At the Movies: Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen

First of all, let me say that I seriously enjoyed the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen experience. But the whole time I was watching it, I kept hearing this repetitious "baa-baa-baa" sound somewhere in my subconscious. I, like millions and millions of others across this planet Earth - which according to Jetfire, a Seeker and former Decepticon, should just be "Dirt" - am a victim/beneficiary of a movie generated solely for the purpose of arcane, primordial human entertainment...however embarrassing that notion might be. It was - backwards, forwards and inside out - made for the masses.

From the onset, you've got your prehistoric flashback which establishes the whole bad guy vs. earthlings as a struggle dating back some 17 millennia. You’ve got your nerdy cool guy who's the savior of the world in Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf). Then there's Mikaela (Megan Fox), the super hot, rough-rider girlfriend, who sticks by his side even when a human-disguised Decepticon chick almost gets her metal tongue down his throat. And, of course, you-ve got your bigger than life good guys, the Autobots, who – even though their technology is far, far, far beyond anything humans have even begun to dream - are somehow unable to get the job done without the help of a human of average intelligence and no superpowers. There's the leader Optimus Prime, the faithful companion Bumblebee, and my new favorite (who I referenced earlier) Jetfire. BTW…Seekers like Jetfire were sent out into the universe by the Primes (millennia and millennia ago) to search for suitable suns for harvesting. Yeah, I won’t go into a detailed description on that side plot here…just watch the movie. Then, there were the twins. Oh goodness…the twins. They were like Flava Flav squared! They may have been a little offensive, most definitely over-the-top, but people seemed to like them. Oh yeah, I almost forgot...Sector Seven's top agent, Simmons, definitely adds some snarkalicious flair to the movie. I love that guy!

What's a summer, blockbuster action-flick without a smathering of bad guys? Not a summer blockbuster action-flick...that's what! In this movie, you've got baddies of the human and Decepticon variety. We have the typical suit-and-tie human bureaucrat who represents the government of the United States, didn't have a clue what was going on, and nearly destroyed everything. It's a bit reflective of humankind's general perception of government bureaucrats, no? Well, this guy ultimately gets thrown from a plane by the indomitable Major Lennox. The Decepticons were out in full force. There's the ever-present Megatron – bad-guy extraordinaire - with a new-found allegiance to the Fallen. The Fallen is this ancient Prime whose plot to harvest the sun of a life-bearing planet - the Earth, of course - was foiled by his "brother" primes long, long, long ago. The good primes had to sacrifice themselves to save the Earth and stop the Fallen, but, you know, it's all in a day's work. Now, Fallen is back to finish what he started. He's a little angsty, but I suppose after 17,000 years of unfulfilled dreams, I would be too. I wanted him to be smarter. It seems like the whole "take over the universe" mantra makes the Decepticons a little less intelligent than their Autobot counterparts. Starscream was back and boy was he the subservient wimp in this one. Megatron smacked him around more than the Autobots did.

The cinematography was incredible. You can't really go wrong when you shoot in the Middle Eastern deserts for half the movie. And director Michael Bay has a thing for those up-shots into the stratosphere. I love those shots, but after the first twenty they start to lose their "big" effect.

Then, there were the million plots holes that you don't really think about during the movie because you just can't! There’s WAY too much happening to worry about how Megatron hooked up with the Fallen or where the Fallen has been all this time or how Starscream figured out how to breed new Decepticons (for that matter, how were they breeding these new Decepticons?).

The one-liners – well, a lot of them – were just so typical cheese-ball that it kind of hurt a little bit every time an actor was forced to say one.

But really, it wasn't meant to be high-brow entertainment. And for what it was - a cheesy, typical summer movie filled with wicked action, awesome special effects, a rah-rah underdog and down with the baddies theme - it rocked! It rocked hard!

If you're thinking of taking the kids, just know that it absolutely earned its PG-13 rating this time around. There was a lot more language in this one than there was in the first one. There's no GRAPHIC violence, but there's plenty (and I mean PLENTY) of bang-bang, shoot 'em up madness happening from start to finish.

Overall, it was fun. It was a means of escaping reality without having to think...not even a little!