I’m Landed in Cairo to see the Pyramids, But What did I Find There? A Dirty Pile of Bricks.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. June 24th 2009.
I’ll take you all on!
The 2007 film had, almost grudgingly, been well received by fans and even critics had been moderately warm to it in a Bumblebee sort of way (though the reception to that has much looked more rapturous in comparison to what came between the two).
So two years later, there was actual optimism. The trailers made it look more of the same, but bigger, so folk thought they knew what they were getting.
The response was basically a stunned silence.
General audiences on the other hand, ate it up even more than the first and liked it enough to come back in bigger numbers for the third. And it’s easy to see why. In 2009 the most recent MCU film was The Incredible Hulk, in terms of sheer spectacle Michael Bay was way ahead of any other movie doing the rounds, even outdoing the already ground-breaking work of the first. With tickets so expensive, it’s easy to see why something that genuinely needs to be seen on a cinema screen did so well, coherence be damned.
And it’s the same principal that has allowed Avengers Endgame to become the second most successful film of all time with no concessions to people who don’t know the MCU backwards. If you haven’t seen all of the previous 20 or not recently enough to recall all the plot relevant stuff, it doesn’t matter because there’s a really cool action or comedy beat every ten minutes.
Effectively, this divide between existing fans and critics and people who just want two hours of robots violently punching each other would remain until The Last Knight firmly underwhelmed everyone. So on that score, Revenge of the Fallen is very much the defining film in the series, the one that best represents what people automatically think of when you say “Transformers” to them, even more than the first.
As for myself, I actually enjoyed it at the time. But I do have a fondness for messy and slightly flawed films that do more than they can possibly handle. It’s why I like the full on silliness of Dark Knight Rises more than its predecessor even though that’s clearly a better film, and will Stan Moonraker all day long.
I’ll take you all on!
The 2007 film had, almost grudgingly, been well received by fans and even critics had been moderately warm to it in a Bumblebee sort of way (though the reception to that has much looked more rapturous in comparison to what came between the two).
So two years later, there was actual optimism. The trailers made it look more of the same, but bigger, so folk thought they knew what they were getting.
The response was basically a stunned silence.
General audiences on the other hand, ate it up even more than the first and liked it enough to come back in bigger numbers for the third. And it’s easy to see why. In 2009 the most recent MCU film was The Incredible Hulk, in terms of sheer spectacle Michael Bay was way ahead of any other movie doing the rounds, even outdoing the already ground-breaking work of the first. With tickets so expensive, it’s easy to see why something that genuinely needs to be seen on a cinema screen did so well, coherence be damned.
And it’s the same principal that has allowed Avengers Endgame to become the second most successful film of all time with no concessions to people who don’t know the MCU backwards. If you haven’t seen all of the previous 20 or not recently enough to recall all the plot relevant stuff, it doesn’t matter because there’s a really cool action or comedy beat every ten minutes.
Effectively, this divide between existing fans and critics and people who just want two hours of robots violently punching each other would remain until The Last Knight firmly underwhelmed everyone. So on that score, Revenge of the Fallen is very much the defining film in the series, the one that best represents what people automatically think of when you say “Transformers” to them, even more than the first.
As for myself, I actually enjoyed it at the time. But I do have a fondness for messy and slightly flawed films that do more than they can possibly handle. It’s why I like the full on silliness of Dark Knight Rises more than its predecessor even though that’s clearly a better film, and will Stan Moonraker all day long.
Iconic.
Revisiting it for this, I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed it. I think coming off a decade of fans really putting the boot in and almost wilfully misreading some bits (after the credits we get an evacuation of a toxic chemical plant that’s on fire before NEST arrive, but some people still insist Demolisher was just out for a nice Sunday walk before evil Optimus Prime came and killed him), and the plot is certainly more linear and coherent than I remembered, basically being pass different McGuffins along the chain until you get to the last solar system threatening one.
As I’m guessing most of you don’t need a blow by blow plot synopsis... let’s start by summing up the stuff that doesn’t work.
The plot may be straightforward like the first (too much like it in many ways, they just about get away with it here, but the sheer number of ancient Cybertronian artefacts on or near Earth by chance is going to get ridiculous), but the 07 movie had more distinct subplots going on with Sam, the military and the hacker plots all driving things forward in different ways. This has less actual substance, meaning some sections get badly drawn out to fill the time.
