Saw it today, it was ok I guess. There were some sweet parts, but from a critical movie perspective it has some major problems. I'm not a fan of 'popcorn movies' either so..., but I tend to look at this as a movie from neither of the 'fanyboy' extremes, 'omfg best &$#*# evar!!!' on end end for anything that has the title transformers and 'RAWR!!! RAGE hate kills nothing but G1 is real transformers' on the other (
). So I'm not afraid to criticize but I'm not out looking to bash.
But yeah three major areas that bring it down imo:
1. Comedy:
Far far far too much in the line of really low-end, appeal to 10 year olds humor. I think half the script consisted of the following words: balls, testicles, scrotum, hump, fart, crap, bitches, etc. Poop n fart humor never really does it for me but even for those who might laugh at it a bit I think it was a major overkill. It was like every second line.
I think a problem that leads to this is too many goof-ball characters. You have Sam, the room-mate (ugh), Skids, Mudflap, Simmons, and Wheelie. And the whole second half of the movie is that exact pairing all together. So in what could be the most intense, serious, or dramatic sequences of the movie instead you have the persistant reversion to being horny and passing gas (i.e. the Devi balls scene, which really sums up the character of the TF movies they have decided to go after). I think just Skids and Mudflap cracking jokes and passing gas would have been plenty (and maybe not making them the bots with near or at the most screen time). The roommate coming along for the whole ride just for comic relief was totally unnecessary when there was already so much (and he had no role/function).
2. (lack of) characterization of the bots:
Well I think this is an area where pretty much everybody could agree was lacking in the first movie. It partially has to do with limited special effects screen time, but it has to do with how they develop the characters in other ways too.
So yeah, lots more screen time in ROTF, yet little more characterization on the whole. That must leave it to how they develop the characters other than the fact that they are being seen on the screen. They did a little more to work on the decepticons this time, i.e. the Megs/SS confrontation scene, the dcon lair scene. However the development of the autobots seems to get sacrified/just left stagnant. Previous characters except for Prime and Bee now have about 2 lines each.
And all new characters are simply now around, no background or character account for pretty much all of them (twins, Sideswipe, the fallen at first, and why Megatron is so not the boss of the decepticons anymore and a suckup to him, Devi, poor Jolt who doesn't even get introduced until one of the last scenes of the movie and has maybe 1/2 a second of screen time up until then, etc.). I think this is the biggest problem, lifeless, characterless characters for the vast majority of them. And no bot dialogue outside of absolutely necessary one liners.
And then there's the incoherent doubles/drone armies thing for the decepticons they decided to do. It just doesn't make any sense, and they certainly don't provide an explanation for it. It esepcially is bad because the individual Devi limbs are fighting at the same time as Devi is formed. ???. One even gets named (called out by Megs I think), and it's not like they're just background, BB has his fight with one, etc.
3. Pacing/Plot:
Well, the plot isn't exactly rocket science but it gets the movie along. The pacing however I had some trouble with. The movie starts out fast, serious, and with a bang of nice action. There is almost no backstory on the 'what happened in between movies', just the absolute basics. Some account of which new bots are there, their skills, why those ones, etc. would have been great here (see 2. characterization) but as the movie continues we learn that we're not to ask any questions about how why and when robots show up in any given scene. Sometimes a chacter shows up in a scene, 15-20 minutes of in-movie time pass, and then when they are next shown they pretty much haven't moved or done anything (i.e. when Megs shows up on the top of the pyramid). Either that or one goes away or disappears and then don't reappear until well later, when they had no where else to be. Where were they for all that time? (These two presence/pacing problems were in the first movie too, and most notable in the battle scenes leading to the climax in both movies).
The transition to Sam's story is nice and smooth early on and the movie finds an early balance. More pretty sweet action with Prime fighting off the dcons after Sam (insert first random tformer with no name or character). From the point Prime dies though until pretty much the climax (the last half hour of the movie, once Devi is formed on) there is a MAJOR lull in the movie, little tfs, action, slow moving, not a lot of plot development. Then things pick up quickly for the final fights (and the last 1/3rd of the pee pee jokes) and the movie ends abruptly. Decent final battle but very quick once Prime is back and, again, very little in plot or character summary offered. It pretty much just ends on the spot.
I am generally a fan of longer movies but for the 2 1/2 hours that ROTF was it doesn't seem too well used. They could have used this time to develop robot character and plot details/background, condensed parts to make the robot scenes more frequent, or heaven forbid, cut out some of the extened potty scenes.
Sorry to sound somewhat downer on ROTF, but keep in mind this is a critical perspective, which I tend to have when I watch movies, and that I only want as good as a Transformers product as possible and so naturally have critique on how I think it could be done better. Unfortunately I do find that some of the areas of critque, namely the three sumarized here, are a bit critical and so bring down the experience of the movie a fair bit from both an objective critical and TF fan perspective. I did find it enjoyable on the whole, but these issues were frustrating me even right as I watched, and limit the overall quality of the movie and the depth or coherence of the world/verse they are trying to set-up and have the viewer become absorbed into (as is typical of movies that go for the 'bubbly summer popcorn flick' thing).
Grand knowledge of all things Transformers
[{o}] Till all are One
Re: (SPOILERS ALLOWED) Transformers RoTF Your Reviews
Sure was more enjoyable then Devastator and we are getting a $139.99 toy of him.
