Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Back in 2007, Michael Bay introduced us to a new kind of sci-fi action that included transforming robots that kicked butt on the silver screen. Now the whole crew of Autobots and Decepticons has returned in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." But this time there is twice the action, twice the CGI, and twice the amazing machines. However, when the movie is said and done, is it twice as good as the first one?

Shia LeBeouf reprises his role as the main contact to the robots, Sam Witwicky, who is going off to college and trying to live his life without interference from the Autobots. However, when the Decepticon leader Megatron(voiced by Hugo Weaving) is resurrected and Earth is threatened by a greater evil known as The Fallen, Sam and his girlfriend(Megan Fox who magically seems to always have make-up on after she gets blown all around the battlefield) is taken back into the war with the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime(voiced by Peter Cullen). During the film we learn the story of The Fallen and that he wants to destroy the human race by blowing up the sun and so the new found army of Autobots must stop both Megatron and The Fallen from destroying the world.

YES! Finally I have seen a movie that has a firm plot line. The story in this movie is clear, they explain what the problem is, they say what both the antagonists and the heroes need to do to achieve their goal, and they clearly show how the problem is overcome. Now the only thing that wasn't so swell was that there were many variables in the plot that the makers of the film could have done without. For example, Sam's roommate gets sucked into the adventure but really does nothing important except run around screaming and the movie would have been just the same without him. Sure, the plot line is complex but at least there is one.

In this film, not ten minutes went by without something blowing up or flying across the screen. The action in "Revenge of the Fallen" was relentless and made up a good 3/4 of the film. The CGI was improved and immersed me in an all-out fighting extravaganza between small, mediocre, and larger than life robots. Now these factors were both a good and bad thing. On one hand, the action was great fun, and was of course the biggest thing that made the movie enjoyable. On the other hand, Michael Bay went a little overboard on the amount of action shown in this movie which dragged the film out, which is what I will talk about next.

The movie in all had a just a few problems that made it less enjoyable. For starters, the film could have been a little shorter. Some of the fight scenes were drawn out and the makers didn't do a good job on the pacing. Scenes just lasted forever when they should have been cut a little shorter to make the movie move along faster. Another weird factor was that some of the robots had human traits that were inappropriate including sexual dialogue and humor and lots of cursing. These lines just sounded weird coming from a robot and was also something the movie could have done without. The last thing that degraded my enjoyment was that, like in "Terminator Salvation," there isn't a lot of human emotion or feel to the film because the plot focuses more on the transformers instead of the humans. Besides LeBeouf and Fox's characters, there wasn't a lot of depth from the other characters.

"Revenge of the Fallen" has many good traits like the action and adventure, and many bad traits like the long running time and lack of depth. In the end however, Michael Bay has given us a fun film that will satisfy all fans of the action genre. 2 1/2 out of 5. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has a running time of 2 hours and 30 minutes. The film is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material.