June 25th, 2009

Original Release Date: June 24th, 2009

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Genre(s): Action

Director: Michael Bay

Runtime: 147 minutes

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So here we are. Again. Two years after Michael Bay catapulted the Transformers franchise from simply being a 22-minute long Saturday morning commercial for Japanese action figures in the mid-80s, to a multimillion dollar, 2.5 hour glorified commercial for American-made cars, we have arguably the biggest movie of summer 2009 now in theaters -- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Birthed within the same time frame of the infamous writer's strike in Hollywood, reports claimed the script was being rushed to completion -- and sometimes being written on the fly while filming. Throw in a bigger budget to work with (a cool $50 million more to work with this time around), more characters to control on screen, and you have a potential recipe for things to get a little chaotic -- or with the director in question, " Bayotic".

Sequels, as I've made notoriously known in my movie reviews over the years, usually aren't my cup of tea in trilogies (*cough* Spider-Man 2 *cough*) and despite being blown away by the initial teaser during the Super Bowl, the more I saw of the film made me dread the release date instead of anticipate it. Though, I always had a single string of hope left in the project -- somekind of child-like faith, that somehow despite everything I didn't like in the marketing hype, the movie, when seen in full, would actually hold together.

I went in with low expectations because, personally, I really couldn't wrap my brain around how it's even humanly possible to capture lightning in a bottle twice and re-create the magic of the 2007 original one more time. All the elements were in place as everyone with a major role from the first movie was signed on once again (even ol' Wank Bait herself, Megan Fox). I went in with a clear head of a normal person, trying to flush the fact I actually run a website that 70% revolves around reviews and making fun of stuff out of my head for at least 2 hours and 23 minutes of my life.

The results? Surprisingly pretty good, actually.

Prime takes on the Deceptions in one of the most epic cinematic battles you'll see this summer

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen certainly starts off with a bang, which lets you know you're really watching a sequel since in the first film the transformations were heavily teased. In Fallen, there are probably more transformations in the opening scene than most of the second half of the original combined. While it was pretty intense to see old stand by's like Ironhide (who got the full, extended transformation sequence similar to Prime's entrance in the original) back in action, and seeing the new Autobots like Sideswipe (who is now a Corvette Stingray concept) get some well deserved shine, the "HOLY CRAP!" factor the first one had working itn it's favor is entirely gone.

Atleast for me, because I've probably seen it on Blu-ray about 500 times *puts on a shirt that says "I'm not a geek" and whistles innocently*. However, to it's credit, the actual animation of the robots are a bit better, since even on a 120hz HDTV, following the fight scenes from Transformers was a bit of a chore. In Fallen, it can still get a little hard to follow sometimes, but overall the movement is much more fluid and enjoyable. The bots get a hell of a lot more screen time this time around, that's for sure.

Sam and Mikaela's odd relationship pairing is humorously alluded to in the film's dialogue

That's mainly because the Autobots and Decepticons play a bigger role in the storyline now, and share an equal amount of the film with the humans. Revenge of the Fallen's central character, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), is supposedly done saving the world from the likes of Megatron and is now getting ready to attend college in hopes of leading a normal life. He's somehow, by some miracle, still dating Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) and is willing to make an effort to make their relationship work long distance. While packing, the single shard of the Allspark left behind from the first film falls out of his old hoodie and hilariously turns nearly every appliance in his house into a Decepticon. Bumblebee handles the situation, but the contact made with the Allspark changes Sam. The same way the location of the Allspark got infused in his grandfather Archibald's glasses gets infused in his brain. That's a day ruiner, isn't it?

As it turns out though, this remnant and one other heavily guarded shard of the Allspark is why the Decepticons still haven't left the Earth yet -- they want it to revive their leader, Megatron (and later do so). The Autobots have now joined forces with the United States and British military to create a special task force named "N.E.S.T." to eliminate the remaining threats. After defeating a Decepticon named Demolishor, he says that "The Fallen will rise again" in his last words.