Thursday, June 30, 2011

Transformers: Fall of the Revengen



Let me set the stage before I get into the second Transformers movie. I hated the first movie, and had negative desire to see the sequel. Everyone else in the world loved the first one, and couldn't wait to see the sequel. The sequel came out, and everyone hated it. That hate led to a retroactive hate for the first one. I simply laughed.

Jump ahead a few months, and I was on a plane to Japan. This is a 16 hour flight for those who have never taken that trip. But we have a little media center at our seats. I already watched Book of Eli (great movie), Shutter Island (meh), and every episode of The Big Bang Theory (very funny show, but the mainstream appeal of it boggles my mind). There was nothing else left to watch, but I was tired anyway. So I threw on Transformers 2.

It wasn't too bad.

I would never say it was a great movie, but it is much better than Transformers 1. It fixed so many of the mistakes of the first film, and I'm really not sure how much more you could ask for in a sequel.

First off, it gutted much of the excess cast. Therefore, the Transformers all had much more screen time, and you actually even began caring for them. Remember when that one Transformer died in the first movie? Me neither. Which one even was that? The dark grey one? I dunno. But the scene when Optimus Prime gets killed (spoilers btw) in T2 still stands out to me.

Kinda on that same subject, the fight scenes weren't ridiculous. Maybe it was just the sleep in me, but I don't remember entire scenes being filmed in slow motion. I also don't remember Mountain Dew machines or Xboxes attacking people, so that's a plus. The action scenes were, plain and simply, bigger and better and with no stupid gimmicks.

Unlike the original, this movie had something that sorta resembles a plot. Transformers built the Pyramids, the story of the Fallen mirrors the Bible, and humans are working alongside the Autobots to fight off aliens. Put that all together, and it makes much more sense than a Cube which does who knows what. Even the Transformer's Heaven scene, which sounded so unbelievably stupid beforehand, was actually pulled off as kinda neat.  

Again, there is a lot of stupid humor. I say again, because the original had tons of it, and some of it was actually funny. The scene when the Beef is trying to take Megan Fox home at the beginning may be the best part of the entire first movie. I don't think any scene in the second is quite as funny as that, but still it seemed like the entire fanbase turned on the humor of the second, despite loving it the first time around.

Finally, we come to the duo of racist robots, Mudflaps and Skids. The stereotypical black Transformers talked jive, had rims, grills, and other bling, and were even illiterate. However, unlike every other non-neon yellow Transformer, I could actually distinguish them from the other dark grey robots. Also, while I don't remember the line (probably something racist), they said something that made me laugh out loud as I was watching it on the plane with my headphones on. They were a welcomed addition.

But the best part of all about the Twins was it led to possibly the greatest quote ever. When director Michael Bay was asked if he was racist for including those characters, he replied "I'm not racist, I made Bad Boys". That's some concrete fact right there.

But seriously, Transformers 2 isn't too bad of a film. Try watching it again while blocking yourself from outside influence. You might actually have a good time.

Transformers: RotF >> Transformers 

10 comments:

  1. Haha, love that quote at the end re: Bad Boys. I wasn't a big fan of the 1st Transformers either, just seemed like a fitting excuse for bay to show some things exploding, and use a whole lotta CGI. Never seen the second, and it does not seem likely that I'll see the 3rd, at least at the cinemas anyway. But due to your slightly positive review, I may not change the channel if I ever happen to stumble upon it on TV ^_^

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  2. Transformers is really epic.
    Kepp up the good work!

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  3. Hmm, I didn't like either of them too much, but I though the second was a lot worse. Nice post though, maybe I'll try it again. following :)

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  4. I loathe Transformers 2 just for the fact i had to wait an extra hour to see it at the midnight showing.

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  5. Now these are real transformers! very cool

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  6. I kinda like the visual effects :P

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  7. The action was the only thing that kept my attention. They upped the quality from 1 to 2. 1 was so bad in terms of the fight scenes and stuff.

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