Transformers 2 Review: Face-Ripping Robot Action!
I have an undying love for all things Transformers. As I’m writing this, hundreds of figures adorn shelves in my office, Generation 1 DVD sets sit on my bookshelf, the animated movie poster hangs over my desk, and Optimus Prime and Megtron leer at me from the sides of my monitor. I love these things. I can’t say exactly what it is that makes Transformers so significant to me. I know that besides my Care Bear (Cheer Bear specifically), Transformers are the first toy I can remember being excited to play with. Like all children growing up in the 80s, I had Dukes of Hazzard toys, Ninja Turtle figures and LEGOs, but was something about these shape-shifting aliens that I enjoyed more than any other toys. I even made my own Transformers out of LEGOs!
Growing up, I was fascinated by machinery and form. As a young boy, like most boys, I really liked trucks and construction. Monster trucks, bulldozers and heavy farm equipment fascinated me, and I always loved cartoons and characters. When the two met, and I saw a tractor-trailer semi transform into a robot, that was it. Ever since, I’ve been collecting Transformers toys — I have ones that I received as gifts when I was four — and I still look forward to the new figures coming out now. I’m sure a therapist could explain the true, and possibly disturbed, reasons I hold onto and collect these toys, but for me, it reminds me that no matter how old I get, I never have to really grow up.
Okay, enough about me. I just wanted to warn you the the so-called “review” below might not be totally subjective.
Fallen News: Excerpts Of Excerpts
The Transformers Live Action Movie Blog posted some excerpts from two articles posted by USA Today and Yahoo! Movies about some of the major characters in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. Things are going to start picking up news-wise since we’re now under the “three-month till release date” mark.
Here is an excerpt of some of the news:
Ravage and Soundwave
“In the spirit of ‘more than meets the eye,’ Ravage isn’t just lethal because of his sharp teeth,” says screenwriter Alex Kurtzman. “There’s actually another skill set Ravage has that didn’t exist before, so there’s going to be a surprise for fans.” …his role will be similar to the 1980s cartoon and Hasbro toy — the ultimate spy.Ravage doesn’t turn into anything. But Soundwave will appear, again serving as an evil communications expert but this time in the form of an orbiting space satellite.
And Ravage, as before, won’t speak like the other Transformers. “We wanted to stay true to the idea that Decepticons who take visual clues from beasts maintain that,” says Orci. “It would be strange to have a talking jaguar, or a scorpion with an English accent.”
Insecticons
“We have big guys, some little guys. We have a lot of littler ones, too. Little weirder ones,” Bay says. Like the Insecticons, which were giant bugs in the original series and Hasbro toy line, but are now tiny creepy-crawly infiltrators.Jetfire
As in the original, this fighter plane crash-landed on Earth a long time ago, and he will become a reformed Decepticon now fighting for the humans. His alternate form is the SR-71 Blackbird, the outdated but still-sleek Cold War spy plane.“He’s old, craggy, forgetful … doesn’t work very well. Can’t transform very well, because he’s very geriatric. They get stuck with him a lot,” Bay says. “He knows the plan of the bad guys, but he forgets all the good parts of the plan.”
The Twins
“Some of the junior Transformers are just dumb,” Bay says with a laugh. “But it’s great for kids because they’re like the Little Engine That Could. They’re (screw)-ups, but they get really heroic at the end.”Arcee
Arcee is the only female and turns up as Megan Fox’s hot-pink motorcycle. Co-screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci say she was in an early draft of the first movie. “But we felt we needed to win the audience over before asking for that suspension of disbelief: a feminine alien robot,” Kurtzman says.The Fallen
The Fallen is an ancient robot, sort of the Transformers’ version of Lucifer. He’s one of the original robot aliens, and his defiance and arrogance led to his banishment into another dimension. The screenwriters say that The Fallen holds the key to life on both Earth and Cybertron, the Transformers’ home planet.The Doctor
A smaller, but no less malevolent Decepticon is known as The Doctor — a spider-like droid that transforms into various implements of torture and has a not-so-nice encounter with star Shia LaBeouf.Devastator
These seven robots — Scavenger, Scrapper, Hightower, Longhaul, Rampage, Overload and Mixmaster — transform into construction machinery, but also link up with one another to form one gigantic robot stomper named Devastator.
Soundwave, Ravage and Devastator interest me the most. The first two because I really think they’re going about the way they look and act in the right way, and Devastator just sounds bad ass. I’m curious to see how Demolisher (the huge, wheeled guy from the Super Bowl trailer) is not part of Devastator. Also, I think “The Doctor” is going to be called “Scalpel“.