High time I busted my DA journal cherry - and what better way to do it than to post my review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen?!

I was originally going to post this right after I saw the movie last Friday (still can't believe us Limeys got it 5 days ahead of the US!), but I decided to wait until it had gone on general release on the States, so as to avoid any possible litigation resulting from my inadvertantly letting slip some spoilers

However, just to make sure, if you haven't seen the movie yet & still want to avoid spoilers, then don't read on!!!

Okay then, here's what I thought of it...

First & foremost, I have to say that Revenge of the Fallen is a whole heap of joyous big-screen fun, and the audience that I saw it with loved almost every minute (as did I!). Bay has clearly set his sights as wide as possible, concentrating his efforts in developing the more popular (to "vanilla" movie-goers, at least!) broadly-humorous aspects of the first movie... so be warned - if you didn't like Sam's mother, Mojo, smack-talking 'Bots or robos mimicking human bodily functions, then you'll find a lot to dislike in Revenge!

However, personally I think these kinds of humour have a legitimate place in the movies, as they humanise the TFs and allow a general audience to more readily suspend disbelief... and there can be no doubting that these live-action TF movies are enormously successful as wide-appeal entertainment.

That said, as much as I enjoyed it, I also felt that there were quite a few places where the movie fell short of the mark; most specifically when it comes to really developing characters (human or TF). The best movie sequels are the ones that really spend time on expanding the characters & their relationships, rather than solely cranking the action & spectacle up to 11... and although Bay has gone to great lengths to tell us how he & the CG wizards have managed to really up the ante with regards to giving the TFs a lot more character, this sadly did not seem to be the case.

In fact, I'd have to say that not much more time is spent on pure character moments than in the first one, which is rather indefensible as there were certainly a lot of room for character development in the story. For instance, much more could’ve been made of the Autobot/human soldiers alliance, which would have paid off beautifully in the later stages of the movie. Ironhide in particular would've worked really well as a comrade-in-arms with Lennox & Epps, and as someone else has already said on here, there were many chances to see Ratchet being a medic, but they were all missed. Instead, Bay has focussed more on the wider appeal of the “fun” TFs, which on some levels is understandable; unfortunately, this wide appeal approach comes at the expense of what I suspect the old-school hard-core TF fans would like to see.

On the ‘Con side of things, the Fallen wasn’t developed enough as a threat above & beyond the one offered by Megatron in the first movie; indeed, the presence of Megatron negated a lot of The Fallen’s impact as a character (but in compensation, at least this time 'round we get more Megs/Starscream interaction, which I really liked!). As an extension of this state of affairs, the stakes of the movie also seem somewhat lessened.

As for the human characters, unsurprisingly no Oscars will be handed out but almost everyone seems to be having fun in their roles, which again aids in the fight for wide audience appeal. I do think that Shia Lebeouf deserves a lot of credit for delivering a solid central performance as Sam (as with Indy 4, he seems to be about the only cast member who is taking things seriously!), and I also think that Kevin Dunn deserves an honourable mention as Sam’s dad – their father-son relationship was for me one of the strengths of the movie, even if it as only expressed in a few short scenes. It would’ve been nicer to see the character of Lennox developed more, though (another chance missed).

Action-wise, well, you already know that Bay’s going to explore every possible way he can think of to blow s**t up, and he packs the screen with a World War’s amount of firepower, but it is the hand-to-hand TF fights that are perhaps the most satisfying action-oriented parts of the movie. The forest smackdown between Prime, Megs, Starscream & Blackout and the final Prime/Megs/Fallen showdown in particular are tremendously brutal, savage & dramatic, and it was almost beyond awesome to see Bumblebee giving no quarter to his ‘Con foes!

However, the end fight goes on too long (as I think it did in the first one) & suffers slightly from a loss of focus, with a flurry of cannon-fodder 'Cons and generic human soldiers dashing between lovingly-filmed military hardware & increasingly large explosions... and Devastator was there primarily for “wow” factor. A King Kong-esque face-off between him and Superion atop the Pyramids would’ve been my choice for the end spectacle (if only the flight of F-16s had been Autobots!), to be followed up with a more personal Prime/Fallen face-off.

Anyway, I’d better bring all this rambling nonsense to a close! To sum up… in spite of some lazy/loose plotting and missed opportunities to mix up the awesome spectacle with deeper characterization, as a piece of pure big-screen popcorn entertainment, Revenge is a tremendous success. Not perfect by any means, but a whole heap of fun in spite of its flaws, and I was entertained from start to finish, unashamedly laughing & cheering with the rest of my fellow movie-goers!

In fact, roll on TF3!!! *

*though I hope they spend more time on developing the third movie, instead of rushing for a 2011 release. I think that the Writers’ Guild strike really hurt the development/finessing of TF2’s story, so this time give it three years and really put a lot of effort into polishing the story & characters.