Transformers 2 Review

by Wes & Tony on June 28, 2009 at 6:47 pm

The internet is filling up with Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen film reviews. As a member of the internet, I feel obligated to throw my hat into the ring with my own review. Unfortunately, all of the showings in my area were sold out, so I had to borrow a bootleg copy. If you are from the FBI please don’t read that last sentence.

The movie opening was surprisingly slow. A voiceover from Optimus Prime described the backstory while a very obvious CGI feather fell into the frame. As far as action-packed openings go, I was very underwhelmed. Once the story got moving though, it did a fine job of reeling me back in.

I was surprised by how much of the story was told through flashbacks. It made everything that occurred in the present day seem unrelated and disjointed. While he was charming, Optimus Prime’s voice didn’t instill fear or reverence like I thought it should. Instead, it was more of a friendly Southern drawl.

It was also frustrating to see how infrequently the Transformers changed into robot form. Come on! I went into this film expecting to see giant robots punching each other, but instead they were always disguised as cars, neatly parked in the background.

One aspect that I appreciated was that it took place over the entire globe. One moment we’re in the plains of the United States, then suddenly our hero is battling the Decepticons alongside the military in Vietnam! My heart was racing when he used his jet-engine-like speed to save his injured commander.

Then the movie really deviated when Prime ventured out on a fishing boat to catch shrimp for the rest of the movie. They really lost me there.

The weirdest part is that even though it was a bootleg copy, the DVD had cover art of Optimus Prime sitting on a park bench. Recasting him to be Tom Hanks still strikes me as an odd choice.

Overall, I enjoyed the film. As the credits rolled I realized that the ancient wisdom of the Autobots was strangely relevant: Michael Bay’s movies are like “a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get.”