Again, some of the worst dialogue in any movie EVER.
Here we go! This is a good review. At the end he sums up what I was feeling. “I don’t just feel like I’ve just seen a bad movie, I feel as though I’ve been defeated by some malevolent force.”
Be warned, there is explicit language.
moviebob.blogspot.com/2009/06/es … ers-2.html
One thing that annoyed me about the ‘hotty chick’ who stalks Shia is that there wasn’t enough screentime for her. Yes, I am actually supporting this Terminator rip-off, because, technically, it kinda isn’t… I think.
Back then, when the G1 Transformers animated series ended after three seasons, it moves on to become a Japanese anime. The second season of that, of which I believe its title was Transformers: Masterforce had this new line of Transformers called the Pretenders. They were disguising as humans, so the movie probably adapted that into it, which is really cool for us fanboys. Just wish it would have appeared, at the least, long before the Terminator series so that it wouldn’t have been labeled as a copied idea.
~ Flare
They never gave any real time to any of the ideas in the movie. They just rip something off from another franchise, use it to waste 10 minutes of screen time, and then move on to something else.
In the novelization she’s actually an animatronic Alice in Wonderland figure from a theme park.
Hm… this is very interesting. I’ve done a quick census poll; the people who have reviewed TF2 can be divided into three camps, those who enjoyed it, those who were down the middle, and those who didn’t enjoy it. Here are the results:
Enjoyed
Halos Nach Tariff
woody
TSS
Middle
wannabechef91
CoCoMeister
Didn’t ‘Enjoyed’
TS2
Fett101
Dragon of Omnipotency
Mr Roger Ebert
Now if we discount the fact that Mr Ebert is not a member of the forums, and Dragon only commented on the trailer, since he said so in the first line of his massive Wall of Review, although I may be wrong, so correct me if I am wrong, Flare… the score stands at 3 - 2 -2.
∴ Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen = GOOD
Once again, clear, simple logic prevails! 
I guess I can only give my actual verdict once I go see it on the freakin’ jumbo-sized five story IMAX screen at Darling Harbour with my bro and friends tomorrow. TF2 FTW!
No, my review consists of parts that are based on the actual movie itself (read the middle of the wall of review you so exaggeratedly blown up on, where I wrote a notice that from that point on, my opinions were going to be based on my views about the actual movie). Also, seeing as that I’m going to rewrite a new review based on the movie, and I still don’t like it, it’s a 3-2-3 battle, dude. 
But if you want to see this cinematic s***… be my guest. This kind of thing needs to be destroyed. It is unfair to us loyal fans who love the franchises so much. We are forced to see our childhood heroes spat on, being crafted into sy, cheesy clowns that have no sense of dignity and don’t deserve any. It’s an absolute insult both to our intelligence and to our fandom. I don’t think you would appreciate it a lot if I turn Pixar characters into sy, shallow sideshow freaks either, would you?
Pardon my post if you take offense, but when I saw the word, ‘GOOD,’ I just flipped as a zealous fanboy would.
But no, I’m not done yet. I hate what Bay’s done so much that I curse this piece of s***, I d*** it to h***, I wish it would never make box office success, and when this comes out on DVD, I hope those DVDs never make it to the stores, having the trucks that deliver them being in some sort of accident that would render the drivers unable to make the delivery (but still be alive and well). I curse this, I curse this, I curse this! DIE, TRANSFORMERS 2!
And that’s my revenge. 
~ Flare
I think it’s just a cheap cinematic thriller. I haven’t seen it yet, but most of my friends said it was disappointing. Also, having more opinions leaning towards good doesn’t make a movie good. There is no absolute good when it comes to opinions, it’s a matter of preference. A person either likes it, or they don’t. It can be successful and popular, sure, but calling a movie good or bad is purely subjective. I do agree with Dragon about how cheap the hook is for the movie.
