Revenge of the Fallen Followup

Posted under Movies by admin on Sunday 28 June 2009 at 2:00 pm

After three viewings of the Revenge of the Fallen, I have had the opportunity to review the movie carefully, seen people’s reactions to the characters on the screen and also reviewed the comedy and how it played off the audience a couple of times. I’ve also had the chance to watch items I felt went by too fast the first or second time.

A side note, my friend Jason (aka ZePiper) and I reviewed the movie thoroughly on our podcast via TFormers.com/Podcast.

So after three showing my opinion has been refined, but not by that much. The movie fun, and it’s good. Granted it’s no Schlinder’s list, Shawshank Redemption but it’s not as bad as some other sites are saying and some fans are whining about. In fact I dare say Michael Bay went to give the fans more of what they wanted and as usual when you do that no one likes your work. A perfect example of this is Star Trek Nemesis, which was pretty much what all the fans wanted, and no one liked (but a few intelligent people like myself.)

All in all I think fans are completely spoiled by modern day special effects. The fact that we even have this movie done so well is amazing and a FEAT in itself! So the special effects alone make it an amazing work of art. This isn’t like The Phantom Menace where the special effects where all you went for (9 times here myself). There’s a lot more than just that, so all the critics and all the fans need to stop bitching and go back to basic film training 101. This is a great movie, and Michael Bay has actually made an Generation One fan proud.

Revenge of the Fallen is not without some major flaws, but the flaws themselves don’t distract from the movie. This movie could of been better with just a couple of key tips…

  1. More editing (have a die-hard-fan in the room with Michael Bay).
  2. No guest appearances from famous people like Rain Wilson, he’s just creepy and terrible.
  3. Keep the Parent’s humor, get rid of Skids and Mudflap and replace with more Arcee and Sideswipe (or Ironhide and Ratchet for that matter).
  4. More slow motion sequences during the final battles, especially with Prime, Megatron and the Fallen
  5. Did I mention better editing?
  6. No Leo, although Simmons was actually funny and useful in this film.
  7. Less Sam and Mikela romance (don’t care, even if she is hot )
  8. Slow the animation way down!
  9. Did we really need the Fallen in this?
  10. No stereotypes.
  11. No nakiness or potty humor.

    Beyond these small problems, even the third showing I still was thoroughly entertained. The action sequences are exciting and I loved the opening ‘track the Decepticon’ scene. Sam’s mom crying was exactly what my mom did as I was leaving for college so I could totally relate. Prime AND Bumblebee kicked major butt and when Prime fell out of the plane and transformed my heart swelled like I use to do back when I was little kid. Soundwave was perfectly done, and Megatron and Starscream bickering was an awesome site to see.

    What seem to be the biggest flaws of the movie are that things are just going on way too fast! Whether this was done because of the limitations of technology and the need to make things move fast to make them look real I don’t know. But I really wanted a rewind button for the majority of the time. Roger Ebert and other critics do have ONE good point in that the robots are so complex you sometimes can’t figure out who’s hitting who. I’m not sure if there is a good way to fix this except give the robots BRIGHTER more CHROMATIC colors. But I just felt at times of saying ‘The only reason why he’s moving around so much is to not allow our eyes to rest at any point to see if he looks real or not.’

    The other big problem is the forced comedy at points. This includes Leo Spitz, and Skids and Mudflap. You could completely remove these characters and the movie would be ten times better. I don’t know what it is, but Shia LaBouf screaming like a girl is funny, Leo Spitz is not. The humor was misplaced at times too. The discussion in the library could be trimmed, the entrance to the Museum needs to go, etc…

    Now I’m not saying all the comedy was bad, the parents worked, Wheelie worked, but that’s about it. And for obvious reasons Skids and Mudflap don’t work. Not because they may be individuals based on negative stereotypes, but because they lower themselves to the lowest form of comedy. Being dumb-asses. Now granted every showing I saw the kids where laughing their butts at these two, which in my opinion is probably the worst thing of all. Kid-like characters can be funny without being rude, throw swear words and just be jerks. Spongebob is a perfect example of this. Orci and Kurtzman don’t know how to write stuff for kids, and they need to stop trying. Skids and Mudflap felt too forced and unneeded. Granted they weren’t as bad as Jar-Jar Binks, but they just needed one line, not ten bad ones.

