Last night Allison and I went into Boston at the last minute to go and see a Free Sneak Preview of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. I was fortunate to get tickets and I guess all my talk of Transformers as well as the insane amount of them on my desk tipped people off that I like them, a lot!

I loved the movie but I did have issues with plot, much more about this in the SPOLIER section.

Here is my just part of my collection of transformers. I spent the better part of 3 hours setting up the Decepticons back in 2007. I took this with my XShot.

My friend Joanne e-mailed me to tell me that a friend of hers had two passes to see a Pre-Screening at the AMC in Boston last night at 7:00pm. I connected with him and got the tickets, he was happy that someone was going so he gave them to me free. He got the tickets from his local comic shop Friendly Neighborhood Comics. Allison and I figured out some logistics for taking care of Eva, thanks Aunt Corrine, Mom and Dad for watching her all day yesterday and last night.

This was a photo from 2007 where I set up all of my Transformers for a Photo Shoot with the local newspaper prior to the 1st Transformers Movie and Botcon 2007.

After work Allison pulled up with a bag of clothes for me to change into. My Autobots Red, White and Blue Shirt and my new Jeans. I also put on a jacket that my dad gave me. I was pumped and excited as I walked to the car. Allison could really tell I was excited. We jetted into the city and the set of directions I printed was nearly perfect, we parked over by the Glass Slipper (yeah, it is what you think it is) and then walked to the theater. There was no line outside so that was a good sign. We went inside and discovered that there was quite a line inside so we hopped at the beginning of the second line. That was at 5:15pm, the movie was at 7:00pm

My desk at Work was all set up in 2007. It was full of toys, Transformers Alternators, Harley Davidson Pins, Transformers Heroes of Cybertron figures and many misc toys.

While waiting in line we observed one poor ticket taker who had to deal with every person who tried to sneak past by telling her that their friends were inside. So what, we all have friends inside you’re not special, get back in line. She did not say that but that is what I was saying in my head after watching everyone. Then this old man came up and asked if anyone had a ticket. He then tried to get in. He was refused. The ticket taker, I’ll call her Jessica (she looked like a Jessica to me. She was wicked nice and all she did was take crap from people all night long, the general public most often should not be out in public.) So, Jessica lets six people in and we were part of the six. So we were now at the back of the first line, this is a good thing, we were going to get seat.

At Botcon 2007. Taken with my X Shot this is the welcome sign for BotCon 2007. Impressive isn’t it.

But the next thing I know there is the crazy old man. He had snuck past Jessica with the claim that he had to use the bathroom. I can understand that she had to let him go, he’s old and he probably said he was incontinent, but he was a liar. He was in line with us, and now ahead of us telling people that he snuck through. I guess if you are a crazy old coot you can get away with things like that. Finally Jessica saw him and asked him to get back in line. He refused and poor Jessica could do nothing, she was the only person there and how bad would it look to see someone physically remove a dottering old man. He was certainly playing that up. (I have nothing against old people I have something against assholes who try and cheat the system)

The Old Dude who snuck in.

We grabbed a couple of hot dogs and ate them in line. We waited in the line and we got in. We grabbed seats on the side where there were four seats, that way we weren’t climbing over people and people weren’t climbing over us. There was a huge section of reserved seats and it was unclear who they were exactly reserved for because as it became later in the evening and closer to the start of the movie those seats became less reserved and more free for all. Again I maintain that much of the general public should not be out in the public. Oh and crazy old man sat right in front of us. A nice couple sat next to us. Allison suspects that they had a really GOOD time during the show.

Me with Optimus Prime at Botcon 2007.

Okay, the movie itself. This portion here is the spoiler free version, below will be the spoiler section. I will alert you to the spoiler section.

I am a Transformer fan from 1984 and I don’t believe that Michael Bay has ruined my childhood because of his take on the franchise. I think that he plays to the lowest common denominator most of the time and the humor of the movie was juvenile at best. Oh, I did laugh at a few parts but some things were overdone. By the end of the movie we were pretty much all set with Skids and Mudflap the comic relief bots.

Promo item for the 1st movie in 2007. A Giant Robot hand holding the Transformers Movie Count Down Clock. Taken during my tour of Hasbro.

The action was huge, more massive than the first movie. The fights were way more intense yet quite chaotic anhttps://benspark.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=7612d hard to follow who was a good guy and who was a bad guy. Maybe if we were actually introduced to the characters say for instance Optimus could have done one of the patented roll calls from the cartoon then at least we would have had some idea of many of the names of the characters.

My desk still has a few toys on it including my set of Robot Heroes.

Many people don’t like him but I like Shia Lebouf, in the Transformers Franchise, because he plays the character of Sam well. He did some great physical comedy stuff and his dialogue and delivery is fantastic. There is a great scene when he meets his roommate.

Megan Fox is basically just eye candy for the 13-99 year old boys out there. Why else wold you put her in a flimsy low cut top and make her run in slow motion away from explosions. And I am sure that the way she was airbrushing the motorcycle was the best possible position to do that job.

