Movie Review: Yet Another Hollywood Sequel - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Director Michael Bay, executive producer Steven Spielberg, and most of the human and robotic stars are back in this sequel to the 2007 hit. In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the Autobots (good robots) have now joined forces with the American military to form an organization named NEST to combat the Decepticons (bad robots) that are threatening Earth. And, of course, it doesn't take long for college student Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), to get caught up once again in the war between the combating aliens. Returning for the ride is his girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) -- and his Chevy Camaro/Autobot friend, Bumblebee. No doubt about it, Fox is beautiful. And Bay dresses her in low-cut shirts and short-shorts to draw in the fans. But is it just me -- or does Bumblebee seem less robotic than Fox (see poll results below)? At least LaBeouf shows some emotion in the quest to save Autobot leader Optimus Prime and our planet.

I definitely enjoyed this movie more than the first -- which I found really silly, despite the cool robots. In this sequel, the storyline is better and the dialogue (somewhat) improved. Also adding more excitement are all the newly introduced robots and some international settings. But at two-and-a-half hours, the movie is way too long. A final battle scene goes on and on and on -- and could have been cut in half to make the movie a more reasonable two hours. So to sum it up, Bay definitely lives up to his reputation of being the master of creating a lot of crashes and noises -- but being unable to make a good movie. Remember though, I am grading on the genre -- summer popcorn fluff -- and since the robots kept my interest for at least the first two hours, I will say that Bay has made an OK summer film. [Rated PG-13; Opens June 24]

Grade: B-


Notes:

• Also, are the new jive-talking twin autobots racist? Read The Philadelphia Tribune article here -- and comment below!
• Poll results: In the Transformers movies, who is more robotic?
  Bumblebee 15 (38%), Megan Fox 24 (61%); Total votes: 39