Revenge of the Fallen Movie Critics and their terrible reviews of RotF

I was disappointed by many things
A lot of autobots are very useless !!!

And Arcee daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn no "3 motos combined" !!!!!!!
 
We didnt need it. You're right. The movie would've been fine without it. But they included it. Because the kids he targets, 10-18 years old, ALL love and do use that humor on a daily basis.

Then they should watch something like Scary Movie. I'd like Transformers to aim slightly above the complete immature crowd. The kids would've still loved the movie just as much even if Turturro's ass wouldn't have been in the Movie.
 
I have to be honest and say I think the critics have been overly and unbelievable harsh on ROTF, I mean, is it honestly a worse movie than the FF movies, The Punisher movies, Wanted, Wolverine and especially X3? I could name more, but ROTF is leaps and bounds ahead of any of these movies, yet got a worse critical reception?

No, sorry, the critics have dropped the ball on this one IMO, I used to agree with them so much, but as I am getting older, I'm finding i slowly dont agree with them as much. Even Terminator Salvation is better than half the movies I just listed, yet got a worse critical reception. Its been shocking this year.
 
Jamon,

Absolutely correct. Way too harsh on a harmless film. After seeing it a second time and focusing more on the plot, I actually find it interesting that most of these "so-called" critics couldn't follow it. It seems that every negative and some positive reviews say the film has no plot. That's blatantly false. Characters? Sure, they're incomplete for Sam, Mikela, Optimus, and Bumblee. But, the film has a narrative that basically gets spell out by Jetfire in the middle of the film.

The basic narrative only really has one hole and that's how the Decepticons actually found out how Sam got the information in his head. The Fallen just happens to know. But, I do buy the concept that the Decepticons have quite a small eye on Sam for two years.
 
Jamon,

Absolutely correct. Way too harsh on a harmless film. After seeing it a second time and focusing more on the plot, I actually find it interesting that most of these "so-called" critics couldn't follow it. It seems that every negative and some positive reviews say the film has no plot. That's blatantly false. Characters? Sure, they're incomplete for Sam, Mikela, Optimus, and Bumblee. But, the film has a narrative that basically gets spell out by Jetfire in the middle of the film.

The basic narrative only really has one hole and that's how the Decepticons actually found out how Sam got the information in his head. The Fallen just happens to know. But, I do buy the concept that the Decepticons have quite a small eye on Sam for two years.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2009/06/the_toy_that_does_all_the_play.html

This article does the best job of explaining why the movie is basically devoid of any real substantive narrative structure. A two and a half hour toy commercial is not a story.
 
Jamon,

Absolutely correct. Way too harsh on a harmless film. After seeing it a second time and focusing more on the plot, I actually find it interesting that most of these "so-called" critics couldn't follow it. It seems that every negative and some positive reviews say the film has no plot. That's blatantly false. Characters? Sure, they're incomplete for Sam, Mikela, Optimus, and Bumblee. But, the film has a narrative that basically gets spell out by Jetfire in the middle of the film.

The basic narrative only really has one hole and that's how the Decepticons actually found out how Sam got the information in his head. The Fallen just happens to know. But, I do buy the concept that the Decepticons have quite a small eye on Sam for two years.
Actually, I figured that Alice saw what Sam was writing on the walls and how he was acting and that tipped off the Decepticons. Alice was probably sent in as a spy to either kill Sam or get info for Starscream on what the Autobots were up to. Her seeing the writing was what set her in motion to get him.
 
chaseter,

That's basically the only way they would know.

Sarge,

I never said it wasn't a two hour toy commercial, considering the source material. But, to say it has no plot is again blatantly false. It does have a narrative. It has a theme but it's incomplete. It has character arcs, but they are also incomplete.

Say what you want about the film but there was real, genuine feeling between Sam and Mikela, especially at the end. I didn't it something the audience can hang their hat on but it's there in parts. It's just incomplete. Michael Bay feels, like most of his film, that his is sufficient enough. It isn't. But, the idea and some execution is there.
 
I can see where critics are coming from, but...I agree, you'd have to be pretty dense not to be able to understand this movie. The plot is there, and it's very clear what's going on.
 
Guard,

Personally, I think they do understand the plot but they just don't care to discuss it because to them, it's a two hour toy commercial, so why discuss the plot.