Gotta start them early learning about the finer things in life. Like Father like Daughter.

Tyrese Gibson had some good lines but not enough. Josh Duarmel was in the movie and had a great scene but not much else. This was mostly a robot movie and that was a good thing. The action was based on the robots, focused on their fight with a “new” enemy. There was a geriatric robot as well, insert some more low brow jokes when he comes along.

Overall I loved the movie, the pace was intense I was not bored for a second. RunPee will be hard pressed to find good spots in this movie. There were points where I had goosebumps, got choked up, was surprised and wanted to cheer. It was amazing and I cannot wait to see it in IMAX tomorrow.

Spoiler review below in White Text. Highlight to read.

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So, as a fan from way on back I like Prime as a Kenworth instead of a Mack, it works for me. I like so much about this movie. So I have no real problem with the robot forms and designs except that during the battles everyone looks basically the same, there is way too much chrome and not enough color.

The Story here is that the Transformers visited earth long ago and made a device that kills suns and they capture the energy or Energon. However, they never do this in places where there is life. Earth had life and one of the original old time Transformers decided that he’d still use the device. So he was defeated and the rest of the original ancient guys seal themselves up to protect the matrix of leadership. That overall story was WEAK. If you try to follow and understand this you will get pissed off. Forget about it, focus on the action.

A new character The Fallen was created for this movie. Was it based off The Fallen from The War Within? I doubt it. The Fallen is more powerful than Megatron, weak.

Speaking of Megatron, he was some trash tossed into the ocean in the last movie. In this one the constructions resurrect him by using the last piece of the cube and spare parts that they cannibalize from one unnamed bot. It was cool seeing him back and the forest fight scene with Optimus Prime was epic. I can’t wait to see this in IMAX tomorrow.

Now speaking of Optimus Prime, he was amazing all through the movie. I got goosebumps when he trashed Demolisher, when he spoke to the government guys and when he was killed. Yes, Optimus gets killed by Megatron. I was so shocked, I had no idea that was coming. It was upsetting. And once he was dead he was tossed around multiple times by the army guys. Rather than set him on the tarmac the helicopter just releases the clamps. Why would you do that to a fallen comrade? The robots understand the loss of the soldiers in war and respect that, it was sad to see some of the soldiers not respecting the death of Prime.

Mudflap and Skids. They start out as an ice cream truck, funny but forgettable because they are only in this form for a limited amount of time. They get upgraded to the Chevy Beat and Chevy Trax. I was not impressed with these bots. They were sort of caricatures of Martin Lawrence and a Martin Lawrence character playing stupid wannabe gang bangers. Sure the red one takes on Devastator by himself and that was cool.

Devastator. This was my biggest problem. Devastator is made up from a ton of Constructicons, Six them actually. (Oh and none of them had a wrecking ball to the testicles line was gratuitous and again lowbrow) That was amazing, the transformation was soo cool. However it was like Devastator was not unique at all because while Big D was trashing the great pyramids his component parts were fighting the soldiers. Specifically the Green Dump Truck, Long Haul. He was clearly fighting the soldiers. I think Bay had a ton of robot CGIs made up and said make them all fight the action is so fast that no one will notice. And it looks like no one would notice that Bonecrusher (killed by Prime in the 1st movie) shows up in the fight in the desert. Blackout is also back and I was pretty sure that Lennox killed him in the 1st movie.

So, if the constructicons needed the piece of the cube to revive Megatron, how did they revive the other bots (Blackout and Bonecrusher)?

So, for much of the second part of the movie Prime was dead and Sam and his entourage were trying to revive him. Very convoluted story but it was still cool.

My main complaint with the movie was that it was not checked very well for details. They threw in Matrix of Leadership and Energon to go with the plot however they said multiple times that he Decepticons were looking for a 2nd energon source. That would mean that int he first movie that the cube was the 1st source. It was NEVER referred to as an Energon Cube in the first movie so it (Energon) was not a smooth addition to this movie.

I hated that so many bots were in and you had no clue who they were. Hated that. The wicked fembot that seduced Sam, who was that? The minibots vomited up like a metallic hairball from Ravage that became another bot that stole the cube piece, who the hell was that? I love how the bots look but give me some distinction give me a name.

I did love Soundwave. The thing I loved was the voice of Frank Welker. The way he voiced Soundwave was a cross between his Megatron and his old school Soundwave. That was fantastic. However no one went on up to the satellite to take care of him so he’s on the loose.

Overall I loved this movie and cannot wait to see it again. If you just focus on the cool action and explosions the it is amazing. If you are interested in plot you will want to throw yourself on a grenade. Your head will get scrambled on the weak plot and script. The movie boils down to cool robots blowing up tons of stuff, hot girls looking hot and Shia using his amazing ability for fast paced dialogue and lots of cool military stuff. I loved that the NEST team used Can-Am Spyders.

So, that is my initial assessment, maybe I’ll think more on this after seeing it again in IMAX.