This is most notable in the collage stuff, especially when compared to the about five minutes that Sam and Mikaela’s high school lives were given in the first one. It doesn’t help that the main crux of this section is the future of their relationship. Which feels meaningless in retrospect now we know it was doomed anyway, not to mention that Sam is now too old for “Inability to commit” to not seem really annoying.
It’s also where we get Leo, a character who only exists so there’s someone for Simmons to say his best line to (“One man alone...”), and gets a completely disproportionate amount of screen time for it, being probably the least funny comedy character in the whole series.
Honestly, the best collage moment is easily the “There was no tighter t-shirt” gag.
On the Transformers side, it is odd to have Megatron back and basically not do very much. If he’d stayed dead and The Fallen had just been the lead villain, fine. If he’d been resurrected as the solo baddy, also fine (and as the first film made a thing of him and Optimus being brothers, him being the Judas Prime as well would have worked). As is, his one good bit of character in the film is being genuinely shattered when The Fallen dies, setting up his arc for the next film. But even then he escapes the battle by... walking away.
And of course, the other big bone of contention is the Twins. Who, rather like Leo, get a disproportionate amount of screen time compared to how funny they actually are. Psycho daft Autobots seem slightly redundant when you’ve got Bumblebee still there, and I much prefer the same two actors basically playing the same double act but with a bit more finesse as Wheelie and Brains in the next one.
Indeed, the film doesn’t really do Team Autobot as well as the first where everyone got a nice little stock character moment. Of the new guys, the Twins and Jetfire are the only ones to actually contribute more than a moment (Jolt genuinely feels like he was created at that point in the script when someone realised they needed a lighting guy) and it’s telling none of the one’s to survive would be coming back. The old guard are equally placed out of the action alongside NEST for a good chunk of the film, meaning we miss a lot of favourites as well.
As I’m guessing most of you don’t need a blow by blow plot synopsis... let’s start by summing up the stuff that doesn’t work.
The plot may be straightforward like the first (too much like it in many ways, they just about get away with it here, but the sheer number of ancient Cybertronian artefacts on or near Earth by chance is going to get ridiculous), but the 07 movie had more distinct subplots going on with Sam, the military and the hacker plots all driving things forward in different ways. This has less actual substance, meaning some sections get badly drawn out to fill the time.
This is most notable in the collage stuff, especially when compared to the about five minutes that Sam and Mikaela’s high school lives were given in the first one. It doesn’t help that the main crux of this section is the future of their relationship. Which feels meaningless in retrospect now we know it was doomed anyway, not to mention that Sam is now too old for “Inability to commit” to not seem really annoying.
It’s also where we get Leo, a character who only exists so there’s someone for Simmons to say his best line to (“One man alone...”), and gets a completely disproportionate amount of screen time for it, being probably the least funny comedy character in the whole series.
Honestly, the best collage moment is easily the “There was no tighter t-shirt” gag.
On the Transformers side, it is odd to have Megatron back and basically not do very much. If he’d stayed dead and The Fallen had just been the lead villain, fine. If he’d been resurrected as the solo baddy, also fine (and as the first film made a thing of him and Optimus being brothers, him being the Judas Prime as well would have worked). As is, his one good bit of character in the film is being genuinely shattered when The Fallen dies, setting up his arc for the next film. But even then he escapes the battle by... walking away.
And of course, the other big bone of contention is the Twins. Who, rather like Leo, get a disproportionate amount of screen time compared to how funny they actually are. Psycho daft Autobots seem slightly redundant when you’ve got Bumblebee still there, and I much prefer the same two actors basically playing the same double act but with a bit more finesse as Wheelie and Brains in the next one.
Indeed, the film doesn’t really do Team Autobot as well as the first where everyone got a nice little stock character moment. Of the new guys, the Twins and Jetfire are the only ones to actually contribute more than a moment (Jolt genuinely feels like he was created at that point in the script when someone realised they needed a lighting guy) and it’s telling none of the one’s to survive would be coming back. The old guard are equally placed out of the action alongside NEST for a good chunk of the film, meaning we miss a lot of favourites as well.
The Venn diagram of people who hate this and people who want to stick their dick in the new Unicron toy is a circle.
