Friday, July 3, 2009

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen

In a Nutshell: Robots pretty! The rest? Eh. Go in with low expectations, and you might be okay.

Quick Plot: What plot? An ancient robot seeks an equally ancient power source that is hidden on Earth, to the detriment of all planetary inhabitants.

In Detail: Um, that's really about it. Most of the story development of this film could fit in a haiku or two. As another very pithy reviewer put it: not much more than meets the CGI. (That reviewer's full remarks at http://bit.ly/JtvQ0 and it is too funny. DH fully agrees with him, more than he agrees with me.) Don't get me wrong, the CGI is awesome. If you have any inclination to see it, do see it on the big screen. Well, when you can actually see it. Why they spend all this money on the robots and then *not* pull the camera back so you can actually see what's going on is beyond me. I thought it was just blah. DH thought it was terrible, though I do think he's a little more emotionally invested in Transformers (in general, not necessarily Michael Bay's incarnation) than I am. We both agreed that it committed the cardinal sin of any major action blockbuster: it was boring. Not sure how that is even possible, but it was. And I'm not one who is a stickler for location accuracy, but I am pretty darned sure that there is not a desert with distant rocky mountains out the back door of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, not even the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Looked a whole lot more like Arizona (where it was filmed), which I am quite sure is nothing even remotely like Washington, DC. Just one glaring example of the many many things that were very wrong with the film.

Will I Buy It? I genuinely do not know. Pretty sure we're both leaning towards no. I don't particularly want to see it again, and I know DH doesn't either. We'll have to discuss it.

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