust, needs to get back to Optimus. Okay, we have some conflict with Sam putting faith that this will work (internal conflict is good!), and they do revive Optimus. That's not surprising, we all knew Optimus wouldn't actually die. Then, the Fallen immediately steals the Matrix from Optimus. That sucks; I guess that whole fifteen minutes (or was it a half hour? I can't tell. Sure felt like a long time) was completely worthless.

But then, Optimus gets revived anyways. ...They could have done that the whole time? Seriously? Why was I sitting through that entire sequence with no payoff whatsoever?

Speaking of a lack of payoff, Optimus sure kicked the crap out of the Fallen, even though Fallen is far more ancient and more experienced. Exactly why could "only a Prime" defeat Fallen again? No reason is explained. Optimus is awesome, don't get me wrong, but it just felt way, way too easy of a victory for Optimus. I simply feel betrayed when they set up a "Only a Prime can kill him" promise, work halfway through the movie to fulfill it (which, apparently, they could have revived him at any time) then ending with Optimus just mindlessly eradicating Fallen. Yes, screenwriters, you fulfilled the promise, but that wasn't an especially fantastic way to do it. We knew the Autobots would win; that's a given. The way it works in this film just feels forced and uninspired.

End spoilers.

Devastator, however, had an awesome sequence. Hands down, that was the most phenomenal CGI in the film. I wish he had been more central in the final battle, fighting with the main Autobots and Sam instead of side characters in what feels like another battle with no payoff.

I'm just saying, from Act One, we see how skilled these screenwriters are. The film could have been much, much better. Maybe cut out a half hour from the play time. Sorry, the robots are completely beautiful (that much is undeniable), but when I'm at the midnight showing for a movie, man, that ending has to be really awesome, or else I get cranky like I'm being now. Maybe I'd have liked it better during a mantinee showing.
Title: Re: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Post by: necronos on July 01, 2009, 06:14:43 AM
I agree with Chaos2651 on how easily The Fallen was defeated by Optimus. Megatron put up a better fight in the first movie and he could be (presumably) be defeated by an old Autobot and not just a Prime. The Fallen should have been able to put up a better fight, especially since the other Primes of old just sacrificed themselves rather than fight him.

