Shia LaBeouf & Megan Fox
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

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At 149 minutes, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is six minutes longer than the 2007 noise machine from which this sequel sprang, but those six minutes are like dog minutes.

Shia LaBeouf, the nominal human protagonist of this franchise, once described the first "Transformers," admiringly, as "aneurysm-inducing." Medically, where does that leave us for "Transformers 2"? Can editing rhythms designed to approximate a seizure actually induce a seizure? Does the appearance of the words "enough, already" on your forehead, "Exorcist"-style, constitute getting your money's worth?

Director Michael Bay's film -- which has two settings, "puree" and "liquify" -- is like that scene in "Raging Bull," when Joe Pesci slams a car door against the guy's head, over and over. Bay's sequel is the car door; the audience is the guy.

In this one, LaBeouf's Sam Witwicky goes away to college, which looks to be Sodom University, judging from the glossy-lipped strippers-in-training littering the campus.

Sam's manic, caffeine-addled roommate (Ramon Rodriguez) runs a Web site devoted to conspiracy theories -- he knows, for example, that the government is hiding something about a robot war. Sam's sworn to silence on that score, until the bad metal men come calling and destroying.

Much of the film has LaBeouf, Rodriguez and Megan "World's Finest Actress" Fox running for their lives, while the U.S. military and their metallic allies deal with the threat level, which goes straight past red to the ruddy maroon and Aztec schmutz favored by cinematographer Ben Seresin.

 

The first, comparatively lucid "Transformers" was a headache, but I sort of enjoyed it. It was a Slurpee brain-freeze of a blockbuster.

Transfomrers II "Revenge of the Fallen" is more like listening to rocks in a clothes dryer for 2.5 hours. Nobody's looking for anything other than relentless, brainless action from this sort of movie, but Bay, whose best junk came early with "Bad Boys" and "The Rock," offers nothing but visual and aural chaos.

No one moves a camera more restlessly, to less interesting effect, than this man, although his sense of space is his own, I'll grant him that: Each time the battle between the Autobahns and the Technocrats (I think I have that right -- sorry, make that Autobots and Decepticons) comes down to one 'bot against another, you cannot really tell what's happening, and who's vivisecting whom.

Your eye instinctively flees to the far corners of the screen for some relief from the computer-generated mayhem.

Fox's cleavage is the only camera object that catches Bay's attention for more than a millisecond.

My favorite moment in "Transformers 2" comes when Fox's character listens intently to someone gas on about the revenge of the Fallen, and the plans to wipe out the humans, and she tries like the devil to look serious and concerned, and then when it's her turn to speak -- not a lot of those moments here; more often, she's running away from fireballs in slow motion, and Bay clearly is beyond the point of self-parody on that score -- Fox says, sort of snottily: "OK, so we have to stop him."

They do, but along the way Paris gets leveled, the pyramids of Egypt turn out to be some sort of storage locker for a weapon able to obliterate the sun, and the climactic melee in the Jordanian dunes goes the way of so many real-life desert conflicts, which is to say: It never ends.

There's a lazy cynicism to "Transformers 2," from the dubious comic-relief "ghetto" 'bots known as the Twins, to the rump-in-the-air introduction of Fox's character, to the general air of militaristic fetishism.

The chief human antagonist is an Obama administration security adviser who keeps pushing diplomatic solutions while the Decepticons kill, kill, kill.

Near the end, an aged Autobot, waling away at his enemies atop a pyramid, mutters the line "I'm too old for this crap."

No matter, pal. You're not in the target demographic.

 

 

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" Movie Trailer

 

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen MPAA rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material).

Running time: 2:29.

Starring: Shia LaBeouf (Sam Witwicky); Megan Fox (Mikaela Banes); Josh Duhamel (Capt. Lennox); Tyrese Gibson (Sgt. Epps); John Turturro (Agent Simmons); Ramon Rodriguez (Leo); Kevin Dunn (Ron Witwicky); Julie White (Judy Witwicky); Rainn Wilson (professor).

Directed by Michael Bay; written by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, based on the Hasbro action figures;

Produced by Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Ian Bryce.

A Paramount Pictures release.

 

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