I loved the first Transformers and I have been looking forward to the sequel since hearing it was in the works. Believe me, I was not disappointed!
I was glad to see that Revenge of the Fallen wasn’t just a re-work of the original blockbuster, rather it was a continuation of the struggle between the Autobots and Decepticons, as well as Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and his merry band of cohorts. More about the origins of the alien techno beasts is revealed in Revenge; new faces are introduced, in colorful ways, including a cranky ‘British’ robot, Jetfire, who provided some quirky comedy relief from the almost non-stop action.
In the two years since the first movie concluded, the Autobots, the American military, and the British military have joined forces to ferret out the Decepticons hidden on Earth. I was thrilled to see Captian Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Tech Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson) back as part of the American military (eye candy for the ladies!!). Mired in feigned normalcy, Sam is getting ready go to college. His mother Judy (Julie White) is naturally devastated that her only son is leaving home, not much depth there really. Still, it makes for some hilariously embarrassing scenes when Judy and Ron (Kevin Dunn) bring their son to school. Mikaela (Megan Fox) is back as Sam’s girlfriend who works at a motorcycle shop with her recently paroled father.
While Sam is packing for college, he finds a shard of the AllSpark, and when he touches it he instantly absorbs into his brain ancient Cybertronian symbols. A few times throughout the movie, he gets flashes of the symbols (similar to the TV show “Chuck”) which guide him on his latest journey. New to the band of merry people (notice I didn’t say men) is Sam’s college roommate Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), who somewhat reluctantly joins Sam and Mikaela on their new adventure.
The special effects and fight sequences in this movie were top-notch, as well as the soundtrack (including Linkin Park’s new song “New Divide” which is awesome!). Several times throughout the movie, the audience burst into spontaneous applause and cheers. With radical cinematography of Egypt (real or imagined in a CGI lab), the result was gorgeous. If you are a fan of action movies or just a kid inside who remembers the Go Bots and broke the damned handle bars off of Scooter to only be blown away when the upgraded ‘Transformers’ came out, forever sealing the fate of the Go Bots like VHS crushed Beta, you will definitely enjoy this movie.
The only downside to this movie is the running time of 2½ hours. Do yourselves a favor and do NOT get the large soda!!!
