Due to friends with good contacts and one of the best Transformer websites  http://www.transformertoys.co.uk I was privileged to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen at a special FDA screening at the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square on Friday 12th June. I would have reviewed it sooner but this was an invite only screening and there was a blackout on mentioning it in public until today.

The film was more of the same, the stuff that made the first film awesome is all here and the weak points from the first film are all still here. I’m not going to go into much detail here but there will be some mild spoilers but nothing you probably couldn’t have guessed but don’t read on if you really don’t wanna know.

The film is set a couple of years after the first, the Autobots are working with the US to secretly track down Decepticons and Sam is off to College. Bumblebee is having problems with his vocal processor again and can’t talk (seriously Ratchet? worst medic ever).  We get a VERY brief intro to the new Autobots, my favourite Transformer from the old series makes his debut here.  Sideswipe gets to look somewhat cool taking on the Decepticon Sideways and then true to character, he doesn’t say anything or get seen outside of being in the background the rest of the film…

Despite the name Revenge of the Fallen, this film is really all about the humans once again. There are loads of scenes on campus, Sam’s roommate Leo gets added to the cast as another comic relief character along with more parental scenes that the film didn’t really need.

There is a massive section around the middle of the film that just seemed to drag without much in the way of Transformer action while they put the story across using as manay humans and as much product placement as they can.

Megatron is revived on the orders of The Fallen who btw, is Megatron’s boss despite not seeming any more powerful and is in fact afraid of the Primes and their descendent Optimus. You never find out why Megatron is subservient to someone afraid of someone who is afraid of the Prime that he beat the parts out of in the first film.  The Fallen is older so he is in charge period.  When the Decepticons free Megatron he obviously doesn’t come back at full power because for whatever the reason, Prime is now far more powerful, able to hold his own for quite some time in an awesome 3 on 1 fight in a forest that goes a long way to making up for the slow middle that follows it.

The Matrix of Leadership is in this film, not the design most fans would have chosen but proves to be important enough that you can forgive it not being mentioned in the first film even if it is so important…

The Good News

This film retains for the most part the action and comedy of the first. I loved Skids and Mudflap, at one point these two twin Autobots do a great job of trying to blend in with their surroundings in the middle of a desert which obviously could never work – good stuff.  Wheelie was the complete opposite of his namesake in the original animated movie and transforming into a radio controlled Big Foot makes him the one toy that I really want  a working toy of.  There’s action-a-plenty in the finale, the Decepticons have a small army of generic troopers which make for excellent cannon fodder against the Autobots and US special forces (mostly the army) but we get our big showdown at the end and its good.

The Bad News

Jetfire fans, I really feel for you, his poor treatment is the equivilent of Jazz from the first film and makes me glad they didn’t bother to use Sidewipe the rest of the film.  Arcee doesn’t fare much better than Jetfire but I never liked her anyway so no loss to me.  Anyone with a sense of geography, ignore it, distance and time taken to travel said distance are meaningless here. Devastator is awful in design and effectiveness and the constructicons manage to be  combined and around as individuals at the same time in the same scene. I guess they could have an army of them but even so its weak.

Rant Time

Less humans and more character development for the Transformers would easily turn this into an A+ but sadly, even the Transformers we saw in the first film are unable to get any more noticable character (or even screentime for Ratchet & Ironhide).  Its worse for the Decepticons, only Starscream gets any semblance of character which is a shame because if you invest time into the Decepticons, defeating them would be far more meaningful. Killing someone who had their name mentioned once does nothing to me, killing generic troopers does nothing. I’m used to watching wrestling where bad guys are put over as being super tough monsters, evil opportunists or cheating gits to make you want to cheer the good guys. All this movie wants to do is promote the US Army and Special Forces. FAIL.  I want to and will pay to see TRANSFORMERS. If I want to watch the US Special Forces blow some shit up I’ll watch Delta Force and watch Chuck Norris do it. If I want to watch them against a superior alien threat, I’ll watch Predator and watch Arnie do it.

To Be Fair

It would be remiss of me to point out that the original animated movie had 2 years of cartoons and comics as well as tech specs on all the toys to give the existing Transformers character so when they get killed off to make room for the new characters, their deaths mean something. This film doesn’t have that advantage, (the movie toys come with a one line description of their character now – lame) but that just means you have to work harder and show more of the Transformers not less. FAIL.

The Final Verdict

Like the original, this is lacking the one scene that blows you away (nothing compares to the awesomeness of the T-800 coming out in Terminator 4 or Prime turning the tide of battle singlehandedly in the original Transformers The Movie.).

Despite not learning a thing from the  original, Revenge of the Fallen is still a good film, the CG is top notch,  clearer than the first when they are fighting and a fair amount of the comedy hits home well. Definitely worth a watch or two but it didn’t blow me away.  Like Spider-man 3, good use of chapter skip on a blu-ray could make this into a shorter and much better film.  For what I saw, I’d give it a B- and hope they don’t make a third as I’m tired of overly complicated and fucgly robot designs that take up too much time to render so they have to fill the runtime with humans and the movie toys just look awful compared to the Universe and Transformers Animated lines.

The bottom line is if you enjoyed the first, you will enjoy this.