Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen

Cast: Shia Lebeouf, Megan Fox
Director: Michael Bay

Here it is, the sequel to the hit Transformers live action movie! I'm not really a big fan of Transformers when I was a kid, I was more of a GI Joe fan, so I wasn't really that excited when the first TF film came out. In fact, when I was to choose what movie to watch, Transformers 1 or Die Hard 4, I chose the latter! John McClane for the win! Haha! I ended up watching Transformers 1 on my friend's iPod a year later on a rainy night during a out of town trip! LOL.

So there, I ain't a fanboy so I can generally say that I can give you an unbiased review of TF2: Rise of the Fallen.

The sequel starts off where the first one ended. The Decepticons, seemingly defeated with their leader Megatron dead, goes into hiding and everything seems back to normal. The Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, continues the hunt for Decepticons who went into hiding. Meanwhile, Sam Witwicky, is back to normal life--or so he thought. While preparing to leave for college, he stumbled upon a fragment of the destroyed AllSpark from the first film. This embedded valuable information into his mind. Information that is invaluable to the Decepticons. Upon learning the recent turn of events, the Decepticons are on the move for Witwicky as they need the information so they can herald in their supreme leader, a being called "The Fallen".

So what's new? This is basically just like the first Transformers movie, only longer and MORE EXPLOSIVE (AARRRRR Michael Bay! ARRRR!). It has more comedy injected in it as compared to the first one.

Like I've said, the movie was OK, but not great. It's definitely a graphical masterpiece with all those special effects catered on the robot transforming and all those explosions. Yes, I get that this is a POPCORN movie--you care little about the plot and just go along the ride. You don't care if the movie has dumb subplots or pointless scenes. I just wished that Michael Bay knew when enough is ENOUGH.

For me, the movie dragged too long. Two hours is too long for this kind of movie. The last half, which supposed to be the most exciting part with all the explosions and robot smashing, dragged on so much that I was almost asking myself when this is gonna stop. At least the first movie had more substance without resorting to almost an hour long battle in the desert just to showcase special effects, and again, EXPLOSIONS (damn Michael Bay).

The die-hard Transformers fans, and sci-fi geeks, will still probably like this film as much as the first one. To credit Michael Bay and the rest of the production stuff, they did justice to robots. For casual moviegoers, if they know what to expect (a popcorn movie), and if they can get past the unnecessary length of the movie, they'll still get their money's worth. But for the moviegoers who are expecting their Transformers movie to have intelligent sub-plots, or even something like a good conversation/argument about the movie's plot afterward, this will disappoint you. When you watch a Michael Bay movie, expect explosions... EXPLOSIONS! And nothing much else. But I guess you already knew that. Score: 6/10