    In fact the items that really upset the parents in the theaters where the nakiness and sexual stuff (go figure). Seeing people die, no problem, but Megan Fox landing in the crotch of some guy I heard a mom ‘gasp’ at that. They really could of cut these out and if fact I’m half way tempted to make my own edit of the movie removing all the stupid stuff like The Phantom Edit did.

    In conclusion, Transformers 2 was a great movie, not a superb movie like Star Trek. I still feel it was a step up from the first one and I think and I definitely enjoyed myself. So screw Rotten Tomatoes, MetaCritic, Roger Ebert and any other site that definitely has no clue what the public is saying (Twitter comments are either ‘Greatest movie ever’ or ‘Worst movie this summer’). This is a great movie!

    I think on DVD we will probably get a better chance to review the movie, watch the scenes in slow-mo, and I believe a lot of opinions will change. I would plead that Michael Bay just invite a true fan into the editing room and take his notes into heavy consideration before releasing Transformers 3.

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    Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Initial Review

    Posted under Movies,TV by admin on Thursday 25 June 2009 at 7:44 am

    Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Initial Review

    Overview: TF2 picks up where the first movie left off, delivers a lot of fun and will make many feel like a kid again.
    The Good: Amazing special effects, lots of content for both semi-fans and the fanatics, well worth the price of admission and Optimus kicks major butt!

    The Bad: A rewind button is needed, WAY too fast action at times, some ugly stereotypes which don’t make sense and Michael Bay needs to learn how to edit a movie properly.

    SPOILER INFORMATION BELOW – PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK

    Overall, TF2 (or TFROF) is a great sequel to the first movie. We get more of the robots talking, more action sequences and the human factor has been toned down a whole lot. There are some action sequences that will leave you blown away, and there are some that will require some Tylenol. Have no doubt, if you blink for a second in this movie you miss important parts which is good if you like watching a movie several times, but bad if you don’t want a headache.

    Michael Bay, Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman (the writers) delivered what the fans wanted. We get a movie more focused around the actual Transformers themselves which is good because we see more Optimus, and more of Megatron and Starscream bickering. The human elements make sense, but there are still unnecessary humans in the movie with unneeded scenes that could definitely have been cut out.

    Michael Bay is great at directing action, and he’s okay for serious/romantic scenes. But when it comes down to editing this is where the movie falls apart like the first one. You’ll have various scenes of robots fighting and then cut to a human face or dogs humping for no reason. And yes this definitely is PG-13 so if you have kids, be ready to cover their ‘ears’ or more-so their ‘eyes’.

    The biggest flaw I have with the movie is that you can tell they are making the Transformers move around way too much to make the computer animation seem more real. In fact there are only about two scenes where Transformers are standing perfectly still. One is with Prime and he looks great, and the other is with Bumblebee. Every other scene the characters are moving or moving so fast that with the complexity they are, you can’t tell what the heck is going on. And if you blink you’ve lost track. I can see the animators did this to fool your eye into making them look more real but it gets really painful in some parts when you just want the robots to slow down (and the humans to speed up or go away).

    Don’t get me wrong, its great fun and great action, but don’t bother turning your head to talk to your friend cause you’ll miss an important plot point. Either the animators knew they couldn’t make everything look too real so they made Jetfire move around like he’s an old man on enegron-crack, or they simply ran out of time.

    The special effects do look perfect for about 95% of the time. There are a few spots where you can tell they ran out of rendering time and there are a few spots where the cars don’t Transform but just stay in the background. I think they could of have a couple more pick-up shots in these places.

    Also don’t even bother trying to understand the plot. It’s there but unless you’ve read the comics you won’t have any idea what’s going on. Also don’t try to compare this with the original Generation One story from the 80′s. This is a completely new set of Transformers which only Optimus and Bumblebee relate to anything from the past.

