Optimus Prime just kicked The Fallen’s Ass!

One good thing about having a working schedule of 2pm to 11pm is that I can watch movies on weekday mornings when people are fewer. I can also watch movies on their opening days like what I did for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen!

The movie is almost 2.5 hours long, which is a lot longer than the first one. I was not able to really appreciate it the first time (yes, I watched it again the day after because of a treat?) because I was busy tracking who the new robot characters are, figuring out what will happen next, and thinking how the sound system sucked (sadly, it was not Dolby or THX or whatever technology it is that gives the movie surround sound with powerful bass).

Fortunately, I had the chance to see it again and I enjoyed it better. So let me give some of my views regarding this movie.

I was so amazed with the first movie’s special effects and CGI animation that I got really excited with this one and was hoping for a lot more of robotic action and I was not disappointed! If it is extended action for more robots that you want, then that is what you will get.

Here are some of the most memorable action scenes for me:

• Humans fighting side-by-side with the Autobots.
• Bumblebee dishing out better fighting moves while kicking the ass of a much bigger robot (a Constructicon).
• Optimus Prime showing than he can move with flexibility even if he is a big lumbering robot like when he jumped over a gigantic Constructicon and while he was fighting three robots on his own.
• The Twins, who look like dumb-ass robots, giving the huge Devastator a hard time.

But unfortunately, the movie is not without blemish. The movie gave more time to some scenes that I think are unnecessary and somehow lost focus on the much more important ones.

One specific lengthy scene which is not needed is the “funny mom” scene. Here, Sam Witwicky’s parents accompanied him to his first day at the university where his mom, unknowingly ate some marijuana that was offered to her by “environmentalists” calling it a “natural Hawaiian green”. So Sam’s mom got high and proceeded to do some crazy stunts around the campus.

Michael Bay is known for inserting his movies with comedy and I really dig it if it was done cleverly and subtly. So his classic dashes of “jokes” made me appreciate his old movies like Bad Boys and Bad Boys 2 and, of course, Transformers. But with Revenge of the Fallen, I can’t help but think that he is trying too hard to be funny.Sam and Mikhaela also had some extended “mushy” moments (including their little quarrel in the library) which I am thinking twice if should have been there or not because honestly, it makes me stare more at Megan Fox rather than focus on the movie! Haha!

With these extended scenes, some significant ones are left with just a few minutes. Here are the scenes that I think should have been given more focus:

• The sacrifice of Jetfire by giving his body parts to Optimus to revive him and make him stronger to fight The Fallen. Jetfire is a former Decepticon who converted to being an Autobot and that in itself is already a great sacrifice.
• Optimus’s fight with The Fallen and Megatron. It was the highlight of the movie! Why did it ended so quickly?
• The robots’ identities. In the first movie, if I remember correctly, each robot had a sort of introduction; the Autobots when introducing themselves to Sam and the Decepticons with their little dialogue subtitles.

To conclude, Revenge of The Fallen is still a good movie to watch in the big screen, if just for more action and more robots but artistically, Transformers is still better.