TF2 - ROTF Movie reviews and comments.

[i_amtrunks]

Short Version:
Overlong, and gets boring in final third, great cinematography, poor script, great acting, comedy is either decent slapstick or terribly crude. Effects worse than first film. This is a Prime movie as the first was a Bumblebee movie.

Long Version:
I saw the advanced screening last night at George St, Sydney. It was a strange session as it was for employees of LG, so the cinema was 2/3 men and their friends/partners in the 20-40 year age bracket, and the rest were families with children in the 6-12 bracket. Very strange not having teenagers on mobiles being gits! Also strange as the cinema was very long, and narrow, and the acoustics were terrible.

Many of you may remember that I am not a big fan of Bay and his work, but I have to say (and this might give Burn a heart attack) that I think Bay did a fantastic job this time around with the cinematography. He culled the lens flares right back, his use of explosives was top notch in both size and scope, and his general placement and shot selection were fantastic.

Too bad about the "story" which, unlike Sam's mothers "special brownie" was only half-baked. More screentime was devoted to dogs humping, and leg humping than to characters new and old. Unless you were a transformer called Prime, you really did not see much time on screen, even Bumblebee only got a few moments (he is still a crowd favourite going by the audience). Ratchet, Jolt, Arcee, Sideswipe, and all Decepticons bar Megatron and Starscream gain only seconds of screentime, Jolt himself is mroe-or less a deus ex machina. There is next to no character development, Starscream is probably the character who is fleshed out the most from the first film.

Humans were good for the most part, Turdterro was hammy once again, and neither my gf or I enjoyed his screentime. Scenes with Sam and his parents were comedic highlights, but much of the "humour" is lowbrow crudeness, or decent slapstick, this film is not something that younger kids probably shouldn't be watching, there are plenty of lines that will (hopefully) go over their heads.

As others have mentioned, this film is long, too long. Some longer films (LotR, Saving private Ryan) make the hours fly by, this film really dragged on, as Sleeve stated, you get to a point where the film has a climatic battle, and then there is another hour and a bit that really drags it's feet.
Once the movie shifts to Egypt I found myself struggling to really care, the big battle scene was very 'meh' as not for one second did I consider the Decepticons to be a threat, they were not all that menacing since they were rendered as mostly bumbling incompetents.

Speaking of which, Megatrons switch to a lackey to the Fallen was forced, and every scene with the Fallen grated me, he was very much the 80's Saturday morning super villain. The Decepticons for the most part also fill the 80's bad guy roles, being more or less incompetent, standing around waiting to be beaten, Ravage was about the only Decepticon to succeed in his mission.

This was also a film of clichés, and bog standard movie moments borrowed from other films, none very subtle, the last half of the movie would be best described as "Transformers and the Crystal Skull".

Just like the first film, the concept of time seems to be lost in this film, again mostly in the final third. It is hard to explain, but characters re-appear and disappear here and there, and while some human characters have run 3 miles in the film, others have sat still for what would have been 15 or more minutes in realtime (but only seconds in movietime) while enemies attack. it's a minor gripe, but it bothered me more in this film than the first.

The effects are either very good or bad. The motion blur has been toned right back, but you will still have trouble telling what is going on during some fights due to the intricate cgi character models. Some scenes look spectacular, and the fight between Optimus and the Decepticons in the forest was rather well done, and Ravage infiltrating the naval base was the best cgi of the film, but anything to do with Decepticons in the city or the Pyramids was terrible, Devastator in particular looked like a stop motion model for parts of it.
I am sure it was the cinema I was in, but the audio was terrible, many Decepticons were hard or impossible to understand when speaking english, and the film as a whole seemed quiet. The score and soundtrack were weak, no real highlights that I could pick up.

When I saw the first Transformers film it was a 7.30 session on opening day, there was raucous applause at the end. No applause for this film, everyone was up and out of their seats quick smart. A few moments had the general audience laughing, mostly in the first half of the film. Funnily a few guys applauded when Megan Fox was made to run in a lowcut top...

RotF is a decent popcorn flick, but could have been much better had the film been shortened. Other than the abysmal script, the main problem the film has is that it is trying to be too many things to too many people, and ultimately fails at all of them. It is not a comedy, it is not a road trip movie, it is not a trip to enlightnenment/personal betterment, it is not an espionage or war movie, yet it tries it hand at all of these genres at one point of another. On a more personal note, the film felt like it was trying to be cool and hardcore with its use of profanity and lowbrow humour it what was otherwise a mostly family friendly film, and came off the worse for it.

Overall RotF is nowhere near as coherent and solid in storytelling as the first film, there iss till little characterisation for all but a few characters. RotF certainly ups the ante on robot screen time and battles are handled much better. However you must turn your brain completely off before viewing. Oh and make sure to use the bathroom before the film, and pack snacks as well.

Cinematography: 4/5
Story: 1/5
Acting 3.5/5
Voice Acting: 3/5
Visual Effects: 2.5/5
Audio (I hope it was the cinema): 1.5/5
Overall 2.5/5