With the general release of Transformers 2, it’s time to open up the floor to comments and find out what you guys thought of it. We’ve already shared our thoughts in our extensive review: Movie Chronicles Transformers 2 review.
Some questions to prompt debate
Did the new robots add to the film?
Which was the best new character?
Which was the worst?
What would you have done different?
Did the movie fly by too quickly or did you think it was too long?
Were Skids and Mudflap annoying or genuinely funny?
What was your biggest disappointment or favorite part?
A final YouTube playlist featuring every single TV Spot and Transformers 2 trailer for you to get your teeth into before you head out tonight or this weekend to watch Revenge of the Fallen. That’s 27 videos! You may, by the end of it, be tired of Linkin Park’s New Divide and Shia shouting “Optimus” or “Bumblebee”, but each one shows off a little bit of extra footage – you can also see how the CG effects evolve with each new video.
Posted onto Michael Bay’s official site comes “The Last One”, the final theatrical trailer for Revenge of the Fallen, and an amalgamation of all the trailers we’ve seen up to this point.
With the worldwide general release of Revenge of the Fallen, comes the much anticipated LA Premiere event at the Fox Theatre at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
18 Videos from the premiere
This is a YouTube video playlists that features 18 videos from the Revenge of the Fallen LA premiere
We posted our extensive Transformers 2 review up on Sunday night – it focuses on explaining the storyline step by step with an analysis of the new characters and robots from a fan’s perspective. Some fans were not happy with the outcome. View Movie Chronicles review
Meanwhile, pyramids are dismantled, bodies hurled through the air and facial orifices probed. And all the metal on display is more brassy than precious.
No amount of technical virtuosity can make up for an agonizingly witless story, clumsy dialogue and uninteresting characters.
The battle scenes are bewildering. A Bot makes no visual sense anyway, but two or three tangled up together create an incomprehensible confusion. I find it amusing that creatures that can unfold out of a Camaro and stand four stories high do most of their fighting with…fists. Like I say, dumber than a box of staples. They have tiny little heads, except for Starscream® [Jetfire], who is so ancient he has an aluminum beard.
Aware that this movie opened in England seven hours before Chicago time and the morning papers would be on the streets, after writing the above I looked up the first reviews as a reality check. I was reassured: “Like watching paint dry while getting hit over the head with a frying pan!” (Bradshaw, Guardian); “Sums up everything that is most tedious, crass and despicable about modern Hollywood!” (Tookey, Daily Mail); “A giant, lumbering idiot of a movie!” (Edwards, Daily Mirror). The first American review, Todd Gilchrist of Cinematical, reported that Bay’s “ambition runs a mile long and an inch deep,” but, in a spirited defense, says “this must be the most movie I have ever experienced.” He is bullish on the box office: it “feels destined to be the biggest movie of all time.” It’s certainly the biggest something of all time.
At last year’s Comic-Con convention, several representatives of Revenge of the Fallen appeared with the slogan ”Bigger. F—ing. Robots.” on their T-shirts, and Bay, taking that cue, knows just what his job is relative to the first Transformers (2007): It’s to make the movie huger, louder, smashier, and — on the mechanical level — more crazily, audaciously imaginative. He succeeds. Revenge of the Fallen showcases an infectiously diverse brigade of chattery unfolding contraptions, from mechanical gremlins that transform out of kitchen appliances to one that erupts from a vintage airplane to a coed with a tongue of steel. Each of these creature-gizmos has a marvelous, organic fluidity — they don’t just move, they clank and roll. And it was an inspired touch to set the film’s most ferocious battle amid the Pyramids, featuring a Decepticon so humungous it just about waddles with power. Revenge of the Fallen may be a massive overdose of popcorn greased with motor oil. But it knows how to feed your inner 10-year-old’s appetite for destruction.
There’s a lazy cynicism to “Transformers 2,” from the dubious comic-relief “ghetto” ‘bots known as the Twins, to the rump-in-the-air introduction of Fox’s character, to the general air of militaristic fetishism. The chief human antagonist is an Obama administration security adviser who keeps pushing diplomatic solutions while the Decepticons kill, kill, kill. Near the end an aged Autobot, waling away at his enemies atop a pyramid, mutters the line “I’m too old for this crap.” No matter, pal. You’re not in the target demographic.
AICN
Review Harry says TRANSFORMERS 2 is foul mouthed, racist & misogynistic! It also runs an hour too long!
All that said though – my nephew loved the film, he’s nearly nine. He hated the kissy stuff. But he loved pretty much everything else. He adored Mudflap and Skids – which is more disturbing than anything else. The amount of foul language popping out of their mouths is astonishing, especially with the shit, bitch, muther…, ass, pussy, etc…
What the hell is this stuff doing in a TRANSFORMERS movie?
Anyone?
This film was conceived during the WRITER’S STRIKE – with Michael Bay up at ILM doing animatics on the big action sequences. Then when the strike was over, he brought in Orci & Kurtzman to string the scenes together. Which oddly enough was kinda how Hitchcock and Lehmann worked on NORTH BY NORTHWEST (to radically different results). And then the roto-rooter of screenwriters, Ehren Kruger did the mop up work on the film. At least that’s how I’ve heard it went down.
The film will make a mint, undeservedly so. Steven Spielberg should be embarrassed to have his name on shoddy storywork like this. Shame on you Steven. Kids will be lining up for this – and they’ll be met with dog fucking, cussing, racial stereotypes and more. I seriously wonder if Spielberg was thinking of Mudflap & Skids as he watched the inauguration of Barack Obama – because he’d read the script at that point, he knew what his name was bringing, and yet he still had the gall to attend.
The filmmakers, studio and toymakers behind this film should be ashamed. To spend this type of money to bring this sort of hurtful and repugnant work to screen – it is an insult to every DREAM that so many have WORKed for, for years.
I’d like to ask you not to support this film, but those of you with young boys, I know there isn’t a chance. But realize you’ll be taking them to see a film with the lowest forms of humor, stereotypes and racism around. Not only that, but its packaged for our children. Which makes it all the more offensive.
The huge Transformers 2 ad that now covers the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas has been completed in time for the movie’s release. Here’s what the final product looks like:
Hundreds of tomorrow night’s midnight show times for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (debuting June 24 at 12:01 a.m.) are already sold out across the country. A few facts from Fandango below:
* Sold-out midnight show times (on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning) can be found all across the U.S.A., in cities such as New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Albuquerque, Denver, Houston, Nashville, Orlando, Colorado Springs, Tulsa, Fresno and Buford, Georgia.
* Exhibitors are continuing to add 3:45 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. show times on Wednesday morning to meet the fan demand.
* Currently, the film is selling twice as many tickets on Fandango as the original Transformers sold at the same point in that film’s sales cycle (two days before release date).
* The movie currently represents 87% of today’s ticket sales
* And as we noted yesterday, TF 2 showings at 500+ theaters in China are sold out 1.5 weeks in advanced.
Time in Moscow
Back from Moscow. Fresh from a visit to the former KGB, with second in command. He told me in his office I’m one of 10 American’s, one being a President, to ever be allowed inside what is now called the FSB. The only reason was he heard I was in town and he is a fan of my films.
Last night with my crew I saw the IMAX version. Once you get used to the giant format and your eyes adjust, it’s an awesome experience. I have been waiting until the film was final to judge, and I’m really pleased. You have to make a point to see it this way – It could be the very best way to see Transformers.
C’mon guys critics? Give me a break. Do you all have short term memory? They killed the first one, and it still became a world-wide smash. I made this for the you, the audience!
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