Customer Reviews

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2-Disc Special Edition) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Movie Itself:
Revenge of the fallen is perhaps the most anticipated title of the year and therefore has been released in numerous versions (exclusive to different retailers) to milk the cash cow. I really don't have many words to explain this movie as its not the kind of material that can be analyzed based on performance and/or storyline. Its purely flash, computer generated graphics, extremely loud noise and thrashing sound effects, and yes everything has reflection leading to more of the same. It's meant to entertain the audience on the big screen and I think it does exactly that. Audience doesn't have to think or process in their minds what's being shown on the screen, they simply watch and enjoy the sounds, effects, graphics and crash! boom! bang!

The Video:
The transfer on this Blu-ray is 1080p/AVC MPEG-4. Its definitely not reference quality material but its up there in terms of sharpness, colour saturation and detail. The scenes shot in IMAX exhibit great level of detail and are worth watching a few times. Beware though, IMAX scenes were cropped top and bottom and the entire movie was presented in 2.40:1 aspect ratio.

The Audio:
Its a very typical Michael Bay track. Its loud, it pumps all the channels and thumps a lot of bass through the sub. The audio encode is DTS-HD MA 5.1 and leaves very little to be desired. The dialogue, music, sounds behind action sequences are perfectly leveled/balanced and I didn't have to adjust volume over and again to bring it to appropriate levels.

Final Words:
I guess if you are fanboy you probably have purchased this already. If you are reading this, you are undecided so for those who are, this is a rental at best. If on a given Friday evening you cant get a movie of choice you can definitely give this one go.

The movie itself is not as good as the first film but is great as blu-ray eye candy. the effects are amazing and the detail that can be seen on a decent tv running blu-ray is really phenomenal. I would highly recommend this as a dvd to test the quality of your system for sound and visuals.

Extra content is good as well with many hours of additional material to browse through.

The less words wasted on this film, the happier everyone will be. I think it would be easier to write about what worked in this film - the visual effects did - there is some jaw dropping work going on here. A few interactions between robots and humans is simply awe inspiring. Too bad the rest of the movie doesn't work as well. The script is a mess. The characterizations of some of the robots are borderline - no, they are - racist. The humans don't get off much better here either. I'm pretty sure that a GI Joe action figure could have stood in for Shia LaBeouf and it would have made just as much sense.
I can't recommend this film, even to my worst enemy. I say all this as a Michael Bay apologist. Sure he makes loud, bombastic crap, but at least The Rock and Bad Boys are enjoyable. I would rather stick a fork in my eyeball than ever watch another one of his Transformers' films again.
Haven't seen the Blu-ray of this, but I'm sure it's like the movie - colourful and loud and mind-boggling long. So yeah, if that's your thing, then nothing I say here will change your mind. And if you weren't a fan in the first place, then why the heck are you even considering buying this film? Oh yeah because Amazon thought, like me, since you were adding all of those Criterion Blu-ray titles to your Wish List, you simply couldn't wait for this either. That's it, right?

First, let me preface this review by saying that I am a Transformers fan and have been for 25 years. Contrary to what another reviewer has said, I don't believe that anyone who going into Transformers 2 expecting a decent script has a "serious malfunction". Orci and Kurtzman wrote this, and also wrote Star Trek. Obviously they are capable of a good script. For a movie with this much budget, you'd think they could come up with a plot that makes sense.

This is a movie to make you say "wow". Not because it's great, or the special effects are any good (they're not) -- just because Transformers 2 messes things up even more than the first one did.

For example, the dialogue is geared towards kiddies, just like the old cartoon was. Then, mixed in the middle of all that kiddie dialogue, is Megan Fox wearing a tank top, then Megan Fox wearing leather chaps, then Megan Fox stripping off those chaps...just who is this movie for? It's either geared for kids with no consideration at all for throwing all this sexual imagery at you, or it's geared for adults (males) and really dumbed down.

