Transformers 2 ROTF Review – “Crap In Disguise”
Posted on: June 24, 20099 comments so far (is that a lot?)
First off, I like to say I was a huge Transformers fan when I was younger, and loved the cartoon and the animated movie that came out in the 80’s. So when I saw the first live action movie by Michael Bay, I was disappointed but there was enough giant robot fighting action to be entertained by it. Which is funny about the 2nd movie, because it features way more action than the first, yet I was bored for a lot of it. I spent a lot of the time trying to stay awake.
We had an unexpected surprise to start the night when Michael Bay came in to introduce the movie. There was something wrong with the mic at first, but once he got it work, the whole crowd was cheering. Then he said something along the lines “Just finished dinner and decided to stop by. I made this movie for you, the fans.” He also brought an entourage of women with him that lined the side of the theatre. My thought was you just finished dinner at midnight? And decided to bring your posse of hot women with you? Insecure much?
Onto the movie itself, here are the positive things that I got from it.
- There’s a kick ass fighting scene with Optimus Prime that takes places in the forest that was definitely the best part of the movie.
- There’s another cool fight with Bumblebee with Ravage at the end of the movie
- The CG in this movie is really good, and definitely the best aspect of it.
- There’s a few funny scenes, some intentional some not.
- The acting isn’t actually all that bad, there’s something likable about Shia Lebouf, and having seen him in Guide To Recognizing Your Saints, I know he can act. At least the actors weren’t flat like most of the cast of Terminator Salvation.
- Looking at Megan Fox on a giant screen is never a bad thing
Now onto the bad stuff, which there is plenty of.
- The plot is completely convoluted and didn’t know what the hell was going for most of the movie. Something about symbols and The Fallen. Who knows, who cares?
- The character of Jetfire who is an old Transformer that is a SR71 Blackbird is stupid and out of place, he has a fucking cane and speaks in a British accent? His only purpose there is to serve as exposition, and at the end of the movie he does something, I don’t want to “spoil”.
- The controversial Twins are annoying, and there’s been a lot of comparisons to Jar Jar Binks. While warranted I don’t think they are quite as annoying as Jar Jar, probably rate them a 6 out of 10, if 10 is Jar Jar Binks.
- So many scenes made no logical sense, look I know we are talking about a movie with transforming robots, but you can buy into a concept like that if everything else feels logical and everyone around behaves realistically. In the movie, the military is portrayed as a do whatever your gut tells you operation, where the orders come from the bottom up, instead of top down. Random phone calls from Sam and John Turturro’s character to the military are taken like they are marching orders from the president himself.
- The Fallen is actually a pretty weak main villian, you would never believe he was super powerful and he’s barely in the movie which doesn’t help.
- Hated all the stupid little Transformers, like Wheelie. Transformers are supposed to be cars, jets, and other large vehicles, not vacuum cleaners or blenders(not kidding you)
- Why is everything shot with a sweeping and circling crane shot? For no reason at all, this “epic” looking sweep would happen for no other fact than Michael Bay wanted one.
- This movie is waaaay too long, it’s 2 and a half hours. If they had cut out an hour, the movie actually would have been better.
Should you go see this movie? Well that depends. In this economy, if you still have cash to burn and see movies all the time, and want to see some cool CG robots fighting despite a long and lame story then yes. But if you are on a limited budget, then no, save your money and see something like Moon with Sam Rockwell which is my favorite movie of the year so far. However if that’s too much brain and not enough brawn with your movie going experience, go see Star Trek if you haven’t seen it already.
I give Transformers 2, a C-, if it weren’t for the cool CG and the Optimus Prime fighting scene it would have been a D.
- Dennis
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June 25th, 2009 at 11:57 PM
Who woulda thought this would suck? Bummer
June 29th, 2009 at 9:49 PM
I must be a totally different movie watcher than most everyone else. I go to movies for one reason: to be entertained. As far as that goes, ROTF was excellent.
I, too, was a huge Transformers fan back in the day (still am, actually), and I thought Bay's second installment in the modern Transformers franchise was very good. I thought there was an effort to start building a new background and such which was lacking in the first one.
The fight in the forest was definitely the best part of the movie, as you stated. And the Bumblebee fight was kick ass as well. I did find that The Fallen was kinda just thrown in there, but I know why they did it. They couldn't let Megatron die, and they had to have someone for Optimus to kick the crap out of. So in that regard, I was okay with it.
