Look! They’re Moving…They’re Alive! The Sequel

Judging by the jam-packed screening of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen I attended on Monday, this movie is going to be massive – but, I do declare, taking the same sneak peek as a sample, there’s no account for taste, and summer blockbusters will be summer blockbusters thanks to Michael Bay.

Longer (at a whopping, fidget-in-your-seat-after-Hour 1 144 minutes), louder, and – can you believe? – more obnoxious than the 2007 original, this sequel is all boom boom, not that much pow.

Not that I’m shocked by that: Bay wouldn’t have it any other way, except, natch, for the last part of my statement.

Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox reprise their roles as Sam and Mikaela, who again join with the Autobots against their sworn enemies, the Decepticons, in another battle for Earth’s fate.

LaBeouf makes Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen so much more watchable than it deserves to be it’s not even funny. That’s some star quality he has. Meanwhile, Fox makes it…pretty. Look, she’s gone on the record and said that “[Transformers] is not about an acting experience,” so she makes her role about wearing lots of lip gloss, super-short, super-tight clothes, and looking good.

So that’s that.

OK, now, if you remember what happened during the first movie, good for you, geek.

I know it had something to do with the AllSpark, the life source of Cybertronians. The Autobots wanted it to rebuild Cybertron (their home planet), while on the other hand, the Decepticons wanted it to raise and army of badass robots and get their mean on.

With Sam’s reluctant help, the Autobots prevailed, the Decepticons got schooled and fled to their derelict planet, the AllSpark was destroyed (or was it?), and as we learn early in the sequel, the former stayed on the planet to work with the military and safeguard it from the robo-evildoers that stayed behind.

During one of these missions, though, the Autobots’ leader, Optimus Prime, learns that – gasp! – “the Fallen shall rise again,” which he knows isn’t good. Soon, his Decepticon counterpart Megatron’s presumed-dead body is stolen from the military, and all hell breaks loose.

The Fallen, btw, is a Lucifer-like figure: It turns out, our world and the robo-world have met before, and the Fallen was there, and he’s pissed and wants the sun. Literally.

Not that I’m spoiling anything, but you probably didn’t need to know that. Because this movie is going to be massive, no matter what I or anyone else has to say about it, I gave it away, anyway.

No matter how much I tell you that, say, unlike two years ago, people didn’t cheer as much during Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (I think that Bay has managed to desensitize his audience at last with all his noise), you’re still gonna check it out.

So enjoy it, I guess. Like I said before, you’re going into it to be entertained, so enjoy it. It’s a recession, and I think you should save your money, but enjoy it.

It’s a summer blockbuster, after all.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures.