Clash scuttled along to the Leicester Square Odeon last week for the first European screening of the second live-action (okay, mostly CGI-action) Transformers movie – yes, we saw it before its stars showed up a few days later for the premiere proper. The follow-up to 2007’s successful first film, this sequel is again helmed by Michael Bay, a director hardly renowned for his subtlety on screen.
And, sure enough, Revenge Of The Fallen is all huge explosions, ridiculous battle sequences and super-kinetic chases from the very start to the Middle East-set climactic skirmish. We’re several thousands of years in the past to begin with, the storyline (sketchy though it is) beginning with the revelation that the evil Decepticons – the antagonists of this movie, its motion-picture forerunner and the cartoon and comics series of the 1980s onwards – arrived on Earth and got ahead with getting up to no good long before contemporary events. The robots may have departed, but they left behind some killer (literally) technology, including a weapon that can harvest the power of our sun. And now, in 2009 (we’re told the film is set ‘today’), they want that shit back. But the heroic Autobots – Optimus Prime and his motley crew of soldiers that mostly turn into cars; the Decepticons seem to have an advantage, as most of them can fly – aren’t going to let them ruin the home planet of their new mates, us.
And that’s the story, pretty much. The Fallen character is an old-timer who’s been pretty pissed ever since defecting from the path of all things wholesome – he turned to the proverbial dark side way back when, and now only a Prime, a relation of the very first Transformers, can stop him from making good on wreaking his Earth-destroying revenge. Optimus has to step up – and of course he ultimately does, albeit after a flirtation with deactivation (belated spoiler alert!) – and by the time nearly two-and-a-half hours have passed, various characters have been reduced to scrap metal, and our human protagonists – Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox and The Parents from the first film; oh, and some college dude pal of LaBeouf’s, who wets himself and screams a lot – are a bit dirtier than they were at the outset. A third movie is set up much in the manner of the first, as Optimus sends another message out into space, and then…
…All you’re left with, really, is a stinging sensation in your ears – this is a LOUD movie – and the feeling that the powers that be have taken a fun, family-friendly first film and destroyed it by cramming in more action than necessary into a boisterous sequel that’s so vivid with its depictions of carnage and chaos that, ultimately, it seems remarkably bland. There’s still plenty of silly jokes for the kids, and double-entendre funnies for mum and dad, but really: this plays out like one long advert for the masses of merchandise accompanying its release (not to mention the many brand names appearing on screen). The story is weak, and no one character enjoys enough screen time for us to really care about their fate, least of all The Fallen, who’s reduced to a supporting role once the first film’s villain Megatron (voiced brilliantly by Hugo Weaving) returns from his watery grave. There are budget-range video games available with more engrossing narratives than this, and while the effects are frequently amazing when appreciated in isolation, the constant barrage of them blurs the highlights into a whole that’s rather less impressive.
But then again, nobody was really expecting anything different, were they? If you disengage your brain completely there is pleasure to be derived from Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, and LaBeouf is clearly developing into an actor who’ll soon leave these sort of run-really-fast-and-duck-and-dive-and-scream roles behind; Fox, too, has her moments, and is on record as not personally liking the content of these all-action flicks – she’ll shine before long in a completely different picture. But, given the budget and the massive worldwide audience for this movie, one can’t help feeling short-changed once the credits roll.
Hollow, overly long and dangerously loud, this is a classic blockbuster in a modern sense: a certainty for critical lambasting, but just as sure to make the millions necessary to make another instalment.
4/10
