Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

On a scale of “meh” to “wow”, Revenge of the Fallen makes the mercury explode from the top of the thermometer in glorious CG red splashes.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: there’s a plot? Oh, yeah. Some metal thing puts some mumbo-jumbo into the kid from the first film’s head and the bad guys want it. Which means lots of robots beating the crap out of each other.

I was listening to Radio 5 Live on the way back and someone connected with the upcoming feature Moon spent a good few minutes absolutely slating Transformers 2. The basis for his argument was that science fiction is – or at least used to be – about things other than big robots hitting each other. He’s right, you know. The likes of Soylent Green, The Omega Man and 2001 were definitely more high brow than this… but Transformers has big sodding robots from another planet! If that’s not science fiction, I don’t know what is.

Sure, there’s only a basic story – enough to hang a few gazillion computer calculations off – but there are also a fair few laughs and some quite outstanding action sequences. Oh, and there’s Megan Fox for the eye candy. At least I’m assuming she’s stunning – it’s hard to tell when it’s so patently obvious she’s wearing enough makeup for Optimus Prime to cover up his wrinkles.

If I had to pick a stand-out performance, I’d go for John Turturro as the voice of Jetfire. Whoever decided to make him an aging Brit was a genius. Watching a hulking rustbucket on two legs stagger around and say “bollocks” helps take the Transformers out of “object” territory and into “character”.

If I have a complaint about the film it’s that there’s just too much going on at times. The screen is only so big and the effects so complex that I just felt like I couldn’t take it all in. A shame that there isn’t a local IMAX screen as this is most definitely a movie that would benefit from the additional screen real estate. I believe the IMAX version is also a noticable amount longer.

Science fiction comes in many flavours. As do summer blockbusters. Revenge of the Fallen fits well into both categories and they don’t bust blocks much bigger than this.