Overall, I would have given it a solid B or B+. I had fun, and I LOVE watching Optimus beat some ass.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:56 PM
That's cool that you liked it, and I will admit there were a few entertaining parts, but for me there was too much crap I had to sit through to see it.
Honestly if they had cut out about an hour of the "plot" and just left the action, it would have been much better and could have been a B- for me.
Dennis
June 30th, 2009 at 8:21 AM
For me..there's no crap..no offend but its my own judgement..i even love to see the grandpa robot too..its hillarious and kinda cool since he was the one helping a lot in translating the ancient symbol and even telling the stories of history..for me its an A.. by the way..about the military taking action..its kinda confusing but hey..afterall the genre is Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi to start with..so i kinda accept its not a fact. I enjoy it to the last scene..
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:06 PM
Okay, I finally saw the movie this morning. I'm going to have to agree with pretty much everything you've said. the movie was so long, I almost died from my bladder busting. Seriously. The Twins were a little annoying but not as annoying as the 'who says I love you first' thing. I get that they relationship has to be dealt with but really, it was too much. The parents, especially the mother. PLEASE! That whole cookie or brownie thing was SO unnecessary. They should have removed that whole part and just sent Sam off to school and used the 'extra' time for more explanation of the past events so I could understand what was happening before the end of the movie. There were also too many humans. Sam's "roommate" was totally another unnecessary person.
Okay, I'm rambling but really, the story was not well written. The movie was really entertaining but once again the writers fail to show the true powers and capabilities of the Decepticons and make them seem very weak. Are they a real threat or not? It didn't seem so…they are beat way to fast.
Sorry, rambling again. I'm just pissed that the story lacked and there were far too many humans.
I'll probably buy it when it comes out on Blue Ray, just because the fighting was awesome; especially the fight in the forest with Prime and they did a good job of hiding Megan's toe thumbs.
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:19 PM
Speaking of bladder, I got up during the movie with the college classroom scene, went to the bathroom, went on twitter and facebook, messaged people, and then got drinks and popcorn before heading back to my seat. I usually never do that during a movie, but it was so long and boring, I didn't care.
As for a Blu-Ray, I wish they released one that only had the fight scenes, and then I'd buy it. Perhaps when the Blu Ray goes to bargain bin I'll get it.
Dennis
December 4th, 2009 at 4:34 PM
transformers 2 sucked, no doubt about it. I began watching the movie expecting some similarities between the original transormers and this new incarnation. There were many changes: the matrix was originally inside Optimus not some poxy key that's to go inside a pyramid.
Hot rod? where's Hot rod?
Where on Earth did those (conveniently) extra pieces of the all spark appear from? i know you can sometimes leave things in your pocket but a piece of metal that is able to imprint alien maps into your mind? Why didn't it do this the first time Sam touched it?
Whats with all the autobots being American cars and the majority of decepticons taking their forms from vehicles whose origins are from Europe or Japan? Anything other than American produce is seen as coarse/evil, it's been debated that transformers 2 was racist, I agree. The twins, not needed ta. Some puny robot can stand his own against devastator? the film had little consistency and was poorly thought out in general.
The only similarity between this film and the original is the names, none of the characters look like the originals. Devastator is a wimp and Shia Lebouff can't act!
Transformers 3 best return to the original ideas that captivated me as a child or it will be put on the pile with the other over Americanised tat I'm force fed.
December 4th, 2009 at 5:39 PM
Since Michael Bay is still doing Transformers 3 and the 2nd one made a boatload of money, unfortunately the chances of anything changing is highly unlikely.
I'd rather watch the original animated movie instead.
Dennis
January 14th, 2010 at 4:46 PM
all I have to say is its a movie if youre a TRUE fan of TF youll appreciate the movie for what it is and also if ya know a lil more back story to the original youll be able to pick up the plot pretty easy I had to explain it to my sis that was kinda like you guys at first once I explained it to her she got it and watched it again and loved its a hard movie to follow if youre nto a TRUE TF fan and dont know alot of the origin stuff and if you remember correctly alpha trion was an old timer bot in the original series as were a couople others that were old and had to have help gettin around so what ALL TF are supposed to be young bad ass robots none are supposed to eons old?? and as for devestator bein a whimp he wasnt he was just slow because he was so big thats just how it goes that was actually prolly pretty realistic in that regard … I mean CMON ppl if ya want a factual movie then watch the history channel or A&E if you want entertainment and have an open mind then go to it and watch this movie …