TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN REVIEW!! (TRANSFORMERS SERIES RE-VISIT)

Initial release date: June 24, 2009

Studios: Paramount Pictures/DreamWorks Pictures/Hasbro Studios

Tagline: Revenge takes many forms

Revenge is coming

Plot: Two years after he and his Autobot friends saved the world from the Decepticons, Sam Witwicky faces a new battle: college. Meanwhile, Optimus Prime and the Autobots are working with a secret military organization and trying to make a home for themselves on Earth. When an ancient Decepticon known as The Fallen rises up to wreck vengeance, Sam and his girlfriend, Mikaela, must figure out the history of the Transformers on Earth and find a way to defeat The Fallen once and for all.

Cast

Shia LaBeouf - Sam Witwicky

Megan Fox - Mikaela Barnes

Josh Duhamel - Major Lennox

Tyrese Gibson - USAF Chief Master Sgt. Epps

John Turturro - Simmons

Ramon Rodriguez - Leo Spitz

Kevin Dunn - Ron Witwicky

Julie White - Judy Witwicky

Isabel Lucas - Alice

John Benjamin Hickey - Galloway

Hugo Weaving - Megatron

Tony Todd (aka Candyman) - Fallen

Peter Cullen - Optimus Prime

Writer(s): Roberto Orci/Alex Kurtzman/Ehren Kruger (Top Gun: Maverick; Dumbo; Ghost in the Shell)

Director: Michael Bay

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material and brief drug material (149 minutes)

With the latest sequel in the franchise, Rise of the Beasts, now showing in town, I am re-visiting the live-action franchise. A few days ago, I took another look at the 2007 movie which I think is the best in the Bay series (Transformers 1-5). Now it's time for an updated take on the 2009 movie, Revenge of the Fallen.

When I first watched this sequel when it was initially released, it was definitely one of the weakest entries in the franchise. And, after giving it another look, Revenge of the Fallen is still one of the weakest entries, but it's not AS bad as I initially thought.

Some of the action scenes are really awesome to watch and the visual effects in those sequences are incredible. The action scenes can be a little hard to follow who's fighting who since there's a lot going on.

The 2009 sequel also gave some more insight to the history of the Transformers which I thought was really interesting and fun to watch. The movie also introduced us to new robot characters, some of which were kind of annoying.

Onto the mixed aspects of this sequel. Most of the series has always had a slight problem with telling a compelling story on the human side. The scenes that feature Sam Witwicky's parents did get a tad on the annoying side, mainly during the beginning college scenes. They were funny at first but after awhile not so much. The roommate character in the movie also was very annoying most of the time and when Simmons tasered him later in the movie, I didn't mind it one bit lol. The jokes in this sequel were kinda meh and almost just as juvenile as the 2007 movie.

I just recently took another look at Dark of the Moon and will have an updated take on that very soon. I meant to be wrapping up the Transformers re-visit already but had a busy weekend. So, I'm mainly playing catch up. Tonight I will be checking out Age of Extinction and on Wednesday and Thursday The Last Knight and Bumblebee! I also have another slate planned for right after Transformers which I will slightly shorten so I can fit the slate in before I leave for a little break!!

Here are some fun tidbits for Revenge of the Fallen!!

• John Turturro was allowed to climb the pyramids during filming in Egypt.

• The movie shot over four days in Jordan, at Petra, Wadi Rum and Salt. The Jordanian royal family, who loved the 2007 movie, provided the Royal Jordanian Air Force for assistance.

• The Fallen was originally considered to have an alternate mode: the Aurora, a mythical espionage aircraft. This was scrapped, in favor of him having no alternate mode, to represent him as primal and ancient.

• Michael Bay considered making the movie Pain & Gain between Transformers and this sequel, but he "didn't want someone else to take his baby" and so stuck around to make four more Transformers movies. He was finally able to make Pain & Gain (a good movie BTW) in 2013, between Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction.

• Michael Bay was disappointed with the climactic fight with Optimus Prime and the Fallen, because he had to scale it down due to running time purposes.

• Major hurdles for the movie's initial production stages included the 2007-08 Writer's Guild strike as well as the threat of strikes by other guilds. Prior to a potential Director's Guild strike, Bay began creating animations of action sequences featuring characters rejected for the 2007 movie. This would allow animators to complete sequences if a DGA strike happened in July 2008, which ultimately didn't happen.

• Orci and Kurtzman (who wrote the first movie) originally passed on the opportunity to write a sequel due to schedule conflicts. The studio began courting other writers in May 2007, but were unimpressed with other pitches and eventually convinced them to return.

• Despite negative reception, Revenge of the Fallen was a box office success, earning $402.1 million domestic and $434.2 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $836.3 million.

https://youtu.be/fnXzKwUgDhg