Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Wow: a review of a film from THIS CENTURY!

But to be fair, this is a work that begs review on the MBZ if just to acknowledge its existence - despite what your shaken, overloaded senses may be screaming in denial.

I have been informed by teenage boys in the know that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the perfect movie. None better. And why not - it has fast vehicles, loud explosions, massive destruction, special effects crammed into every frame of film, Disney Channel-level humor, some hot chicks (led by Megan Fox, more on her in a bit), and the Action Hero Flavor of the Moment Shia LaBoeuf. All served with a heaping helping of ADHD sauce with extra hypertension sprinkles.

The perfect movie.

Myself, I was partial to the Eighties cartoon series, sponsored by Hasbro and forever tied to a never-ending series of toys and transformable trucks, cars and other manner of vehicular conveyance.

So you see: teenage boys had a perfect cartoon TV series, too.

Not that it wasn't appreciated back in the day. The battles of the Autobots (led by semi-truck Optimus Prime) against the evil Decepticons (led by big-honking gun Megatron) were followed by kids the world over for 4 seasons originally, its various spin-offs and re-imaginings lasting for decades after that, and they even had their own animated movie in 1986 - with no less a group of voices than Orson Welles, Robert Stack, Eric Idle, Scatman Crothers, and even Judd Nelson, bless his under-employed heart.

But a live-action movie? With Eighties technology? Keep in mind that the $100 million + budget movie wouldn't be commonplace until the 1990s and the work of James Cameron. And THAT is what a Transformers movie would need to be made.

Big bucks.

And so with the advent of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay came the technology as well as the bank to make reality Transformers (2007). Now acting alongside flesh-and-blood actors were trucks, jet fighters, cars, helicopters, boom boxes and motorcycles, all of whom could change into robots and battle one another at a moment's notice.

This of course unleashed into the stratosphere of "household names" the likes of Shia LaBoeuf and Megan Fox, making them forever associated with special effects and explosions. But then again, I'm going to get ahead of myself if I don't get back to the topic at hand....

So the 2007 Tranformers made cubic acres of money, merchandising flowed like water and Dreamworks, Paramount Pictures and Hasbro executives the world over wore commemorative Optimus Prime buttons with pride. And one word passed the lips of everyone involved.

SEQUEL.

Then came 2009's $200 million crash-bang-boom known as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and with it some of the biggest hype since Ali Vs. Frazier. But unlike the legendary "Thrilla in Manila", this won't be over as quickly.

Story: the battle continues between Autobots and Decepticons, but Sam Witwicky (LaBoeuf) is now off to college and out of the fight zone - or so he thinks until a shard of the Allspark left over from the last movie infuses his mind with thoughts and images that Decepticon leader Megatron would kill for. So it's out of school and around (and through, at one point) the world for Sam, Mikayla (Fox), new-found dead-weight pal Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), and now ex-Government agent Simmons (John Turturro) as they must find the identity of "The Fallen" and the secret that may end the robotic battle on Earth once and for all.

Apparently this, in our rapid-fire Red Bull era of existence, is story-telling.

None of this really matters, since T:ROTF (for brevity) is simply more of what the original's audience wanted after the credits rolled the first time. Only quicker, more to the point and louder. Way louder. The soundtrack could be used as an air raid warning.

The special effects team, numbering more people than there are stars in the heavens, and at least twice that many mega-pixels, do make it plausible that we humans share a planet with trucks and cars which are capable of becoming bipeds. Humanoid bipeds that can speak. English.

Of course. They've been around since the dawn of man if the prologue is to be believed, so why not?

Besides, the look of the film isn't the problem here: this is just about as realistic-looking a movie as you should expect, seeing as the subject matter comes from Japan.

The acting is what we should expect, too. LaBoeuf's Sam is a jumpy, hyperactive kid who, when he isn't yelling, he's muttering. And when he isn't muttering, he's stuttering. And I don't think there's a moment Shia's onscreen that he isn't running, jumping, sliding, rolling, stumbling, twitching, shuddering or has some sort of facial tic going on. Geez, I mean, even Indiana Jones stands perfectly still in contemplation once in a while. In the running time of T:ROTF, I think Shia maybe holds still without doing anything "twitchy" maybe once, for a few seconds.