Basically all I’m saying is, it’s been getting heat from both ends of the bill. There’s nothing wrong with liking or disliking it, we’re all entitled to our opinions. Fighting over it, pointing fingers, and getting into heated debates is just gonna tick someone off, take it easy. Let’s not heat this place up guys, keep it friendly if possible!
Yeah, but I still hate the movie for destroying our childhood like that. As you said, there’s nothing wrong with expressing our views, right? This freedom of speech is what you guys support, yeah? I’m censoring s*** anyway. Right now, my opinions might be burning up like a dragon’s fire, but they are my viewpoints. Besides, no one’s getting my point when I’m all family friendly; I don’t how being heated would change anything.
If this movie makes it to a third installment, we are dead! WE ARE ALL. F***ING. DEAD!
~ Burning Flare
I’m going to tell you what’s gonna happen; some more hypocritical guys are going to come here and tell preach about keeping this place family friendly while totally ignoring my points, my views and what I have to say. So, I suggest you just let me rant, put that out in the air till the defensive system (mods) comes and stop me. It won’t be long.
Jeez Louis, no need to go all bonkers on me, man. 
Look, I asked you to correct me if I made the wrong assumption on you not seeing the movie, so yes, I mistakenly said you didn’t, and I apologise.
Now other from a couple of incidental episodes I saw as a kid, I have not watched the original TV show, so I have no idea how the new films compare to the original. What I can say is, is that if a few people (even if it were just one in the entire world) derived some sort of enjoyment from this movie, Mr Bay has done his job, which is to entertain us. Never mind he’s a director that’s all style and no substance, or that he didn’t exactly follow the original show’s plot to a T (you only have to look at Star Trek to see how a franchise can be reimagined and rebooted), what matters is if he managed to deliver what he promised: big, stupid, summer blockbuster fun. I’m sorry he didn’t exactly pay homage to the original characters to your liking, or that he had a crappy storyline (which is partly the scriptwriters’ fault), but unfortunately, misguided ‘fools’ like me are probably gonna line up in droves to see this anyway.
If you like, I can change my rating to an ‘OKAY’. If you didn’t notice the simpleton tone I took in coming to that answer, I was being sarcastic about my conclusion based on the various forum member’s responses. And I did say I’m not at liberty to deliver a verdict yet, so that entire census statement was in jest.
And in case you’re wondering, I’m partly on your side. I think the story is gonna suck, but I’m still going to enjoy the CGI spectacle anyway. Besides, I did say I respected your views before. Let’s not descend to name-calling and flaming over such a trivial matter.
Oh, I didn’t call you names. My heat wasn’t directed towards you - not that it matters to you anyway. Right now, you are still seeing my points with cynical eyes; I could tell. This kind of heat is always seen under a negative light. No one really just look at these negative things in a new way to understand them. Why would I throw out the heat? Do you understand that? You might know why I did it, but do you understand the reason?
As I said many times, this is a huge, huge mistake that has no need to be made. There was no reason for this movie to exist. There was no reason for Transformers to be made into a live action movie. If he hadn’t taken up this project, someone of a greater genius will do so and not f-ed up on it. It’s not the writers’ fault. If you have read my review, which you apparently skipped through (there goes my effort… again), I mentioned that they have a pretty solid track record, especially with Alias. For the movie to suck so much and for the suckiness to be blamed on the writers is a joke. Bay is the ultimate culprit in this.
Of course it seems trivial to you. Were it to be a Pixar franchise ruined, would it seem trivial to you? Would it?!
Now, my hope is that Transformers 3 is canceled. I don’t know how much more of this I could take. And it’s not just with Transformers that totally ruined my childhood; Terminator: Salvation just totally completes the job of effing the franchise up Terminator 3 didn’t complete. One hit after another, two franchises ruined with only the guarantee that it’s going to be ruined even more, someone has to speak out loud, even if it involves profanities to express my wrath.
