It is summer 2009. I call up my friends and I ask them if they want to watch a movie. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen had just come out and excitement was in the air for this movie. We all agreed to go watch it. And so started an ongoing argument that to this day continues: The worst movie of 2009 vs summer 2009 blockbuster success.
*http://www.comingsoon.net/films.php?id=37679*
I will be honest. I went into this movie with very low expectations. IMO when you set your expectations low, a movie is always better after you finish watching it, as opposed to setting your expectations too high and then coming out disappointed. I had come to learn that sequels, particular the one(s) in the middle, tended to suck the most. But this movie did something no other movie sequel *or movie in general* before it had done: Exceed my lowest expectations. IN. THE. WRONG. DIRECTION. I cannot tell you just how awful I thought this movie was after I had finished watching it. Heck, it was all I could manage to not walk out of that movie partly due to how boring the movie was.
Alright so lets start with the positives: There was a little scene late in the movie that went a little like this.
Chief Master Sergeant Epps: I hope those F-16s got good aim.
Major Lennox: Yeah? Why's that?
Chief Master Sergeant Epps: I told them to hit the orange smoke.
[looks slowly at the orange smoke a few feet to his right]
Major Lennox: You mean that orange smoke?
Chief Master Sergeant Epps: It wasn't my best throw...
Chief Master Sergeant Epps, Major Lennox: RUUNNN!
[makes a break for it as the rain comes]
And...... that is it for the positives. Of all the "comedy" they tried to put into the movie, this was IMO the only successful one. More on the other 'comedy' coming up.
Obviously this leaves A LOT of negatives. Lets start with the plot. So I pretty much KNEW the plot was gonna be awful. But I never expected it to be so disjointed as to leave the audience wondering WTF is going on. One scene they are in the USA, next thing you know they're in the middle of Egypt. One scene they are at headquarters, next thing you know its a robot battle out in the desert. Somewhere obviously not in the US. And just how far was Witwicky's university. Cause his g/f traveled rather quickly when he missed out on the skype date. But there was one major plot thing that continues to irritate me whenever discussion comes up about it: The plot of the 2nd movie is identical to that of the first movie.
Let me explain. The 2nd movie starts when a piece of the cube 'activates' itself and the Decepticons sense it. The whole movie then becomes another battle for the cube, except this time the cube is virtually Sam Witwicky himself with his crazy visions. As I was watching the movie up into the final battle, I felt like I was just watching the first movie all over again, just nowhere near as cool.
Character development was virtually non-existant. I swear, there were at least 4 new characters introduced in the movie, not counting the 2 dozen or so new robots in the movie, and you really never learned anything about them. Hell, they were at the point of being forgettable. And aside from Leo's lead that brings Witwicky back into contact with Simmons, the 4 characters could have been removed from the movie and none would have been the wiser. And I suppose the movie producers did feel that way, the way the characters were 'introduced', did whatever they were meant to do, and then were promptly erased from the movie. And lets not get started on the 20+ robots that made an appearance but were either never introduced or so badly bland of color you could not really tell what side they were on in firefights.
But, let us do discuss the robots that had some actual screen time.
First off are the two tiny bots that everyone is first introduced to. You know, the ones who live with Witwicky. What is their purpose? How did they come to live with Witwicky? There is absolute no backstory on how and why those robots are there other than to be annoying pieces of technology that could have been erased from the movie.
I suppose humping Megan Fox's leg is worthy of screen time.
Next the twin.... 'comedy' bots. People call their comedy funny and good. IMO it was crude, terrible, and about as predictable as predictable gets when it comes to comedic moments. Once again, more forgettable characters that could of been replaced with actual plot line or more important bots *I mean... where was Ironhide? Heck, where was any of the bots that weren't Prime or Bumblebee. O right, no screen time*
Then there is the age old 'decepticon' who in the end helps Prime and crew. He was actually pretty cool. But once again, he was just another introduced character lost in the myriad of other characters constantly being introduced and deleted from the movie.
The battles were irritatingly bad. Let me get my 2 pet peeves about this movie off my chest:
First these are highly advanced robots centuries ahead of our technology. They most likely have the ability to magnify things so much they could probably read a book from a mile away. They have targeting sensors. And they have a serious height advantage over Earth ground forces. So then.... why in the world can these bots not hit anything to save their lives?
Second, there was the feel that you watching a military ad. I mean we wrecked them. That 'climatic' battle in the desert was about as one sided as you got. The ground troops gave the robots everything they could handle and then some. The Air Force drops some bombs and the battle was over. O and lets not forget about the rail gun the Navy used to virtually destroy the megabot in ONE shot. KIDDOS! That was one shot to take down a bot that required 7 bots to make. Really?
The only battle that was really worth anything was the one where Optimus Prime was killed. It had that 'Rock-em, Sock-em" robots feel where the bots beat the crap out of each other rather just blasting each mindlessly from hundreds of yards away. There was plenty of hand to hand combat and of course the death of Prime.
Of course, all these can probably be found in many other movies. And people have tried to argue that there have been worse movies, such as the Illusionist or House of the Dead. And I agree on House of the Dead being bad. But there is one kicker that makes Transformers 2 a movie far worse than House of the Dead *or any Uwe Ball movie for that matter*: Hype. Transformers 2 was proclaimed to be blockbuster movie of the year before and after the movie was released. I really could not understand how people could like this movie one bit. I mean unless big explosions was your jizzing experience, there was really very little to like about this movie.
Sorry Uwe Ball but worst movie honors here goes to Michael Bay.
But o well, that is why we all have opinions. This is my review on the worst movie ever. Whats yours?
Soon to come: Reviews on my favorite movies of all time.
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