Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Release Date: June 24th, 2009

Click here for the Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen Trailer.

Two years after the defeat of Megatron(voice: Hugo Weaving) the Autobots, lead by Optimus Prime(voice: Peter Cullen), have joined forces with American and British army special forces who have teamed up to create NEST, a secret military organization designed to hunt down and destroy all of the remaining Decepticons who are still hiding on Earth. When Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, takes a team to Shanghai China to take out Decepticons Sideways and Demolisher. Before Demolisher is destroyed by Optimus Prime, he utters out the words "The Fallen will rise again!"

When the president orders National Security Advisor Galloway to be added to NEST, he immediately begins berating the Autobots and demanding their departure from Earth, believing that the only reason the Decepticons stay is to kill the Autobots. Meanwhile, Sam Witwicky(Shia LaBeouf) is trying to live out a normal life after his encounter with Optimus Prime and Megatron two years ago. He has enrolled in college and on the day he leaves, Sam discovers a piece of the All Spark, the essence of the power and existence of the Transformers. Sam thought all but one piece of the All Spark had been destroyed and that the remaining piece was heavily guarded in an American military base. Upon touching the All Spark, images of the ancient language of the Transformers are imprinted into his brain and begin displaying before him, causing him to have a slight mental breakdown. When the location of the guarded All Spark piece is discovered by the Decepticon Soundwave, he dispatches the Decepticon Ravage, who looks like a one-eyed jaguar, to steal the All Spark piece, which he successfully does. A team of Decepticons is deployed to the Laurentian Abyss, the resting place of Megatron. Using some parts from another Decepticon and the piece of the All Spark, Megatron is resurrected. Megatron then travels to a Decepticon planet and meets with The Fallen, one of the original Transformers and Megatron's master. The Decepticons are attempting to breed an army, but all the hatchlings die instantly after birth due to a lack of energon, the "life force" of the Transformers. Using an ancient machine, The Fallen hopes to destroy the Earth's sun to harness its energon, providing enough of it to create his army.

Sam has entrusted his piece of the All Spark to his girlfriend Mikaela(Megan Fox) who hides it in her father's safe at their auto garage. When a tiny Decepticon known as Wheelie tries to steal it, Mikaela captures him. Sam is approached by Optimus Prime, who asks Sam for help, saying there is much that Sam does not know and he needs to be ready. Sam declines, saying it is not his fight, and Optimus leaves. Sam then tells Mikaela to get to him at college so they can figure out what is going on. When she gets there, a Decepticon Pretender, who has taken the form of one of Sam's co-ed dorm mates, is attempting to kill Sam. Sam and Mikaela, along with Sam's roommate Leo Spitz(Ramon Rodriguez), a conspiracy theorist who is trying to prove the existence of the Transformers, flee the college and dispose of the Decepticon Pretender. While fleeing, they are picked up by the Decepticon Grindor, who is in helicopter form. Grindor drops the car into an abandoned warehouse where Megatron, along with Starscream and The Doctor, capture Sam and attempt to kill him and retrieve the images from his brain. But before they can complete their task, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, Sam's personal Autobot guardian, attack the Decepticons. Bumblebee attempts to take Leo and Mikaela while Sam gets into Optimus Prime. While fleeing from the Decepticons, Optimus turns and takes on Grindor, Starscream and Megatron alone. During the epic battle, Optimus kills Grindor and severs Starscream's arm. But before he can finish the job, he is impaled through the chest by Megatron. Optimus then enters a stasis lock mode, basically making him dead. Sam, Mikaela and Leo escape in Bumblebee with assistance from the other Autobots who arrived to help.

The Fallen hacks into a U.S. satellite and broadcasts a message all over the world demanding the surrender of Sam. If Earth does not comply, the Decepticons will start open war. The U.S. government disbands NEST and the Autobots believing them to be the cause and makes Sam and enemy of the state. Leo decides that they need help from his rival conspiracy website runner RoboWarrior. RoboWarrior turns out to be ex-Sector Seven Agent Simmons(John Turturro). Simmons then takes Sam, Leo, and Mikaela down into a secret Sector Seven archive below his family's deli, where he shows them every known record of the Transformers. Wheelie reveals to Sam that the language he is seeing is that of the Dynasty of the Primes, who were the original seven Transformers. The Primes would power the all spark by destroying suns with a machine called a Sun Harvester. They only had one rule, do not take the sun of any inhabited planet. Wheelie then leads the group to Jetfire, an Decepticon deserter who traded to the Autobots. Jetfire teleports the group to Egypt. Jetfire reveals that the Sun Harvester was powered by something known as the Matrix of Leadership. When one of their own, The Fallen, betrayed them and tried to take the Matrix of Leadership and destroy Earth, the formed a protective cocoon using their own bodies to protect it. Sam believes that the Matrix can bring back Optimus Prime, who is also the only Transformer capable of destroying The Fallen. Sam finds the Matrix, but when he picks it up, it crumbles into a pile of dust, still believing it can help Optimus, Sam gathers the dust in a sack and the group begins heading to a location in Egypt where Major William Lennox(Josh Duhamel) and Chief Master Sergeant Robert Epps(Tyrese Gibson) have dropped in with the NEST members as well as the Autobots and Optimus Prime's body on request from Sam.