~ Flare
Yeah, that’s what I was getting at thedriveintheatre, I wasn’t upset about your opinion Dragon, and I didn’t even point out your language. I understand, you went to a length to tone that down. I was more or less distraught over the argument you and drivein were having, rather than how strong you felt about your views toward the movie. I just don’t think people should become enemies or start getting bad ideas towards other people over it, that’s all. And I agree with you both on it. Dragon’s view towards this movie is absolute furious upset, I’ve felt almost the same way towards stuff like that before, just not as passionately.
I don’t have an issue with you ranting about the movie Dragon, far from it. I support your view towards it. I just wanna make sure you two don’t start freaking out toward eachother about it. Debate is fine, but there’s a line between that and flame wars, that’s all I meant to say. Differing opinions can eat up people sometimes, and seeing that happen here, especially between you two, would really bum me out.
I honestly think there wasn’t a huge problem with making Transformers live-action, but it should have been more true to the series roots. That’s one thing I get nervous about when cartoons, games, or whatever, get put into movies, or vice versa. There’s too much temptation to stray from a good formula to appeal to a wider audience, and it gets watered down and just makes it more painful for the diehard fans, and makes it too thin for newcomers. That’s what I think happened here, it was just poor story design, and too much change from the tight, working formula.
Actually, I don’t really see us becoming enemies or anything. I and my friends talk to each other like that everyday when we were in school. It’s all in good fun. It’s just when talking in forums that I have to watch myself, hide who I am and act like a hypocrite or something.
If anyone, it’s thedriveintheater who got upset. He sounded pretty sarcastic in his latest post so, he must have thought that I was trying to insult him or something. You guys still don’t get that I’m hating the game, not the players.
I was honestly looking forward to the movie myself, but I was more than greatly disappointed. I was watching The Terminator a while ago, too, and also some parts of Terminator: Salvation. That’s why, added to this discussion and thedriveintheater’s post, I flipped. All these things just say to me that it was unfair, and that the movie was a huge mistake. 20 years from now, instead of being an animated classic remembered by all, we have this cinematic s*** dumped in our minds at 2009 (that actually rhymed). Do we, the Transformers fans, deserve this? Having to be disregarded in the future whenever we talk about the great series that we love?
~ Flare
Well, I didn’t watch the show that much, so I don’t actually have that much reference to the original story and stuff. All I know is that the first one went really far from the original, and had practically no character dynamic between the robots themselves. A real shame. And yeah, for longtime fans, I’m sure its a painful spectacle to see it go down the drain so terrible.
As for the debate, I’ve gotcha now, I tend to get paranoid about some of this stuff sometimes. It’s hard to tell what’s supposed to be taken seriously over text conversations sometimes (at least to me). Plus, you can be a grating and harsh guy Dragon, I’ve noticed that about you, and I kinda like it (for the most part ). You don’t have a problem with it, so neither do I. Gives you a definite presence here on the boards.
And of course, that’s a nice way to say it makes me look like some kind of freak, ironically.
I know I might be harsh at times, but that’s good, too - at least you know that you could trust me, that I’m not hiding any of my feelings being a hypocrite and all. This is important or we will all be like, dare I say it, Decepticons. 
Try not to take my words in an offensive way; I just write whatever I feel so it would, naturally, comes off as harsh and impolite a lot of times. I guess I should apologize if I’ve scared anyone.
~ Flare
Thanks for your concern, ffdude1906. I feel we haven’t reached that point yet, I think Flare and I are just having a friendly argument. Sometimes it’s fun to debate. And anyway, I try to avoid conflicts if I can (which is why I usually am so apologetic in my posts), it’s one of the reasons why I never joined the IMDB boards, because they can’t resist being stupid trolls or flamers.
That’s what I disliked about the first movie too. Hopefully the second will devote more screentime to the 'bots.
FYI, I did. But I still don’t remove culpability from the scriptwriters. I probably think Mr Bay overruled them, though.
