The live-action Transformers movies aren’t really what you’d “beloved.” Despite making a lot of money, most of them aren’t especially well-regarded critically, and fans of the original property don’t exactly take to them well. They occupy a weird space in Hollywood wherein those initial five movies actively didn’t care in any fashion about being disliked.
Here’s a series that did its own thing for a full decade, and if you didn’t groove with them, they basically said that’s on you and went about their business. Now on one hand, there’s something to be said for a blockbuster franchise that just doesn’t care what people think. On the other hand, that lack of care is how you wind up with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, potentially the most confounding, bonkers sequel to ever exist in the modern movie era.
Originally released on June 24, 2009, it constantly feels like it’s moving to the beat of its own drum, except it’s split off from the rest of the band and is a full block away without even realizing it yet. The end result is something that can’t help but be fascinating, because you can see clearly how everything got so incredibly tangled up. Revenge was pre-visualized and written ahead of the mid-2000s writer and director strikes, and it shows, because it only really calms the hell down during its action scenes.
Whenever a fight or chase isn’t happening...
well, even with a curve applied to this franchise, this is an odd one. The original T.