The film has, apparently, beat them into submission by the time the hour mark happens and they gave up. Funny enough, the plot comes into focus by Jetfire after the hour mark.

Not great screenwriting for sure, but its there. The writers did the same thing with Star Trek...but that got a pass and that one was more convoluted than this one when it didn't need to be. This film is pretty straight forward.
 
I didnt like Jetfire's speech though, I dont like when one guy has to explain the whole movie in one speech.
 
Critics try to qualify if a film is ready for society. Well if it's well received in society, who needs critics?
 
Guard,

Personally, I think they do understand the plot but they just don't care to discuss it because to them, it's a two hour toy commercial, so why discuss the plot.

The film has, apparently, beat them into submission by the time the hour mark happens and they gave up. Funny enough, the plot comes into focus by Jetfire after the hour mark.

Not great screenwriting for sure, but its there. The writers did the same thing with Star Trek...but that got a pass and that one was more convoluted than this one when it didn't need to be. This film is pretty straight forward.


I've noticed for years, even before the internet when I would get into arguments with friends and other people in person, that when most people(and critics for that matter)hate a movie one of the things they almost always say is that "it had no plot". That is such nonsense, technically every movie has a plot, it's just a matter of how well it was written. Maybe it has a lot of plot holes and lame or childish dialogue...but it still stands that every movie(maybe not documentaries of course)has and to be honest needs a plot to actually be a film or in general tell a story.
 
I can see where critics are coming from, but...I agree, you'd have to be pretty dense not to be able to understand this movie. The plot is there, and it's very clear what's going on.

Guard,

Personally, I think they do understand the plot but they just don't care to discuss it because to them, it's a two hour toy commercial, so why discuss the plot.

The film has, apparently, beat them into submission by the time the hour mark happens and they gave up. Funny enough, the plot comes into focus by Jetfire after the hour mark.

Not great screenwriting for sure, but its there. The writers did the same thing with Star Trek...but that got a pass and that one was more convoluted than this one when it didn't need to be. This film is pretty straight forward.
As this brilliant piece shows, just because you can basically, sort of, but not really describe the threadbare "plot" of the film doesn't mean it actually comes together resembling anything close to a coherent narrative when it's there on screen. To quote:

[...]So I've gotten almost all the way through this review, and I still haven't summarized the movie's plot. Here goes. It's a couple years after the first movie, and Sam is going off to college, leaving his transforming car and his hot girlfriend, whom he still hasn't told he loves her. And meanwhile, the soldiers from the first movie are running around with a bunch of late-model GM cars and trucks, which turn into robots and fight other robots sometimes. Sam sees weird symbols which make no sense (and they still make no sense at the end of the movie) and they turn out to be the key to the location of a thing that can control another thing, that will enable the bad guys to destroy the sun. Sam has to embrace the heroic destiny he's rejected, so he can save us all from solarcide.
But that bare plot summary doesn't include the twenty or thirty other storylines that could also claim to be the movie's plot. There's the whole thing where someone from Washington D.C. wonders why the U.S. military is running around the globe with a bunch of late-model GM cars from outer space, and tries to put the kibosh on the military-Autobot complex. There's the teenager who's got a conspiracy website, that competes with another conpsiracy website which turns out to be the work of a secret agent who's decided that the best way to keep things secret is to put them on a website. (It works. I post secret stuff on io9 all the time.) Various robots die and then come back to life, and there's a whole strand about whether Decepticons (the bad ones) can become Autobots (the good ones). And there's the Fallen, who's sort of the movie's villain even though he barely shows up. And people from 17,000 BC who had weird teeth and fought robots. And the ancient Egyptians did stuff. And Sam's parents go to France except that they meet a robot and then they're in Egypt.
Really, I could go on and on. This movie starts out with a coherent storyline, for the first half hour or so, and then it just starts to spin faster and faster until the centrifuge of random events slams you into the walls. It doesn't help that there are 500 robots in the movie and they all look kind of the same.
 
Sarge,

But, it does. The narrative is there. The reason it doesn't feel coherent is the filler in the film. Basically, if you take out Skids and Mudflap and replace them with Sideswipe, cut out Leo and have Sam figure out a way to get in contact with Simmons again, you get rid of 60% of the parts that I think people have a problem with. Simmons, Sam, his parents, and Bumblee are the best comedic moments through out the film.