You’re right I got upset. I get annoyed when people start dissing a film using strong (albeit censored) language.
Oh okay, then. I thought you were attacking me directly. My bad.
Well, okay, I guess I see your point about your favourite franchise being ruined. I would be pretty miffed if say, Uwe Boll directed a live-action version of Futurama or somethin’…
We’ll agree to disagree. So we is still friends? 
Hehe, I was just making sure no one was gonna lose their head over this. I have a really overbearing tendency to want to fix things like that when they go awry, try to keep the peace, so to speak. You seem like the kind of guy that takes pride in speaking his mind, and enjoys a bit of controversy. With many subjects, I tend to feel uncomfortable around that kind of thing, but when it involves my interests, I usually enjoy the variety (unless they decide to flame me or something like that). I didn’t mean to imply that I thought you were a freak or anything (which I’m sure you realize, ), just that you bring something to the board most people don’t expect, and offer unique views and opinions that most people wouldn’t think of.
Back to the subject of the movie, do you think it’s too naive of me to reject it based on what my friends think? Keep in mind, they’re more like acquaintances than full-fledged friends, and I don’t really know if I share their interest in movies. I’ve heard good and bad, but nothing really worth keeping a decision on one side for. I’m really not interested in a movie that’s quality is it’s special effects and giant fight scenes. A story has to have great characters and development between those characters. If these are shallow and/or nonexistent, then I really don’t see a reason to spend my money on it.
Yes, it did, but less dialogues for them. In other words, they are just there on-screen, standing around.
That’s why I used the term, ‘apparently’ in case you did.
Remember this rating I always used on my reviews? No bull… well, you know how the rest of that rating is supposed to go. But anyway, that rating means nothing’s held back, that the review is as truthful as I could make it out to be, and as you know, censorship holds back the truth, and not just in terms of profanities, either. Some ratings were used for movies that have ‘mature themes,’ dark themes (not necessarily inclusive of blood and gore) that children are not ready to accept yet, hence keeping away some parts of the truth.
In my case, as I said, I tend to express my feeling genuinely, thus not holding it back to a good level, which I hope you would pardon.
Still? We were never enemies. You were just being paranoid because my profanities got a little loose. Well, maybe more than a little. 
~ Flare
Except that TF2 takes every basic convention of good film making and drowns it in the ocean.
lol, that’s still an opinion, but one I agree with. (from what I’ve heard and read)
Well, I just got back from my trip to the local IMAX theatre with my bro and two friends, and here is my review.
In case you’re new to the series, there’s only three things you need to know:
-
The good guys are the Autobots. They are led by a semi called Optimus Prime.
-
The bad guys are the Decepticons. They are led by a jet called Megatron and a former Prime called The Fallen.
-
The humans in the middle are Sam Witwicky and Megan Fox.
The rest, unless you’re a handcore fan, are immaterial. It’s okay if you didn’t even watch the first movie, because it was summamised by an annoying government official in a scene near the beginning. If you must know, the humans are after something that can stop the Decepticons, and the Decepticons are after something that can destroy the humans, and the entire movie is a race of who gets there first. Somewhere between the explosions and dust clouds is a semblance of a plot, but is largely overshadowed by stereotypical characterisations, infantile humour, and a woeful lack of downtime.
To the uninitiated, this is classic Michael Bay. Sweeping 360 camera rotations, shakey-cam during chase scenes, and an explosion every two minutes. The humour is pretty much hit-and-miss, I laughed at some of the wittier insults and one-liners (as well as the in-joke with [spoil]a Bad Boys 2 poster in Leo’s room[/spoil]) and groaned at the anatomical and scatological jokes. Of the entire movie, there only seems to be three set-pieces, with the rest filled up with lots of running away from and after robots, hunting for treasure Indy-style, and shots of the US Defence Force in action. It is the last bit that annoys me, as Mr Bay seems to have more devoted more screentime to shots of the various arms of the military when all we really want to see are the Transformers beating the living crap out of each other (unless you’re an army afficianado). This is not surprising, given that Mr Bay has good ties with the US military, who frequently lend him their men and equipment to use in his movie, in return for promoting them in his feature film to potential recruits. The effect though, came off as more of an army advertisement than a regular action-oriented movie that incidentally had soldiers in it. The same could be said with GM and Cisco with their blatant product placement shots. On a side note, it’s interesting that the ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) guys managed to sneak in some contemporary references to Obama and the swine flu.
