David's back & Transformers 2 review

We picked David up at Cabela's in Owatonna, MN today. And also our nephew, Conner. He's spending the week with us. David was happy to be back with us, I think. I got an awesome squeeze hug from him!

Ok, now for the Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen review....

To start with, I've been looking forward to this movie since I found out they were making a sequel to the first one. Despite the horrible reviews from the professional critics, I was excited about it as it got closer to its release. I grew up with Transformers. The cartoon, the toys; Chris had a bunch of the toys, but got tired of them as he grew older and sold them in a garage sale when he was in high school.

So anyways, there are a lot of action sequences. There was probably stuff in the opening sequence that I missed that I'll catch the next time I see it (once its out on DVD). The Autobots from the first movie are back, minus Jazz, since he died at the end of the first movie. There are lots of additional Autobots - Arcee, the Twins, and my favorite of the new Autobots, Jetfire. Next to Optimus Prime, the Twins have the most dialogue. Most of it swearing, unfortunately. Most of what I could understand of their ghetto style talk (the best term I could think of for it, but I'm sure there's a better one) was swearing. Enough about the nasty dialogue.

One of the reviews I read said that there were a lot of sequences where Sam and Michaela were running in slow motion. This is true, however it didn't bother me as much as it did the critic, I think. Shia LaBeouf (sp?) and Megan Fox do have some good on-screen chemistry, in the couple of semi-romantic (but non-sexual) scenes.

Lots of action sequences involved lots of exploding things - cars, buildings, Autobots or Decpticons, but nothing involving blood or body parts. It also shows people flying through the air, but again, no blood or body parts.

There are several scenes that the movie could have done without, since they have no relevance to the entire plot. If you have to go to the bathroom early in the movie, go when Judy (Sam's mom) comes into Sam's dorm room with a baggie with a pot leaf on it. Its a good 3-4 minutes of Sam & his dad chasing his mom around campus while she's high on pot brownies. Not relevant at all to the movie, although it is funny. Also not relevant and very unnecessary are the scenes where the dog Mojo is humping the new Witwicki dog. Twice.

Former Captain Lennox (now a Major) has a part in the show as well. He leads a human/Autobot team that goes after Decepticons. He has a funny scene with the new liaison to their human/Autobot group involving a parachute. I think this was the funniest scene in the movie.

There is a scene towards the end (the last 30-45 minutes) that I got a huge kick out of. I'm a big fan of the show "Clean House" on the Style network (channel 235 on DirecTV). One of the hosts, Matt Iseman, has a very small scene, 1 or 2 lines, with Major Lennox. He comes down the steps of a big plane, says his lines and goes back up the steps. As soon as he started talking I knew who it was. I only mention this in case someone else likes Clean House & is planning on seeing the movie. Watch for him. He's there.

There are a couple of scenes that definitely made this a no-watch for our boys. One is in Sam's dorm room. You'll know it when you see it, although its pretty short. The language is a big thing. There is a scene with Sam & Megatron that was the clincher for me. It creeped me out. If you have see any of the Stargate: SG1 series, part of it reminded me of a Gould symbiote. Enough said.

Two spoilers. If you don't want to know, don't read this:(Highlight it with your mouse) Optimus Prime dies. Sam dies.

All in all, I really liked the show. If they had not put in so much swearing, I would've really, really liked it. If they'd have taken out the unnecessary scenes I mentioned above, I would've loved it. I like it enough to buy it on DVD. I'm looking forward to being able to watch it with subtitles on, so I can catch the dialogue I missed since it was spoken so quickly.