Apparently this, in our rapid-fire Red Bull era of existence, is acting.

But as Sam's girlfriend Mikayla, Fox does the perfunctory "hot chick" thing as she is first shown astraddle a motorcycle wearing short shorts (Fox, not the motorcycle). The rest of her time onscreen consists of her stripping out of her clothes, staring off-screen with her lips parted alluringly, modeling jeans tighter than any human female could wear without bunching being a concern and, once in a while, running. Of course, her tight little abdomen is on display quite frequently because, you know, those camisoles only cover up so much.

Apparently this, in our rapid-fire Red Bull era of existence, is sexy acting.

Lest you think Fox is the sole sexy chick in T:ROTF, check out the effort of Isabel Lucas, who plays the role of Alice, a ridiculously hot college chick that wants desperately to hook up with spastic Sam. She has big eyes, bright blonde hair, radiant skin, a bright smile and lots of stamina. She even gives Mikayla a run for her money. Too bad she's in the film so briefly; maybe Fox had a hand in the script...?

But you know what films like this are like - they follow the tried-and-true formula concocted by John Hughes...the younger people know it all, the adults are idiots. And Sam's parents (Kevin Dunn, Julie White) certainly fill the bill. Cussing up a storm and acting like bickering, oversexed dopes, never before have you seen more incongruous grown-ups since P.K. Rowling gave us the Dursleys.

Even great actor John Turturro, who has been in some fantastic films, plays the goofball ex-Gov Op/alien conspiracy theorist so convincingly and so broadly you'd think he believed he was the sole comedy in the film. At one point, Turturro even goes so far as to flash his thonged buttocks at the viewer.

Apparently this, in our rapid-fire Red Bull era of existence, is comedy.

So, is there any acting that resembles acting as we in the normal world perceive it? Actually, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson return as the military grunts who fight alongside the Autobots and do such quite well. No overplaying or over-compensating is necessary: both men play it straight and are actually the most convincing actors in this sequel. Good on them.

The worst performances in T:ROTF, however, go to another duo. Together, they make the mistake of never running straight into a car compactor. Skids (Tom Kenny) and Mudflap (Reno Wilson) are both heretofore unknown Autobots who do their solid best to make the world believe that they are, in fact, a Jar-Jar Binks double act by having homeboy accents and jive-talk their way from beginning to end and never make the slightest difference in anything. This is something for the younger kids to be entertained by, no doubt, while everyone else was enjoying the explosions, violence and double-entendres flying in all directions.

Then, after 2 1/2 hours of noise, fury, one-liners and product placement, T:ROTF raked in over double its budget (half of its budget was claimed on opening weekend), more toys were sold, more executives were made happy and lo, another chapter in the franchise ended happily...as two other words passed the lips of everyone involved.

SECOND SEQUEL.

I don't begrudge anyone being able to make money and I'm happy for them and such. But at what cost to childhood? Watching cars turn into robots and fight against evil is one thing, but to wrap it up in ear-shattering noise, brain-damaging banality and soulless commercialism and call that entertainment? Not that the Transformers were simple old-fashioned storytelling to begin with back in the day, but has it even evolved into anything more than a bigger version of itself?

My biggest gripe with T:ROTF is that it didn't continue its story from 2007 - it just retold it, louder.

And if Shia and Megan aren't careful, they're going to stumble into the same pitfalls that every young tyro who jumped into big franchises were stuck with. After the series, what then? Will they fall the way of actor-to-celebrity and have to share the unemployment line with the likes of Danny Pinaturo and Tina Yothers?

That may be harsh, but it's always a possibility.

In closing, I read an interview with Shia LaBoeuf who confided that in the next Transformers movie, they would be getting more into the human side of Transformers.

The human side.

Of a cartoon series about robots.

Co-sponsored by a toy company.

Apparently this, in our rapid-fire Red Bull era of existence, is progress.