Movie Review #13 Transformers Revenge of the Fallon

Transformers Revenge of the Fallon (2009) Shia Labeouf, Megan Fox Directed Michael Bay

Michael Bay has been dubbed the King of the Blockbuster and his resume is worthy of that title...whether his movies are good or not is another story. Let's go back at just the movies he has directed and do a quick recap. First up Bad Boys 1995 (good flick), next up The Rock 1996 (Ok I liked it very solid), then we have Armageddon 1998 (I liked it and made out with a chick on a date seeing it :), Ok now it starts to go downhill...Pearl Harbor 2001 (my buddies favorite war movie...just awful), hmm Bad Boys 2 2003 (take the last ridiculous 30 minutes off this movie it would have been fine...but somehow regular Miami cops in Cuba fighting tanks...might have been a little over the top), Ok he is streaking down, The Island 2005 (the smartest of his bad films with a solid cast...but this material is way to smart for a shoot em up director to be aloud to blow things up the hole time), and now the two Transformer movies 2007, 2009 (both just too arrogant and silly to really be great...not awful but really self indulgent) . Well he shoots about 50 % which if your Shaq or Tim Duncan fine...but when you are producing big entertaining summer movies, I can't help but give you a bad review.

Transformers Revenge of the Fallon is too long first of all, and with 140 plus minutes you think the story would make sense...it doesn't. I am going to lay out a few good things here first. It is better than the first because some of the characters are more likable (Fox, Turtuorro, and even Labeouf are all better), it is easier to keep track of what's going on, although only slightly (I can't ever tell who is a good guy or a bad guy when the robots are fighting, but it does look pretty cool), and the last good thing about this film...it looks just great (no stranger to this all Bay movies are so crisp on the big screen it is hard to take your eyes off it, I have a feeling if Bay did a remake of Terms of Endearment it would be the coolest movie ever!!) Ok so now for the more negative stuff, it is a wacky story using some old robot called "The Fallon" as the center of the plot, it uses the same storyline elements from the first one, just more drawn out (won't say what but somebody needs a spark again...it's no shocker settle down), um the soldiers have beards (Um I was in the Marines even secret units have to shave...I've never seen a whole unit maintain the George Michael stubble so well), the chicks are all orange (spray tan), and the movie is just a ride meant to appeal to your eyes not your brain...Bay is begging you to not pay attention to the story or the timeline. It's fine I know he is the King of the summer blockbuster now, and there will be like 3 or 4 more of these movies so I'll deal with it. I didn't hate it I actually thought it was more watchable than the first one. It is cool for somebody my age, who watched the cartoon a lot, that you have Optimus doing the voiceover for the movie, like the cartoon. I am going to give it a marginal 6.0 rating as always out of 10, slightly lower than Wolverine. I am not going to add a Shawshank phrase in this one because I'm pretty sure Red and Andy would not want much to do with this flick.

Sidenote...I didn't write it (so don't get mad at me!) but check out this nice piece done by Yahoo...it points out ten silly plot holes from Trans 2, nice work :)
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/smg-transformers-10-questions.html

Food for thought: Had a diet coke and popcorn, went traditional...but again it is long so beware!! Also after had some time to kill and enjoyed a few Jack and cokes, and a few Bailey's Coffee...hmm at my age by now I would know that is not a good mix, shame on me. Enjoy your summer movies! Up next for Labeouf is an ensemble peice called New York, I love you, for Fox a possessed cheerleader flick called Jenifer's Body, and Bay has Nightmare on Elm Street coming out in 2010.