    All in all, this movie was a little better than X-Men 3, in that I walked out feeling good but wanted to change a ‘few’ things to make it better. As my good friend Jason (aka ZePiper) says, ‘Its the little things that I can appreciate’.

    So a quick run down of good/bad characters.
    Good: Optimus, Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream, The Fallen, Jetfire, Soundwave, Ravage, Ironhide, Ratchet, Sam, Sam’s Parents, Demolisher
    Bad: Skids, Mudflap, Sam’s Roommate
    Undetermined yet (how I feel): Wheelie, Devastator, Arcee, Alice, Simmons, Sam’s Girlfriend

    The movie starts off with some great action in Shanghi with the Autobots and humans working together to track down the Decepticons. The Autobots not only take out these guys (and Prime does with flare), but they literally KILL them which was weird to see compared to the cartoon. The big-wheeled Demolisher didn’t end up bothering as much as I thought he would and the battle with Prime is actually really good. We see Sideswipe and the Arcee twins (although there are three?) but only for a few and that’s it. So much lost potential on these characters.

    We then get into the typical “goverment wants to help but there’s one big a-hole that’s making issues for everyone’ scene. Which is fine, but has been overdone way too may times before. Prime looks great in this scene and all in all it really shows how far the special effects have come.

    Sam’s going to college, going to class, escaping a ‘Pretender’ (human than is really a Transformer) and capture by the Decepticons is played well although I could have done without seeing Dwayne from ‘The Office’ as I swear that guy can’t act his way out of an energon paper bag. Sam’s room-mate character ‘Leo’ is also REALLY annoying and not necessary at all. He is probably the worst character in the movie this time. Megan Fox is better here this time around acting, but there are parts in the movie where you’re like ‘Why is she here again?’

    We then get what is probably the best scene in the movie with Optimus battling Starscream, Megatron and Grindor at once! Which begs the question where the heck are the other Autobots? This is an amazing scene, perfectly done and shot. Couldn’t ask for more.

    After Optimus gets hits the second part of the movie begins, which has Sam running around with the Autobots hiding him, the discovery of Jetfire, some major dialogue and then going to Eygpt.. Agent Simmons returns and he isn’t too bad this time around. He does get a bit annoying but at least he seems to have a ‘point’ this time in the movie.

    The second half of the movie all centered in Eygpt is fun. But once again Michael Bay’s editing can drive you crazy at times. There was too much of the ‘U.S. military  getting ready to save the day’ and too much of ‘I’m a human how can I help?’ crap here. Where we wanted more Transformers scenes here there are way too many human scenes and the balance and pacing gets off.

    There’s tension for danger that ends up being ‘nothing to worry about’ and some of the characters gets downright annoying here. There are new Decepticons but we barely get a chance to see them before they die. The climatic ending is great, but by that point I was so exhausted mentally I had to blink at least a few times, and then you start losing who’s hitting who due to the complexity of the robots. This is where I wanted a ‘slow-mo’ button so I could tell who was who. You know someone is getting hurt, but it moves so far you can’t tell if that was Sideswipe or Starscream.

    I will say when Prime does get up to kick some major butt, you defintely feel proud of him. The same for Bumblebee who is defintely not a weakling. At the same time you have ‘the Twins’, Skids and Mudflap who are so over-stereotyped that you’re like ‘Okay this movie was definitely written by white people.’

    The Megatron and Starscream relationship is played off perfectly, and Devastator looks downright awesome. There is definitely some confusion in that there are Constructions who form Devastator and then are Constructions who do not which I have a bit of a problem with and will confuse a lot of old fans.

    The ending is great but once again way too fast and the movie needed about two more minutes to wrap up what happened to all the Autobots here. All in all though this movie was great, a lot of fun and definitely a pleasure for old fans and new. There are some small problems but I can look past these because everything else is done very well this time around thanks to Mr. Bay and Co listening to what everyone wanted.

    8.5 stars out of 10
    (I would rate the first movie 7 stars out of 10)