As Sam and Mikaela travel to the drop zone, the Decepticons attack. During the ensuing battle, Megatron, Starscream, and devastator, a gigantic Decepticon made of the formation of the Decepticon group the Constructions, attempts to unearth the Sun Harvester. While Sam is running to Optimus Prime's body, he is severely injured by Megatron. While unconscious, a vision of the seven Primes comes to him, telling him that Sam was the chosen one, and that the Matrix of Leadership is earned, and they give it to Sam, when Sam awakens, the Matrix has reformed and he plunges it into the power source of Optimus Prime, who comes back to life. As soon as he does, however, The Fallen teleports on top of him and steals the matrix from Optimus' chest and then teleports to the Sun Harvester and begins powering it up. Jetfire offers Optimus his parts so he can be healed and go fight The Fallen. Optimus agrees and after he is re-energized, he attacks The Fallen and destroys the Sun Harvester. In an epic battle, Optimus takes on Starscream, Megatron, and the Fallen, destroying the Fallen and badly injuring Megatron and Starscream. Heading the advice from Starscream, Megatron goes into hiding, uttering that it isn't over yet.

Probably one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen attempts to take all that was good in the first movie and multiply it by a hundred, and in my opinion, thats exactly what happened. One thing i thought the first movie lacked a little but of was fighting. In the first film, there were two or three really really big fight scenes, but in this one, the whole movie was like one big fight scene. everytime you look up a Decepticon was getting ripped in half or decapitated. That is where this movie really improved on from the first, with the level of detail taken in each fight scene. Director Michael Bay worked hard to deliver detailed close-up shots of the Transformers ripping each other apart. It was astounding how detailed the movie got during the fight scenes. Another added bonus was the addition of lot more Transformers. The basically doubled the amount of Autobots and Decepticons from the first film which made the story feel more epic.

The story itself was pretty good. It wasn't like some typical sequels where the original bad guy comes back and tries the same old stuff again, it was original and it added a new leading bad guy in "The Fallen". The amount of dialogue given the Transformers was also a plus for me. All of the Transformers had major speaking roles, unlike in the first where basically Megatron and Optimus Prime spoke. Another nice feature was the addition of some comedy in the film. Michael Bay did an o.k. job of adding in a decent blend of humor but sometimes it went a little too far. When I say too far I primarily mean with the characters of "the twins" or Mudflap and Skids. Bay attempted to make ghetto Autobots with these two characters. Most of their dialogue was spoken in cliche "thug" language, and Bay even went as far as to give Skids a gold tooth. While they were primarily funny for a majority of the film, it sometimes felt like too much. Another surprising addition to this film was the use of cursing. This is a PG-13 movie but the sensors are pretty lackadaisical. some of the language may be offensive to parents who bring their children to see this movie hoping to find good family fun.

The acting from the human characters was done really well. Shia LaBeouf did an excellent job reprising his role as Sam Witwicky. LaBeouf has shown that he can handle major roles like this and appears to be an actor with a strong career ahead of him. The ever sexy Megan Fox did a really good job as well. However, it appeared sometimes that Michael Bay would rather focus more on accentuating her physical assets instead of giving her a real chance to explore her talent. I'm not saying accentuating Fox's "assets" is a bad thing though. Newcomer to the scene, Ramon Rodriguez, who played Sam's college roommate Leo, also added some nice comic relief to the set. Him along with John Turturro played off of each other perfectly and seemed to have a good comedic chemistry about them. But overall this movie , for me, lived up to all the hype. The acting was great, the story was great, and the attention to detail and the animation of the Transformers along with all the other special effects was flawless. Definitely one of the best films of the year for me.

I give Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen 10 Trnasforming Alien Robots out of 10.