 Friday, July 3, 2009
Desert IMAX Theatre
Cathedral City, California
Review by Desert Cities Guides Movie Guide Nick Jones
Oh, Michael Bay. You, sir, are quite the interesting director. It’s a love hate thing with you. “The Rock,” love! “Pearl Harbor,” not so much. The first “Transformers,” good job! “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” not up to par. Besides its over-the-top length (149 minutes), ridiculous plot holes and racist stereotypes, its major flaw is the attempt at comedy. The movie pulled a Jar-Jar Binks. Instead of trying to wow the audience with the technical mastery of its computer-generated robots, Bay was more focused on trying to pull out laughs. But all that aside, the movie is a visual and audio masterpiece. The film looks amazing, the bots sound unreal and the film looks like its price tag of $200 million.
Optimus
So, supposedly thousands of years ago, a race of ancient Transformers arrived on Earth looking for suns to harvest for energy. This ancient race was known as the Dynasty of Primes. They had one rule — all life-bearing worlds would be spared. There was, as always, one brother who decided to build a Sun Harvester, “The Fallen.” The remaining Primes decided to sacrifice their bodies in order to hide The Matrix of Leadership, a key that powers the Sun Harvester. The Fallen swore revenge upon Earth once the key is found.
 Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is off to college, his parents fulfilling the role of parents by freaking out. All the standard things happen at college — he meets his crazy roommate, his mom eats a pot brownie and gets super high and there’s a Decepticon transformed into a college girl. His unbelievably perfect-looking girlfriend Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) is doing what most attractive bad girl types do, tattoos and motorcycles on her free time.
Sam is thrown into the alien war once again when he discovers he possesses a sliver of the AllSpark, the gigantic life-giving cube that was destroyed in the first film. It’s the Autobots versus the Decepticons yet again, except this time, they answer to bots higher up in the chain of command. Sam, not really having a choice, runs off to help in the fight for the planet Earth, of course, dragging Mikaela along with him.
Bumblebee
Two Autobots, Mudflap and Skids, have caused considerable controversy. They are said to alleged embody racist stereotypes, and it certainly seemed so to me. The characters speak in street slang dialogue, are somehow illiterate and have been perceived by some to be designed with the body proportions of monkeys. One of them even sports a gold tooth. Scott Mendelson of The Huffington Post, who made the monkey analogy, said, “To say that these two are the most astonishingly racist caricatures that I've ever seen in a mainstream motion picture would be an understatement.”
Technically the film is an astonishing experience. The bots during transformation visually look insane, and the audio, while crazy and loud, is also crisp and clear. I definitely recommend seeing a movie of this magnitude in the I-MAX, if possible.
If you don’t have that critical eye while watching the film, you may very well enjoy it. It’s a big, loud, explosive summer flick and possibly funny (depending on your humor). But if you like to keep an eye out for that Hollywood candy sewn nicely beneath the computer graphics, then you might be left with a sour taste in your mouth.
The Desert Cities Guides Movie Guides rates “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” three Palm Trees.
 Desert Cities Guides Movie Guide Nick Jones is a film critic and writer. Originally from the East Coast, Nick followed his family out to California and he now lives and reviews movies here in the Coachella Valley. Nick covers film events in Palm Springs and throughout the Coachella Valley.
To learn where “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is showing locally, click here.
For more about “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” click here.
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