Transformers2: Anderton Prime's Review

[FoolKiller]

Ok, I guess there ARE some examples of action movies with good plot and acting... Although is Lord of the Rings really considered an action movie??? I wouldve thought more along the lines of "Fantasy" Genre, like Labyrinth or the Never Ending Story...

Wow, you mentioned both Labyrinth and Never Ending Story. Awesome.

Anyway, yeah LotR counts as fantasy action is still action. Labyrinth or Never Ending Story lacked massively huge battle sequences.


We'll just have to disagree on Spiderman, as I felt Sam Raimi did it wel without mucking it up too bad, until the third. Speaking of Sam Raimi: I would even add Army of Darkness to that list. Yeah, I went there.

 

[Blitz187]

Wow, you mentioned both Labyrinth and Never Ending Story. Awesome.

Anyway, yeah LotR counts as fantasy action is still action. Labyrinth or Never Ending Story lacked massively huge battle sequences.


We'll just have to disagree on Spiderman, as I felt Sam Raimi did it wel without mucking it up too bad, until the third. Speaking of Sam Raimi: I would even add Army of Darkness to that list. Yeah, I went there.

We are getting a bit off-topic here, but Army of Darkness is awesome... I have a copy lying around here still I will come back after the weekend and give my findings on the Transformers movie Then I'll be on topic again

 

[Duke]

Which is worse... this or Wolverine? Tough call... tough call...

Ohh, TF3, without question. Wolverine was stupid but it wasn't mindless.

 

[Anderton Prime]

Ohh, TF3, without question. Wolverine was stupid but it wasn't mindless.

I dunno, I can't remember anything from Wolverine...I even forgot I had seen it until now. It was utterly forgettable. Even if all I remember from TF2 is one big blur of a fight scene, that's fine 'cause that's all it was!

 

[YSSMAN]

Well, I guess this is where we would have to be careful what we wish for. How many people complained about the lack of fight scenes in the first movie, only to be hit over the head with new ones in this one? Its very much a case of too much of a good thing, but I believe it is also somewhat dependent on what format you saw it in. The DLP screen allowed me to see much, much more. But in IMAX, blurry doesn't even begin to describe the fight sequences. I couldn't see anything, even when in "IMAX mode." While I could certainly blame my eyesight, seating position, among other things - I did just fine in the DLP theater to get the gist of it.

 

[Blitz187]

Ok guys, saw the movie yesterday in IMAX... Besides being VERY long I found it to be quite enjoyable... There were a couple of good jokes in the movie and your mushy stuff here and there... but overall I thought the effects were better now then in the first one... Lots of "Bullet-time" scenes and the tranformations and fight scenes were clearer... I found the twins to be kind of annoying at times though... And the bits running up to the final showdown were dragged out quite a bit with Michael Bay glorifying the US army again etc.... But thats just his style I guess... Overall I found it enjoyable and a decent action movie... I do have to admit I am a bit biased though, because I had about EVERY Transformer that existed when I was a kid, so you could call me a fan for life...

 

[ND4SPD]

I watched this movie the other night with some friends. I was blown away by how badass it was. Well it was badass if you look past the weird flaws. I was sorta disappointed by the lack of attention or introduction to the new transformers. Hell I only remember seeing the Chevy Volt transformer in one scene. I cringed when I saw the R8 transformer get split in half though. I especially loved Optimus' final battle in the forest. That film was great. Besides the weird loopholes and completely unnecessary characters (the twins..) I just wished they spent more time explaining some of new characters instead of those stupid twins.

 

[Blitz187]

...I especially loved Optimus' final battle in the forest...

Yup, that was a very good fight scene... Optimus FTW!!

 

[niky]

Hmmm.... Iron Man was a pretty good example of how you could do a straight action genre movie, add depth to it, and still keep it superficially entertaining enough to please everyone.

-

 

[725]

Nice review Anderton, I thought the film was poor I quite liked the first one, but this one was just Megan Fox running through the desert, some terrible plot holes as you mentioned, I was hoping to see more Starscream oh well.

On a side note as mentioned before Serenity was great, I'd rather have seen a sequel to that

Didn't realise you'd been away been searching for you Terminator Salvation review for ages

 

[Anderton Prime]

I got back into the swing of things too late to write one for T4, although what I could possibly say about it this far into the game I have no idea. I will say that it has caused me to doubt and almost boycott Bale's movies altogether; if he weren't in The Road I might safely be able to say I'll never see another of that whining, self-righteous egomaniac's films again.

Yeah I didn't like T4.

AT ALL.

 

[725]

lol I normally agree with your reviews, but to be honest I really enjoyed T4, maybe I went into the film with extremely negative thoughts.

What did you think of Star Trek?

 

[Anderton Prime]

What did you think of Star Trek?

Loved it!

Soooooo much better than Nemesis!

 

[FoolKiller]

Since Star Trek came up, I realized one extremely large plot hole, that is fortunately easy to overlook.

Spoiler

Old Spock should not have appeared in the new alternate reality 25 years after Nero, as that timeline is not in his past from when he entered the black hole. Old Spock should have come through in the original timeline.

But even with that, I still really enjoyed the film.

 

[YSSMAN]

Yeah I didn't like T4.

AT ALL.

See, the thing is with me, I look at both movies and see some very redeemable qualities under the surface. For what it was worth, McG was looking to make a legitimately awesome Terminator film from the get go. But, I believe that his pursuit of Christian Bale ultimately led to far too many compromises in the first film, because ultimately it lacked direction. I look at it this way; The film should have followed Reece, Connor or the bald Aussie. Period. It shouldn't have been a free-for-all for attention.