Though as with the first, I’ve no problem with the Decepticons mostly being terrifying movie monsters (with that stock Transformers staple of most of them being drones this time around), it’s scary, justifies how brutally they’re treated with and actually means they stand out more than, say, poor old Arcee does.
Though driving past and later being blown up is still one of the more respectful portrayals Arcee had gotten up till then.
And as to the good stuff, well I can sum up my reaction is a simple word:
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
There is so much exhilarating well done action in this film, starting right off from the moment Prime parachutes out of a plane for no reason than because it looks cool. It builds upon what the first film did without getting to the stage they’re feeling desperate to find new ways to top themselves. And the direction is much better than fan wisdom will tell you, the only OTT rapid fire editing comes as story justified moments (Soundwave’s eye view, Sam experiencing Allspark visions. The odd exception is Sam’s collage professor getting rapid fire and slow motion) and so much of this film show’s Bay’s style at its best. The forest fight alone would lose so much if it was shot is the nice safe make sure you see every detail so fans can tick off their checklist style as Bumblebee, throwing you in at Sam’s eye level and making it chaotic is what gives it its power.
And of course, the forest fight is iconic and by far not only the best scene of the film, but the whole series. And indeed, I would argue it is legitimately one of cinemas all time greatest action moments. If the rest of the film was terrible, this would justify its existence.
I also like how, once The Fallen is out of his comfy chair the Transformers are straight up revealed to the world and the world remembers it going forward. We’ve seen the Marvel comics go back and forth badly on how much folk do and don’t know/take seriously and IDW have had a similar problem (as we’re about to see), the Bay films actually have a consistent arc on that score.
I also love that Simmons is back and still batshit (and I will defend the scrotum joke to the death, it’s a fun silly gag fans obsess way to much over. As they do with Blenderbot’s “Dick”, that you have to pause the film to see), Jetfire is a fun take on the character, the idea of NEST as Transformers UNIT is great and should have led to a lot of fun comics from both IDW and Titan (it’s literally the set-up of an ongoing series and everyone ignored it. Mind, fans refusing to spot it’s not just the US army but an international force despite the flags and the bloke from Corrie means Bay gave up and it’s just America in the next one), I love Deep Roy being in this film, I love Devastator, I love...
Well, there’s a lot of stuff to like.
Though driving past and later being blown up is still one of the more respectful portrayals Arcee had gotten up till then.
And as to the good stuff, well I can sum up my reaction is a simple word:
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
There is so much exhilarating well done action in this film, starting right off from the moment Prime parachutes out of a plane for no reason than because it looks cool. It builds upon what the first film did without getting to the stage they’re feeling desperate to find new ways to top themselves. And the direction is much better than fan wisdom will tell you, the only OTT rapid fire editing comes as story justified moments (Soundwave’s eye view, Sam experiencing Allspark visions. The odd exception is Sam’s collage professor getting rapid fire and slow motion) and so much of this film show’s Bay’s style at its best. The forest fight alone would lose so much if it was shot is the nice safe make sure you see every detail so fans can tick off their checklist style as Bumblebee, throwing you in at Sam’s eye level and making it chaotic is what gives it its power.
And of course, the forest fight is iconic and by far not only the best scene of the film, but the whole series. And indeed, I would argue it is legitimately one of cinemas all time greatest action moments. If the rest of the film was terrible, this would justify its existence.
I also like how, once The Fallen is out of his comfy chair the Transformers are straight up revealed to the world and the world remembers it going forward. We’ve seen the Marvel comics go back and forth badly on how much folk do and don’t know/take seriously and IDW have had a similar problem (as we’re about to see), the Bay films actually have a consistent arc on that score.
I also love that Simmons is back and still batshit (and I will defend the scrotum joke to the death, it’s a fun silly gag fans obsess way to much over. As they do with Blenderbot’s “Dick”, that you have to pause the film to see), Jetfire is a fun take on the character, the idea of NEST as Transformers UNIT is great and should have led to a lot of fun comics from both IDW and Titan (it’s literally the set-up of an ongoing series and everyone ignored it. Mind, fans refusing to spot it’s not just the US army but an international force despite the flags and the bloke from Corrie means Bay gave up and it’s just America in the next one), I love Deep Roy being in this film, I love Devastator, I love...
Well, there’s a lot of stuff to like.
