The arrival of Michael Bay‘s latest film needs no real introduction. A sequel to 2007’s global smash hit Transformers, it’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and it is a posed, pop-art, cinematic ejaculation of instinctive, unthinking extremes.
I can’t fathom exactly how its works as a toy-spewing, collectible-spawning franchise marker, given the lack of anything resembling emotional investment in the material, but huge worldwide grosses again seem likely given the film’s state-of-the-art special effects. On its own merits, though, as a stand-alone movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a clamorous, metallic mess. In aping convention and breathlessly sprinting out ahead of itself to get to the next Big Moment — setting fire to Shanghai with a battle! an evil robot disguised as a sexually aggressive babe! the springing of an old Transformer from the Smithsonian Museum! the destruction of Egyptian pyramids! — the movie confirms its basic soullessness. It’s further proof that when Bay has someone (a producer, or studio) to really sit on him, his kinetic style can be harnessed for good-time pop thrills, as with The Rock, or Bad Boys. When given free reign to dictate length and shape tone on a whim, however, as with Bad Boys II, say, Bay’s worst instincts almost invariably win out.
The plot finds Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) leaving California, improbably, for college on the East Coast. This means goodbye to his slinky girlfriend Mikaela Barnes (Megan Fox), whom he won’t come out and say that he loves, as well as his doting Autobot car, Bumblebee. With Megatron, the leader of the evil Decepticons, buried in the ocean, Optimus Prime, the leader of the good-guy Autobots, scours the Earth popping caps in the asses of “punk-ass Decepticons” (the movie’s words… sigh) looking to somehow reform and regain power. In short, their plan involves recovering an important key/fragment and harnessing Sam’s knowledge, which will in turn allow them to activate a long-buried machine and destroy our sun. Globe-trotting mayhem ensues.
Paradoxically, for a movie designed from the get-go to be a 2,000-calorie, sugar-infused, summer movie snack cake, there’s actually an awful lot to say about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen; it’s just arguable whether any of this advances any particular noble or notable agenda, beyond raising the hackles of a fan-boy set who will largely do anything to avoid not seeing the emperor’s new clothes. Bay aims for fleeting topicality with the insertion of a swine flu joke, and finally goes meta by having Sam’s room adorned with a poster for Bad Boys II. And there’s plenty of air-quote humor, though instead of a minutes-long sequence in which Sam’s parents think he’s masturbating in his room while Autobots rampage outside, as in the first movie, this time it’s two jive-talking Autobots (one with a gold tooth) who seem nipped from some traveling minstrel show.
Everything about this sequel is bigger-better-faster-more, to the point where any sense of nuance or naturally building tension that writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Ehren Kruger might have tried to worm into the narrative is blasted to holy hell. Not content with your run-of-the-mill staging for a brief underwater sequence in which Megatron is resurrected, Bay throws in CGI octopi to ostensibly emphasis depth. Ergo, it makes total sense that Sam’s new college roommate has a Mountain Dew drink machine in his room — after all, that’s extreme! It’s also therefore a somewhat telling metaphor that when Sam, his roommate and Mikaela flee a marauding Decepticon and take refuge in the university library, books are blasted to and fro. An indictment of the intelligentsia and their critical snobbery, or just a middle finger at outmoded entertainment? Take your pick.
As one might expect, there are a handful of moments of dazzling technical proficiency, but the brawn here is never really thrilling, and the supposedly climactic desert battle sequence seems to drag on forever. Part of this is because, for me at least, there’s still something less than wholly engaging about anthropomorphized hunks of metal stabbing one another through the face, or ripping out each other’s “hearts.” The metal blends together, in a way, and there’s no nervous, cathartic charge the way there can be in other fight sequences. All the humans in this story feel unnecessary, in other words. Which may make this the ultimate example of Bay’s technical filmmaking prowess. (Paramount/DreamWorks, PG-13, 149 minutes)