Otherwise, the look, feel, and overall atmosphere was bang-on for where it should be. Transformers 2 existed in the same realm, whereas there was plenty of "good" in the movie, but there was so much of it floating around, that we couldn't get focused, and ultimately it was lost in translation. Although, I definitely think the difference between these situations is that while McG had the right idea, and kept it close to his heart, it was likely Mike Bay (and only Mike Bay) that lead Transformers 2 astray.

 

[paskowitz]

TF2... hmm saw it... yeah it sucked. Michael Bay is like a 12 year old on meth, firing an m16, on a tank, while waiving the American flag in the sunset... while holding a hooker.

Ex: (Spoilers if it even matters)
Ah gee there is a giant robot on a pyramid lets shoot it with a random rail gun that no one knows about. But wait since we now have this rail gun that kills giant robots in half lets just use it once on one giant robot and not the other 50 evil robots threatening the very existence of the human race. Hell lets just put in on one ship not the entire Navy. Hell lets not even use it when they first invade us. Would not want the Mongolians to know. Now apparently these robots can turn into humans. Hmmm... why not do that and infiltrate the human race as humans not dump trucks and school buses? Oh yeah that movie is called Terminator. Hell lets have Sam running through explosions with GIANT shrapnel flying everywhere and huge rocks going through the air but not have him get hurt or his brain explode from the shockwave. Oh and Micaela's pants will never get dirty through all this. Also, Robots like to hump her leg and she apparently likes it. Since these robots only threaten to destroy the world we can only send about 20 US Marines and a couple of tank plus an airplane or two to deal with them not the entire US ARMY which would wipe them out in about 20 seconds (we can't have that). It would be like 1,000,000 Marines in Starcraft shooting 10 Ultralisks... DEAD! Oh and the rest of the world does not care that there are GIANT robots threatening to kill everyone on earth. But since this movie is called Transformers lets focus on stupid humans with no souls. Almost forgot Sam is the chosen one and Micaela is Trinity from the Matrix because her lips bring people back to life. I guess there are page 3 girl in every dorm room in college (can't wait for the real thing...). Oh and Sam's mom on special brownies is the on screen personification of Micheal Bay's mind. Security people in Egypt are midgets and "love" Americans.

The ONLY bearable things about the movie were the explosions and the action in the action scenes. Everything else was utter crap. Megan Fox is "hot" but not all that pretty. For example, Scarlet Johansson is both "hot" and pretty. Le Buff has talent but I guess he like big pay checks instead. Can't really blame him.

 

[Speedy Samurai]

Michael Bay is like a 12 year old on meth, firing an m16, on a tank, while waiving the American flag in the sunset... while holding a hooker.

Awesome! Someone sig this so I can read it frequently.

 

[Rue]

Fan edit?

The entire script reads like a bad fan-fiction based off of the first movie, by a thirteen year old who's never watched transformers in his entire life... picking up robot names and descriptions off of a wiki page.

It's one thing when a random, comic-relief character says "I'm a gonna pop a cap in yo' ass.", but when the noble and honorable Optimus Prime performs Mafia-style executions on helpless, defeated adversaries... those of us who grew up watching the cartoons start to die a little, inside.

As a marketing exercise for GM, TF2 also fails miserably. There are only one or two GM vehicles in the movie from GM you can actually buy... the rest are concepts and failed concepts... and they didn't even bother to switch Bumblebee from the "concept" to the "production" Camaro. The R8, on the other hand, you can buy today, at any Audi dealer, thank you very much.

-

As a "kid-oriented" movie, TF2 fails... miserably,,. again. There's kinky robo-fetish sex, jokes about scrotums, Mortal Kombat style executions, anti-social behavior and mindless, mind-numbing Ridley-Scott-esque action sequences that dragged on for hours... You could go to sleep halfway through the last battle and still wake up before the end... (I was quite honestly bored to tears before the final showdown started... not even Peter Jackson would drag out a battle scene this long) this is one movie parents most likely won't be taking their kids to watch... and if they do, they're not watching TF3 or buying the DVD.

Add to that, the frat-boyish humor, latent homophobia, slightly racist stereotypes, complete lack of logic... come on, not even thirteen year olds believe that Ivy-League schools are populated entirely by jocks and hot chicks, right? Right?... and for an alien artifact, thousands of years old, to contain a clue about another alien artifiact, in the form of a very human riddle (with human-o-centric points of reference... even if the riddle is couched in an alien language) is just beyond belief.

You can tell a movie is bad when people get up and walk out of the theater while the credit teasers are playing. They didn't even stop in their tracks to watch the mandatory "epilogue" scenes when they came up. They heard the dialogue, but didn't look up. Kept on walking right out. If it weren't for the odd smattering of humor in the movie, they probably would have walked out a lot earlier. While I normally sit through the credits of every movie I watch... just in case there's a stinger at the end I might miss, and because I feel it is my duty to honor those who wasted a significant part of their lives making the film... after one or two teasers, I lost interest, too, and got up to leave.

Which is worse... this or Wolverine? Tough call... tough call...

This is an excellent review of the movie. I wholeheartedly agree with everything said here 👍

Did anyone notice that the USAF needed GPS co-ordinates do destroy the big digger monster thing even though it was ON the most famous landmark in the world at the time. Sheesh...

 

[AOS-]

@niky

yeah that scene where we all see the Devastator's "Scrotum" was so unnecessary.

But even though R8s are in dealerships, we only see the r8 for at most 7 minutes?