You cut out the portions I said, it also becomes a much more serious film.

But again, the narrative is all there. You have to weed through the filler to see it. This bad on Bay's part. Totally agree. But, that filler is not enough to throw down the gauntlet a lot of the critics are doing with this film.

It's totally unnecessary. A lot of the crap that came out between January and April is worse than this film yet this one gets taken to the woodshed? Really?!
 
Jamon,

Absolutely correct. Way too harsh on a harmless film. After seeing it a second time and focusing more on the plot, I actually find it interesting that most of these "so-called" critics couldn't follow it. It seems that every negative and some positive reviews say the film has no plot. That's blatantly false. Characters? Sure, they're incomplete for Sam, Mikela, Optimus, and Bumblee. But, the film has a narrative that basically gets spell out by Jetfire in the middle of the film.

I honestly had no problem with the plot, I got it all in the first viewing and some of the complaints I have heard on here, like "why did Sam's parent's end up in Egypt?" (cant remember who said that, not having a go at you whoever you are) is literally spelled out in the movie. I have heard others as well and I explain them to people and they have no comeback. Its just basic paying attention. Another one was "were was The Fallen in the first movie?" Well seeing as there was a Prime on Earth for the majority of the first movie, and only a Prime can defeat him, The Fallen would be a bit stupid to come to Earth, notice how in ROTF he only comes to Earth when Prime is dead?

Not saying we got an intricate, brainy plot or anything, but we got one that moved the story along, and some of the complaints I have heard just take a little bit of thinking, so much for a brainless movie huh :cwink:?

The basic narrative only really has one hole and that's how the Decepticons actually found out how Sam got the information in his head. The Fallen just happens to know. But, I do buy the concept that the Decepticons have quite a small eye on Sam for two years.

chaseter,

That's basically the only way they would know.

Sarge,

I never said it wasn't a two hour toy commercial, considering the source material. But, to say it has no plot is again blatantly false. It does have a narrative. It has a theme but it's incomplete. It has character arcs, but they are also incomplete.

Yeah, Chaseter is right, the Pretender got a lot more aggressive with Sam once she saw the symbols.

Say what you want about the film but there was real, genuine feeling between Sam and Mikela, especially at the end. I didn't it something the audience can hang their hat on but it's there in parts. It's just incomplete. Michael Bay feels, like most of his film, that his is sufficient enough. It isn't. But, the idea and some execution is there.

Not only was there genuine feeling between Sam and Mikaela, but when Sam's parents are having a hard time letting him go in Egypt, it was a genuinly emotional moment, and has shown just how far Sam has come since that geek at the start of the first movie. But yet people say there was no character development in the movie.

I can see where critics are coming from, but...I agree, you'd have to be pretty dense not to be able to understand this movie. The plot is there, and it's very clear what's going on.

Guard,

Personally, I think they do understand the plot but they just don't care to discuss it because to them, it's a two hour toy commercial, so why discuss the plot.

The film has, apparently, beat them into submission by the time the hour mark happens and they gave up. Funny enough, the plot comes into focus by Jetfire after the hour mark.

Not great screenwriting for sure, but its there. The writers did the same thing with Star Trek...but that got a pass and that one was more convoluted than this one when it didn't need to be. This film is pretty straight forward.

I've noticed for years, even before the internet when I would get into arguments with friends and other people in person, that when most people(and critics for that matter)hate a movie one of the things they almost always say is that "it had no plot". That is such nonsense, technically every movie has a plot, it's just a matter of how well it was written. Maybe it has a lot of plot holes and lame or childish dialogue...but it still stands that every movie(maybe not documentaries of course)has and to be honest needs a plot to actually be a film or in general tell a story.

Totally agreed with you guys, again, the plot is pretty damn simple, I have only seen the movie once yet totally got the plot and was not confused by any of it during the movie. There were some dodgy moments, and no one would deny the movie is flawed, but God, it was NOT hard to follow at all.
 
