Wednesday 16 May 2012

FILM: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (5/10)

Bloated and excessive sequel from Michael Bay, with a 'more is more' approach seemingly applied in producing the second Transformers film.


Revenge of the Fallen's plot will appeal to both sci-fi fans and fans of the franchise, however Bay overshadows the story by packing the film full of exhaustingly repetitive action sequences to the point of saturation. The characters and plot appear to just be something to fill the time with in between rounds of the contest.
For the first two thirds of the film, the human characters are largely sacrificed for the breakneck speed at which the plot hurtles along towards the next robot royal rumble.


As goofy and frantic as before, Shia LaBeouf is responsible for most good things in the film. On the other hand, the writers really failed with the addition of the annoying Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) and the two wise-cracking and Autobot twins, complete with racial slurs.


Applying a bigger is better philosophy, the cast of Transformers seems to have multiplied ten fold from the first film. The new Transformers are never properly introduced, and the vast number makes it difficult to identify the main characters amongst all the flying metal and exploding scenery.


At this point it should be mentioned that the CGI is impressive and the Transformer battle scenes are visually top notch. This usually counts for something in a film which relies on effects so heavily but the novelty of seeing cars and planes transform into robots was worn out in the original and so counts for less second time around. In all honesty I think Bay could have halved the budget and re-used the Transformer battle footage from the original given how unmemorable the battle scenes are in Revenge of the Fallen. 


Not likely to attract new fans to the Transformers series and worthwhile only for die hard fans.

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