While I loved seeing all the Transformers, I believe there were just too much of them. At the end, we has Decepticons appearing all over just so they can get shot. Come on, at least have them wearing red shirts or something. I would have preferred a few selection of Transformers that were highlighted more rather than a whole bunch that were glossed over.
Title: Re: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Post by: Reaves on July 01, 2009, 10:18:40 AM
I didn't see it, and now I really have no desire to. Check out David Farland's review:
Quote
Yesterday I created a little guide to critiquing a story. Last night I saw the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I’d like to get my revenge on the makers, so I’m going to go down the list and show you how I’d use the form in real life.
1)   Originality. On a scale of 1 to 10, how original was this story? __0__________ I didn’t really see anything that gave me a sense of wonder here. This was the same old transformers. A couple of new robots were thrown in, but I have seen designs so similar in other fiction that nothing gave me a thrill.
2)   Setting. On a scale of 1 to 10, how well was the setting developed? _2___________ Shang Hai’s streets looked a little too much like CG, but much of the rest looked okay. There wasn’t any problem with the viewer not knowing where you are—pictures and subtitles help. But my real problem was that the characters didn’t seem to jive with their settings at all. The characters were drawn so unrealistically that they didn’t seem to have been born anywhere. The girl with the father who was fresh out of prison? Her emotional scars never came into play. The Egyptian dwarf border guard? What planet was he supposed to be from?
3)   Plot. On a scale of 1 to 10, how masterful is the plot? ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬__2_______________ Keep in mind that a middling score means that it was an average plot. This one had lots of moments where the try/fail cycles were resolved by robots fighting ninja style. I found myself yawning all through it. 4)   Characterization. On a scale of 1 to 10, how well-drawn are the characters in the story?
¬¬¬¬___0____________. Oh, god, what a mess. First off, the writers and directors are so unbelievably dense as to think that anyone gives a damn whether one of their robots dies. All of the robot characters failed on a monumental level. I was disappointed by the ancient robot that farts. I found the two “Black” robot characters vied for the worst spot—stereotypical in their vulgarity and stupidity. The women here existed to either be sex objects or goofs. The director even went so far as to make jokes aimed at dwarfs and gays. But it’s not just that it was all politically incorrect, it was that it was just mindlessly bad. The mother, for example, downing a bag of marijuana brownies was inane. Any woman who lived through the seventies knows what a marijuana brownie is. The idea that she would gulp them all down defiantly while her family was shouting, “Mom, don’t!” annoyed the hell out of me. My wife might eat a brownie, but she’ll nibble on it and worry about her weight and leave it half-finished. In short, no real people appeared in this movie.
5)   Emotional/intellectual payoff. _Less than 0_____________
This is the real killer. My son begged to see the movie, and then fell asleep after less than an hour. I managed to watch the whole damned thing with the help of a little caffeine. Here’s the real problem: a good movie is healthy. It performs an emotional exercise. It has a payoff. This one didn’t. In fact, it was worse than unhealthy, it was actively bad.
For a couple of decades I’ve watched a decline in movies for kids. A few years ago, if you saw a dog, the dog might fart or pee on a hydrant. Then we got to the point where the dog couldn’t just pee, it had to hump a leg, or in Adam Sandler’s case with Switch, it had to hump a stuffed animal. In this movie, we have multiple scenes of a Chihuahua humping a bulldog with tremendous zeal. To top it off, the director had to have a robot hump a girl’s leg.
Now maybe in an R-rated movie for adults this kind of thing would pass muster, but this was a movie marketed to children. After all, the whole film evolved from a cartoon strip, and it’s only purpose was to create a franchise for merchandizing more transformers toys.
I’ll forego comments on dozens of other instances of crude humor, but suffice it to say that this film wasn’t one that enriched or fed its audience. In fact, it was excrement, a steaming turd served up by idiots and creeps and fed to children.
So this film ranged from tedious to revolting.
6)   Creator’s tone and style. On a scale of 1 to 10, how masterfully was the tale written on a line-by-line bases? ___2____________
Okay, so you could follow this story, but was there a single good line of dialog in the entire 2.5 hours. Ugh.
7)   Presentation. On a scale of 1 to 10, how appealing was the presentation?
¬¬___7____________ The director did get decent performances from his actors. The filmography was okay. Lighting, camera angles, and cinematography were all passable. However, the special-effects often left something to be desired. A great special-effect is indistinguishable from reality. While there were lots of decent special-effect shots, the truth is that most of them were only passable. In creating a shot, SFX companies will often try to cheat by “blurring” the shot. They reason that since we can’t see things that are moving quickly, they don’t have to create crisp pictures of things that are in motion—so they can cut corners. There were lots of fight scenes between robots that were blurred so terribly that you just got an impression of robots fighting.
On the plus side, some of the explosions were actually done quite well.
All in all, Transformers got a dismal 13 out of a possible of 70 on my scale. It was, quite frankly, one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a long, long time. I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t warn you against it.
No doubt, there are people who will disagree. There was a young fellow—early twenties—sitting behind me who I’m sure loved it. Before the movie began, he was chanting the words “Douche” and “Bag” over and over, then giggling at his own masterful wit. He was playing with himself while he did it. There is a saying in Hollywood, “No one ever went broke in Hollywood by underestimating the stupidity of the American public.” No doubt, this movie will be a huge hit.   

Title: Re: Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Post by: RavenstarRHJF on July 12, 2009, 04:26:39 AM
So.  Just finished watching it... having no history with Transformers despite being moderately young, I'd have to say it doesn't live up to the first (new) movie.  The first third?  Yeah!  I agree with everyone else- it was great!  Funny, entertaining, awesome to watch.  The second and third parts?  Yeah, they kinda dropped the ball on that one.

The thing that really got to me is that Sam HAD A PART OF THE CUBE the WHOLE TIME!  It even brought kitchen appliances in his Machine-o'Doom if he could use THAT to bring Optimus back? ???

That, and the cars stay shiny.  In the desert.  After driving through clouds of dust, sand, smoke, and mortar fire.  Uh huh.  Oh, and the dialogue parts when I could've SWORN I was watching Star Wars.  Did that bother anyone else?

I dunno.  I watched the first movie for the first time yesterday, and loved it.  I guess I was expecting too much?  Oh well- it was good enough for a date night with the hubby. ::)