Format: 

Blu-ray

Directed by: 

Michael Bay

Publisher: 

Paramount

Release Date: 

10.20.2009

MSRP: 

$39.99

Number of Discs: 

2

Digital Copy: 

No

The Movie

Michael Bay did a surprisingly good job with Transformers two years before this sequel. It took the concept of discovery and blended it perfectly with action, humor, and heroism. On the surface, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen would appear to be the same. It has lots of giant robot battles, some funny moments, and a few great acts of valor. However, these elements are now placed in a different context. This film takes the next logical thematic step, addressing a young man's coming-of-age, yet the rest of the film is basically the same as the first, and these held-over elements do not fit as well. Essentially, in Revenge of the Fallen Bay is relying on the same strategies to win a different game. While these strategies have the capability to provide choice moments of greatness, they don't quite mesh, resulting in a film that too often is forced to try to convince us that it is important.

Every Transformers TV show and movie has the good Transformers, the Autobots, fighting the bad ones, the Decepticons, while the latter try to take over the Earth. In the first film of this series, the two races destroyed their own planet while fighting over the AllSpark, a cube with the power to grant nonliving things life, which would basically give its wielder cosmic power. The AllSpark was lost in the battle, flew across the galaxy, and ended up on Earth, where the battle resumed and a young man named Sam Witwicky got caught in the fray. Now, the AllSpark has been destroyed, but a few fragments of it remain, containing the secret to a weapon which was hidden on Earth millennia ago by the Decepticons and which, if activated, would destroy our sun so as to convert it to Energon, a type of energy needed to sustain the propagation of the Transformers. Needless to say, the Decepticons are out to retrieve one of the fragments. Sam, now involved in his first serious relationship and headed off to college, once again gets pulled into the mix, and he's going to play a vital role in saving Earth from the Decepticons.

The love relationship and the college experience lay out nicely the theme of maturation. In both of these experiences, Sam encounters some problems. In his relationship with Mikaela, he is struggling to bring himself to say the L-word to her. At college, he is struggling to adjust to the newfound freedom as well as to his borderline-neurotic roommate, Leo. It's not long, though, before he has much bigger problems to deal with. With the Autobots on the verge of being outcast by the United States government, their leader, Optimus Prime, comes to ask Sam for help. Sam is at first reluctant to take on this great responsibility, but soon after he puts it off, the situation goes beyond a matter of choice, and he is forced to deal with the problems that face him and Earth. These challenges were going to find him regardless of whether he chose to accept them. The only decision that was his to make was whether to be prepared.

With this theme, the movie has a strong foundation, but it begins veering in another direction and loses some potency for a good portion of its runtime. After it sets itself up, the plot becomes preoccupied with arcane fantasy-like elements. Sam, Mikaela, Leo, and Agent Simmons from the first film eventually find themselves searching for an ancient Transformer in order to wake him to get some help reading symbols. Then they have to find something called the Matrix of Leadership in order to revive a fallen comrade. There is also some back story about the Prime ancestry and later, in the film's worst offense, a brief and absurd out-of-body experience. It all becomes a bit too contrived; it basically amounts to the writers adding in some arbitrary elements (some of which, granted, have been established in older Transformers storylines) so that there is something important and perilous for Sam to do. What results is the feeling that the story views its mythology as more important than the elements that the viewer can actually relate to, such as the Earth and humankind.

What we have with Revenge of the Fallen is a good idea, a good franchise, and a story that loses its way about halfway in. I think director Michael Bay and his writers were trying too hard to make a summer blockbuster and forgot the need to craft a good story. It has too many artificial components trying to scream "This is epic!" and too few genuine elements that connect the film to the human experience. With the action mostly consisting of a lot of pounding and tossing, there is not much that is particularly original here, either. There is some awesomeness to be found, for sure, but overall it is outweighed by stuff that just is not engaging.

Click here for our full review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

The Extras

• Director/Writer Commentary
• The Human Factor: Exacting Revenge of the Fallen
• A Day with Bay: Tokyo Premiere
• 25 Years of Transformers
• The AllSpark Experiment
• NEST: Transformer Data-Hub
• Deconstructing Visual Bayhem
• Deleted/Alternate Scenes
• Giant Effing Movie
• The Optimus Prime Experience
• Linkin Park - New Divide (music video)
• Matrix of Marketing