Thursday 25 June 2009

Transformers : Revenge Of The Fallen.


Just watched Transformers sequel at USJ Summit. Continuing where the first movie story left off, the US and the British Army have joined forces with the Autobots to hunt down the remaining Decepticons via NEST, a joint covert operation force. However, their presence is questioned by the National Security Advisor who strongly recommends that the Autobots should leave Earth since Megatron is now imprisoned in the depths of Laurentian Abyss, and with the All Spark destroyed , the sole reason the Decepticons are still on this planet is because of them (the Autobots). Optimus Prime disagrees, mainly because prior to that, during an military engagement in Shanghai, a dying Decepticon revealed that The Fallen would rise again. At the Earth orbit, the Decepticon Soundwave is scanning the entire Earth broadcast frequencies via tapping into a communication satellite and is gathering all the information of the conversation as well as the location of one of the last few remaining pieces of the All Spark which is at a military base. Soundwave launches Ravage onto the base to retrieve the All Spark and with it, summons The Contructicons to revive Megatron. Once activated, Megatron flies to one of the moons around Saturn and there within a space craft, The Fallen is introduced, whom Megatron addresses as master. Starscream is seen busy attending to the growing of Decepticon hatchlings but without Energon, it would not survive. It turns out that around 17,000 BC, a group of Transformers known as Primes and their followers known as Seekers, arrived on this planet with the intention to harvest and convert the Sun into Energon to fuel the All Spark. However, the main principle is that no stars would be harvested should any of the surrounding planets contain life. But The Fallen disagreed and fell out with the remaining six Primes. He was defeated but survives and presumably hid himself on the moon. The remaining six decided to sacrificed themselves to hide the key, known as The Matrix Of Leadership, which will activate the harvester. The location of the harvester is within one of the three Giza pyramids. The entire movie, typical of Michael Bay's style, is a non-stop action ride. It tends to get a bit repetitious after a while though. Optimus Prime still sounds cheesy and one dimensional, as in the 80s TV cartoon series and the first motion picture. There is timely infusion of comedic elements to keep one in stitches, although the jokes are crude and juvenile at times. One involves Wheelie, a former Decepticon which took the form of a remote control jeep and whom is captured by Mikael (Megan Fox). And Megan Fox oozes so much sexiness, I just could not take my eyes off her, except of course during the action sequence. I have to try to concentrate and take in as much details on screen as possible, for like in the first movie, the Transformers are complicated looking, full of moving parts, which makes me difficult to identify who is who. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) of course gets to play hero again, and is instrumental in reviving Optimus after he was killed trying to protect him. Sam also died but is revived by the Primes in a dream like state (reminds of Gandalf when he died in LOTR). Optimus then merged with Jetfire and defeated The Fallen and Megatron whose face is partly torned away. The ending is abit of a let down. The manner in which the forces of human and Autobots defeated the Decepticons are kinda rushy. His parents are back (and fun to watch this time around, unlike in the first movie), as well as Major Lennox (Josh Duhamel), Sergeant Epps (Tyrese), as well as Simmons (John Turturro), although the former two characters are less utilised this time around. New character include Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez), Sam's college roommate and a conspiracy theorist but true to character, he could be quite annoying. And then there is brief appearance by Deep Roy, the famous dwarf as an Egyptian army chief (he also happens to appear as Keenser, the walnut head looking alien close to Scotty in Star Trek 2009). But the stars are still the robots. Apart from Optimus, Bumblebee and Ironhide, couple of new Autobots are introduced, including Arcee, the female Autobot who is basically three separate super bikes driven by a single consciousness, Sideswipe who is like a ninja on skates and The Twins ~ Mudflap and Skids, basically two stereotypical, hip hop sounding, homies which, in all honestly, are irritating (like Jar Jar Binks? Not that bad, but nearly). On the Decepticons side, there're even more, including Soundwave, Ravage, The Constructicons which combines into the monstrous Devastator, arms with a vortex-like suction grinder and walks like a gorilla, Jetfire (in SR-71 Blackbird mode), one of the ancient Seekers who switches alliance to the Autobots (like in the first 80s cartoon storyline) and sacrificed his life and body to revive Optimus (turning him into something like the Powermaster-ish version, but with wings and flying ability), and finally, Alice (Isabel Lucas), a Pretender (whoa...they actually remember this category) which can transforms into a full fleshed human. I would watch this movie as well as its prequel on a boring day as it is just that, an entertaining movie for consideration if one really really got nothing else to do or wants to keep the head clear of thinking ;). So, all three targeted movies had been watched for 2009 in cinema, I would say Star Trek 2009 is the most well balanced in terms of excitement and story.

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