Shia does a decent job freaking out over hallucinations, Megan just looks pretty and gets to play tough-chick every so often, Julie White’s character is annoying, and Peter Cullen delivers as the Autobot General’s voice. A couple of Transformers that stood out were Bumblebee as the adorably emotive (poor guy even cries at one point!) and silent guardian of Sam, the obnoxious Wheelie with a foul mouth and an attitude, and Jetfire as a grumpy curmudgeon of a Decepticon-turned-Autobot defector. Contrary to what most people say, I found the twins Mudflap and Skids endearing, for some reason. Kudos too to Turtorro who returns as disgraced federal agent of the disbanded Sector 7 unit.
Make no mistake, Mr Bay used to do great movies that weren’t that heavily sponsored and had a riveting storyline and hilarious dialogue (The Rock and Bad Boys are two of his early movies that I love). But it seems that with a bigger budget and a built-in fanbase, he got overconfident and threw everything (including the proverbial kitchen sink) that he thought looked awesome or funny onto the screen, without discretion. And it works, but only sometimes. I must give a huge round of applause for the CGI artists and animators who did a brilliant job bringing the giant alien robots to life, as well as the stunt and special effects crew that delivered the big guns and pyrotechnics. Unfortunately, Mr Bay (and partly the cinematographer and scriptwriters) have spoilt what is otherwise a good-looking movie with a camera that either just won’t stop moving, or is too close to the swinging fists of metal to be able to see who’s punching who. That was annoying, and made me wish we could return to the good ol’ days of static dolly shots and none of that infernal shakey-cam business.
All in all, Transformers 2 delivered what I wanted: big, loud, summer blockbuster, epic motion-picture entertainment. The action sequences are a sight to behold and are literally breathtaking and jaw-dropping. It is a pity that some parts of it is enough to induce migraines, not to mention motion-sickness. The plot is passable, but could be cut down with less of the glorified army shots and better, more coherent editing (the characters kept hopping from one scene to the next without proper transitions). The soundtrack by Steve Jablonsky is exhilarating, and redeems the entire film single-handedly. Optimus’ theme and the track played during the climax almost moved me to tears, it gives that chest-thumping, action-hero, I-can-take-on-the-world kinda emotional high, if you know what I mean. The robots prove more interesting and funnier than the humans, which is ironic, really, since we’re supposed to be emotionally-invested in our own species. If you come in expecting Oscar-bait themes like poor slumdogs or Nazi soldiers, or a plotline from the animated series it was based on, or any form of “Hm… that is thought-provoking” mental stimulation, I’m sorry to say, but you will be sorely disappointed. If you entered though, expecting big, dumb, stupid summer event action, light-hearted though sometimes puerile humour, and some of the most gobsmacking special effects you’ll ever see, period, this is the ticket for you. Be prepared though, like most M. Bay films, you’d be both mentally and physically exhausted when it’s all over.
Rating: 3.5 / 5
P.S. Oh, and if you have an IMAX near you, I suggest you watch it there at least once. Apparently in some shots, Optimus is life-sized, and some of the sequences are shot using the IMAX cameras which fully utilise the screen sans letterboxing.
P.S.S. Look out for a couple of cameos and a Pixar film poster hidden in the movie. To those who have seen it, did you spot the [spoil]Wall-E poster during the worldwide Decepticon landing sequence?[/spoil]