GIVE ME YOUR FACE!!

Ah yes...the title, it will explain everything to those who recall those famous, motivational words, uttered by none other then Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime as he attempted to resolve a situation through careful diplomacy, rather then brutal violence.

Yes. Thank you, Michael Bay, you once again take my hopes and smash them on the ground from your throne of money and broken dreams. To say simply that Revenge of the Fallen did not meet my expectations is an understatement. Now, I have complained about the first Transformers film, to be sure, there Autobots were hardly on screen, and the Decepticons even less! But still... when I compare these flaws to the newest entry into Michael Bay's disturbingly idiotic vision of my beloved franchise... they seem quite insignificant.

I know this is quite late, and it seems quite unlikely Transformers is playing even at a five dollar theater in the bad part of town anymore... but I wouldn't be keeping to my schedule if I made -timely- updates.

Now then, Revenge of the Fallen was a film I was looking forward to with every fiber of my being, the anticipation was maddening, and ever bit you saw on trailers or in stills were always just so fantastic! But... that's because no one really TALKS in those trailers, and truly, that is what they probably spent millions of dollars trying to cover up. The dialogue in this film makes the first's seem like it should have won an Oscar. Character development must have been thrown out in favor of a few more minutes of explosions and Shia LeBouf screaming. The only new human added to the cast has one motivation it seems, be annoying, scream like a woman, and just be an albatross around the neck of the other characters. Bravo screenwrites, truly, you have mastered the art of entertaining five year old children.

This also has the unfortunate side effect of making the act of telling a story almost impossible. Either the characters are off rattling away on some randomly unexplained tangent, or they evil robots are talking about vague, unexplained acts of revenge for something that is never really explained.

It should be worth mentioning that though they are delivering lines that would have to have a multimillion dollar salary behind them to get you to actually say without groaning in agony... the voice acting was actually quite good. The new robots, for as little as you see them, are voiced well for their part, and certain characters actually changed how they spoke to better fit their character: namely Starscream. Gone is the pseudo-macho deep voice from the first, and now he whimpers and squeaks like the whipped little girl he was in the old show.

And now we return to the title. You see, in the first film, Optimus was quite caring, respectful of innocent life, and only turned to open violence when there was little choice besides., much like he was in the cartoon. But in Revenge of the Fallen, he is particularly blood thirsty, seeming to actually ENJOY killing his misguided brethren... and is probably the most disturbing turn in this film.

Well, I think I've prattled enough, bottom line, Revenge of the Fallen was not a good movie. Seeing the Transformers was enjoyable but...that couldn't save this film for me in the long run. And I shudder when I look online and find articles declaring it has become the 9th highest grossing film EVER in the United States... what does that say about this country now days? Truly...


~Signing off