All that would be forgivable if this movie had a plot, or characters, or even decent CG effects. The effects were so bad, clearly the crew only had so much time and budget to finish. So when you see a robot called "The Doctor" manipulate Sam's (Shia Labouf) face, it looks like something out of Roger Rabbit, or Star Wars Episode I. When robots are getting blown apart, you see little pieces of junk flying off them, but they don't look real at all -- it looks like little cartoon pieces of junk. Everything just looks fake, completely fake. Except the explosions. Those look real (because they were real) and there's a lot of them.

So many opportunities squandered. The death of a beloved character has no emotion to it, even the 1986 cartoon movie had more emotion to the scene in question. The Fallen -- one of the all time great Transformers characters -- is just another bad guy, not the awe inspiring menace he should be. And don't get me started on the hip-hop-bots. Why does Devastator have genitalia? Was that really nessesary?

There are some shining lights in this movie. John Turturro, as Simmons, is better and funnier than before. There are lots more robots -- dozens. I couldn't keep them straight!

However that is part of Michael Bay's problem. His design team makes the robots essentially all look the same, particularly the Decepticons. There are a group of "protoform" Decepticons who arrive on Earth. Since they are "protoforms", they are actually all identical with the exact same design. Yeah, you get Constructicons -- so what? You can't keep them straight, there are multiples of several of them. Yeah, there are Insecticons -- so what? They don't do anything or have any character. The humans, in fact, do all the thinking, talking, leading, and everything else in this movie. That isn't what the original Marvel series envisioned by Bob Budianski and Simon Furman was about. That isn't even what the cartoon was about. Transformers is about the robots, and yes, they should have some characterization! If the comic book did, surely they can do it in a multi-million dollar movie. But no; either nobody thought to write interesting characters for classic robots like Sideswipe, Arcee, and Ratchet, or they just didn't have the budget to give them the screen time. Sad.

I liked that there was a Pretender included, I liked that we saw a lot more robots, and some with interesting robot-modes, but at the end of the day this movie was just more of the same.

The humour was pretty terrible -- Sam's parents are more annoying than ever, especially his mother (who gets high accidentally) and his roomate is one character that either should never have been written, or killed off in Act 2.

Plot holes big enough to drive a Peterbilt truck through:
1. A bunch of mini-bots attack Sam in his kitchen, requiring Bumblebee to barely save him. Two minutes later, Sam is telling Bee that he's all grown up and doesn't need his protection anymore. Then, 20 minutes later, Bee comes to save Sam from a Decepticon pretender...but doesn't actually do anything. He lets the pretender into the car, and then he just plays annoying songs on his radio and sprays the Pretender with lubricant instead of...I dunno...driving off? Seriously.

2. The tomb of the Primes! Jetfire finishes explaining that the original Primes sacrificed themselves to create a tomb out of their bodies. Then he explains, "Only a Prime can defeat the Fallen." Well, maybe they shouldn't have sacrificed themselves?

3. The tomb that they sacrificed their bodies to create doesn't actually do anything. It's opened with one simple blast.

4. "Only a Prime can defeat the Fallen." Not sure why. They just had a normal-type fight. Nothing special that any other 'bot couldn't do. And Prime needed Jetfire's help anyway!

Since you're going to buy this movie no matter what I say, please heed just one piece of advice. Go out and buy some reprints of the original Marvel G1 comic series. Please. Just to prove to yourself that Transformers are not intrinsically stupid. Just that Bay keeps screwing everything up.

That is something !

Very good, intense, and fabulous graphics: good story.

Like it alot

This is an awesome movie. I saw it in theaters and although it was long it was good. The only problem was during certain parts when Optimus Prime and others were talking for long periods of time, it was sometimes hard to understand what they were saying. Other than that I love this movie and I love the first one, not just because Megan Fox is in it either. :)

This is the kind of movie you don't want to miss because it is truly entertaining with it's non stop action. The special effects are awsome, the cast is just right, especially Shia LaBeouf. I think he is such a brilliant young actor who will go far in his acting career. He's funny and at the same time, he can be serious when the part needs him to be. This movie is just as good if not better than the first one. So if you are looking for an action-packed and fun to watch movie, this one is most certainly a good choice.