ViewGuide

Created Jun 21, 2009 03:36AM PST • Edited Jun 21, 2009 03:36AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   A film that can truly claim to be an all-out assault on the senses, “Revenge of the Fallen” aims to be bigger and better than anything else this summer, but Michael Bay’s average cast detracts enough from the stunning visuals to give “Star Trek” 1st place.

4. Acting

   OK 2.5

   Being as it’s the robots that take up much of the time onscreen, the acting doesn’t have to be great – and it just about scrapes to this score.Shia Labeouf carries on with his nerdy shtick, whilst Megan Fox continues to distract from her not-so-great acting with her devastating looks. John Turturro adds some zaniness in a return role, whilst Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson give another beefcake army performance each. The voice acting is far more clear this time around, with Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving’s Optimus and Megatron joined by Tony Todd’s Fallen.

5. Male Stars OK 2.5

   Labeouf has to carry this film as Sam, and he just about manages it – though given a few more performances like this, people are going to begin to get sick of his awkward, fast-talking roles cropping up every time. Duhamel and Gibson don’t have as much to do as last time, but then their roles don’t give them much leeway to actually act.

6. Female Stars OK 2.5

   Megan Fox hardly has to try onscreen half the time – Bay knows this, and so places her and fellow hottie Isabel Lucas in as many sexually-charged scenes as possible. However, Fox does, at times, push past this and show some actual ability – a sign that she’s good enough to graduate from Bay’s misogynistic lens.

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

   Turturro is the main attraction here – not only an established actor, but a great comic one at that, and his Agent Simmons has many of the best lines as well as the best performance. Ramon Rodriguez, from “The Wire” acts as an interesting counterpoint to Labeouf, though his performance here is hardly a scratch on his role in the TV series. The voice actors are impressive, but none more so than Cullen, Weaving and Todd, who manage to give these computer-generated hulks of metal a personality – and in Todd’s case, a distinct sense of malevolence missing in these films. Glenn Morshower (“24”) even gets his time to shine as the General behind the Earth defence – justice for his sterling performances alongside Jack Bauer.

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Aside from the performances, this film has it all. The plot, whilst convoluted, does not let up – and two and a half hours literally zooms past. Bay is the master of the bombastic and destructive, and it’s immediately obvious after only ten minutes that he’s outdone himself. The dialogue is at times quite witty, whilst the music is justifiably jingoistic enough for such a movie – it would fit in any of Bay’s other films. Visually speaking, it’s not a stretch at all to say that the CGI here is perhaps the best seen on film – the one truly perfect aspect of the movie.

11. Direction Good 3.0

    Bay’s hold on action will never be under question, but his grasp of plot, subtlety and intelligence is once more severely lacking. However, it’s largely the scriptwriters whose responsibility these points are, and so the mistakes in those areas could be attributed to them. Whilst Bay seems far more at home filming frenetically, his slower, more measured scenes (with only human characters) are at times actually a little more deep than previous efforts, and stylistically his trademarks remain intact.

12. Play Good 3.0

    Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman share the writing honours on “Fallen”, and at times the class that so separates Orci and Kurtzman’s “Star Trek” from the rest of this summer’s offerings pushes through. Turturro’s scenes are particularly well-written, but then better actors will always make the most of even the worst dialogue. Much of the Transformer conversations are pretty well written too, but again for the best voice actors.

13. Music Barely OK 2.0

    Steve Jablonsky seems to have studied long and hard at the Hans Zimmer Institute of Composition – at times you could swear that parts of PotC or TDK’s score had slipped into this movie. It’s deafening at times but largely forgettable throughout – besides, who’s listening for the music in a film such as this?

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    Simply the best at what he does, Bay has pushed ILM to their very utmost limits with the robots this time around, and…well, the effects are sublime. From the faces of the robots to their instantaneous morphs to vehicles, they’re more believable than before, and coupled with the real destruction and explosions Bay creates, it’s very hard at times to see the proverbial strings. Only the effects in “Star Trek” can compare this summer – and even that film didn’t feature such jaw-dropping sights as this.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.8

    There is a lot of sexual innuendo in this movie, perhaps too much than would be appropriate for younger kids. The violence is loud and brash, but only really robot vs. robot, so no blood spilt! As for sex, Megan Fox and Isabel Lucas are almost exploited to the point of pornography by Bay’s camera angles – risque but on the edge of adult.

17. Sex Erotic 2.6

18. Violence Brutal 3.3

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Fantasy 5.0

22. Circumstantial Fantasy 5.0

23. Biological Fantasy 5.0

24. Physical Fantasy 5.0