I'm glad people are arguing back and forth about things that were expained or not explained. When I see the movie(hopefully Saturday night)I'll make sure to see what's right or wrong. I can see why people would miss out on certain key lines of dialogue if the movie is as in your face with the action as people are saying.
 
I'm glad people are arguing back and forth about things that were expained or not explained. When I see the movie(hopefully Saturday night)I'll make sure to see what's right or wrong. I can see why people would miss out on certain key lines of dialogue if the movie is as in your face with the action as people are saying.

To be honest, it is in your face, but I didnt have any problem missing things others did.
 
Sarge,

But, it does. The narrative is there. The reason it doesn't feel coherent is the filler in the film. Basically, if you take out Skids and Mudflap and replace them with Sideswipe, cut out Leo and have Sam figure out a way to get in contact with Simmons again, you get rid of 60% of the parts that I think people have a problem with. Simmons, Sam, his parents, and Bumblee are the best comedic moments through out the film.

You cut out the portions I said, it also becomes a much more serious film.

But again, the narrative is all there. You have to weed through the filler to see it. This bad on Bay's part. Totally agree. But, that filler is not enough to throw down the gauntlet a lot of the critics are doing with this film.

It's totally unnecessary. A lot of the crap that came out between January and April is worse than this film yet this one gets taken to the woodshed? Really?!
Basically what you're saying is: the movie would make sense if it made sense. Thanks for proving my point. :up:

Yes, really. I've posted several well written articles explaining why TF2 isn't exactly a movie by any reasonable standards. Wall to wall noise, CGI and action does not a movie make. You could argue that there's (sort of) a story to it all, but 90% of the film is all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

And this is the worst movie I've seen all year. Period. No other film this year has been so disastrous as to be transcendent. Film students in the future will study this as an example of anti-filmmaking. The exact opposite way of how to make a movie. Is there kind of, almost a story? I guess. But it doesn't actually mean much of anything to anyone on screen or in the audience. At all.
 
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Jamon,

Agree with you about the raw emotion and in the moment, it works. The problem is the jumping around to get to the emotional character moments. It's incomplete. But again, this is mostly a flaw in all of Bay's films. He gives us a few of those moments, but the connecting of the dots to get to said moments is missing.

If he ever gets a handle on that, watch out.

But, like you, I was somewhat really moved by Mikela's moment when she thought Sam was gone. You can tell Megan has grown in confidence as an actress in that particular scene because she did great work there. And the other area she did great work and can tell she's grown as an actress is in the library scene with Sam. They have their little fight and Shia goes into Shia mode with the fast talking. The last film, Megan couldn't keep up. She was out of her league. In that particular scene in this film, she was hitting back at about the same speed as Shia. I was pleasantly surprised that she could keep up.

Either way, it doesn't matter. The critics will continue to put on the sad face that another "supposed" brainless flick makes all the money. It's not like it happens all the time.

Last year, a pretty meaty flick that everyone loved, including the critics made all the money. It had a bat in it.
 
Jamon,

Agree with you about the raw emotion and in the moment, it works. The problem is the jumping around to get to the emotional character moments. It's incomplete. But again, this is mostly a flaw in all of Bay's films. He gives us a few of those moments, but the connecting of the dots to get to said moments is missing.

If he ever gets a handle on that, watch out.

But, like you, I was somewhat really moved by Mikela's moment when she thought Sam was gone. You can tell Megan has grown in confidence as an actress in that particular scene because she did great work there. And the other area she did great work and can tell she's grown as an actress is in the library scene with Sam. They have their little fight and Shia goes into Shia mode with the fast talking. The last film, Megan couldn't keep up. She was out of her league. In that particular scene in this film, she was hitting back at about the same speed as Shia. I was pleasantly surprised that she could keep up.

Either way, it doesn't matter. The critics will continue to put on the sad face that another "supposed" brainless flick makes all the money. It's not like it happens all the time.

Last year, a pretty meaty flick that everyone loved, including the critics made all the money. It had a bat in it. It's not like one of their own didn't make all the money last year. (Love ya, Dark Knight)
 
The plot is simplistic. It's just irritating that you have to follow a group consisting mostly of idiots, as Sam is looking for a way to bring Optimus back.
 
Nathan,

That's why I said, cut out Skids and Mudflap and Leo...insert Sideswipe...different, different second half to the film.
 

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