"So why are you a hate figure now?" "I made an Indiana Jones film with no Nazis in it. You?" "Too many Nazis" "Wow".
I’m going to wrap up though by talking about Megan Fox, who remains great throughout. Mikaela is still very much the main heroic lead with Sam as her damsel in distress sidekick. She races across the country to save him, is always capable and is never in any danger or in need of rescue that Sam himself is not in as well.
Megan Fox being sacked by Spielberg (in what seems to have been his only contribution to the series after suggesting the one boy and his car idea) for calling Bay a Nazi when Bay himself didn’t seem to mind (he entire work ethic seems to be to push people hard and to expect them to hate him for it) is a bad mark on Steven. She deserved better, not just from these films, but from Hollywood generally. She could have easily had a Scarlett Johansson level career but without all the racist stuff.
Shia is absolutely fine as well, doing his Michael J. Fox thing in the face of public hate in the aftermath of daring to be in the bad Indiana Jones film, but Fox is genuinely on a whole different level and I would say very underrated if not for having talked to more than one young woman who grew up with these movies who absolutely loves her.
Revenge of the Fallen is in many ways the perfect 25th anniversary film. It sticks both hands into the toy-box of the series history and pulls out a pleasingly random series of things to play with. The Matrix in Buster’s head, Pretenders, the solar harvester, the blooming Fallen (which no one quite believed was going to happen till it came out, though if a Transformer that was constantly on fire did no exist, Michael Bay would have to invent him. Amusingly changing the number of Prime’s basically killed Furman’s original efforts to make the 13 and there being only one multiversal Primus and Unicron a thing), all whilst bringing new stuff to the table as well.
It doesn’t deserve the apathy from both the fandom and the people who made it (who blame the 2008 writer’s strike, which is amusing as you really can’t tell that this is the one of the six working from an unfinished script). The audiences who went to the cinema and loved it and now have warm fuzzy “Yeah, I remember that one, they blew up Egypt, right?” memories are far more on track. It’s two and a half hours that aren’t perfect, but do represent Transformers at its insane messy best and I, against all odds, still love it.
Though the Decepticons were way too keen to blow up the sun of the planet they’re standing on weren’t they? I guess The Fallen had never seen Star Trek Generations.
Lucky bastard.
Now of course, new film means new comic. Leading us to...
ISSUE 25
2009
COMMENT
KO-FI
Megan Fox being sacked by Spielberg (in what seems to have been his only contribution to the series after suggesting the one boy and his car idea) for calling Bay a Nazi when Bay himself didn’t seem to mind (he entire work ethic seems to be to push people hard and to expect them to hate him for it) is a bad mark on Steven. She deserved better, not just from these films, but from Hollywood generally. She could have easily had a Scarlett Johansson level career but without all the racist stuff.
Shia is absolutely fine as well, doing his Michael J. Fox thing in the face of public hate in the aftermath of daring to be in the bad Indiana Jones film, but Fox is genuinely on a whole different level and I would say very underrated if not for having talked to more than one young woman who grew up with these movies who absolutely loves her.
Revenge of the Fallen is in many ways the perfect 25th anniversary film. It sticks both hands into the toy-box of the series history and pulls out a pleasingly random series of things to play with. The Matrix in Buster’s head, Pretenders, the solar harvester, the blooming Fallen (which no one quite believed was going to happen till it came out, though if a Transformer that was constantly on fire did no exist, Michael Bay would have to invent him. Amusingly changing the number of Prime’s basically killed Furman’s original efforts to make the 13 and there being only one multiversal Primus and Unicron a thing), all whilst bringing new stuff to the table as well.
It doesn’t deserve the apathy from both the fandom and the people who made it (who blame the 2008 writer’s strike, which is amusing as you really can’t tell that this is the one of the six working from an unfinished script). The audiences who went to the cinema and loved it and now have warm fuzzy “Yeah, I remember that one, they blew up Egypt, right?” memories are far more on track. It’s two and a half hours that aren’t perfect, but do represent Transformers at its insane messy best and I, against all odds, still love it.
Though the Decepticons were way too keen to blow up the sun of the planet they’re standing on weren’t they? I guess The Fallen had never seen Star Trek Generations.
Lucky bastard.
Now of course, new film means new comic. Leading us to...
ISSUE 25
2009
COMMENT
KO-FI
