Transformers Online: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers 2 Movie - Revenge of the Fallen
By Ron Aldo

The upcoming sequel to 2007's Transformers which is due to be released on June 26 2009. Entitled Transformers : Revenge Of The Fallen it retains Michael Bay as the director. The sequel is produced by Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Steven Spielberg (also reprising his role as Exceutive Producer). The writing team of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are join by series newcomer Ehren Kruger.

The movie is said to have a bigger budget (compared to the first film which cost US$151 million) with the intention of giving the larger cast of robots a better characterization. The main obstacle in the production of the movie was the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike as well as possible strikes from the Directors and Screen Actors Guild. However, Bay overcame this and shooting began on schedule in May 2008.

The sequel retains most of the actors and actresses used in the prequel. It revolves around Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) who is caught in the war between the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons. LeBeouf was injured his left eye when some prop hit him towards the end of the shooting but filming resumed 2 hours later. Sam's love interest in the movie, Mikaela Banes' role is still reprised by Megan Fox. The rest of the cast include Josh Duhamel who plays Captain William Lennox, Tyrese Gibson as Robert Epps, an Air Force Technical Sergeant, John Turturro as Reggie Simmons, ex-agent of the now terminated Sector 7, Matthew Marsden as Graham, a member of the United Kingdom Special Forces, Isabel Lucas as Alice a new character and college-mate of Sam, Ramon Rodriguez as Leo, Julie White and Kevin Dunn reprising their roles as Sam's parents Judy and Ron and Steve Tom with a principal role. Among other actors and actresses are Rainn Wilson and Kym Whitley.

Among some of the Autobots in the prequel are leader Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) , Bumblebee (Mark Ryan), weapons-specialist Ironhide, medic Ratchet, Arcee - a motorcycle with feminine personality and appearance (Interesting!), "The Twins", Sideswipe - a Chervolet Corvette and Jetfire - a SR-71 Blackbird.

The Decepticons' ranks include leader Megatron - killed in the prequel, he is resurrected as a Cybertronian Tank, Air Commander Starscream ( who is said to have more dialogue this time around), Barricade - a modified Ford Mustang police car known as Saleen S281, Soundwave - one of Megatron's most loyal liutenants, Ravage - (one of) Soundwave's minions, The Constructicons - one of the many Gestalts ( a group robots that can combine into one giant robot ), The Fallen and many others.

It is rumoured that in the sequel, there will be roughly three times more robots than what was in the first film. This is interesting, given the fact that there were 13 Autobots and Decepticons in the first movie as well as 4 All-Spark mutated minor machines.

The filming process in the sequel, apart from locations in the United States ( Los Angeles, California, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, New Jersey, New Mexico etc) will also include Egypt and Jordan, where the filming will end.

Transformers : Revenge Of The Fallen will also be released in IMAX theatres other than the regular theatres. It is said that at least 3 of the action sequence will be available in 3D.
Already, the excitement is in the air. Some of the actors and actresses who were involved and were fans of the series when they were younger had positive feedback about it. Whether the die-hard fans will approve of the sequel remains very much to be seen. There will be Much More Than Meets The Eye definitely!

We love all things Transformers and supply a great resource for history and info on characters as well as the latest figures and G1 toys. Check out the Transformer toy guide or just to keep upto date with the Transformer world visit now.

http://www.transformer-toy.com/transformer-toy-guide

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Transformers DVDs Review

Michael Bay's Transformers DVD Review
By Alex Demattia

FILM REVIEW: "Transformers" is fun. It's the ultimate boys' movie, about giant, intelligent robots who can change in to cars, planes and other vehicles while the good robots and bad robots battle each other with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. For director Michael Bay, he has finally made a film that has merit, namely because he takes his best technical attributes and applies them to a story that naturally fits his talents. It's no surprise that "Transformers" is also his most successful film to date. Although there are some moments of silliness and American chest-beating which are so common in Bay's films, for the most part, this film manages to do a very good job of delivering a visual spectacle, big action sequences and a story that is just strong enough to hang these elements in place without seeming contrived.

The story is simplicity itself. Sam Witwicky, played with a lot of heart by an enthusiastic Shia LaBeouf, is the average teenager who wants the hottest girl in school but can't figure out how to sell himself. All that changes when he selects his first car (a present from his dad) which turns out to be the Autobot "Bumble Bee". Unwittingly, Sam and his new friend Michaela (Megan Fox) are drawn in to the battle between the Autobots and the Deceptions. Each side is trying to find the All-Spark, a cube which has the power to create life. Sam has the secret to its location scratched on the surface of his grandfather's glasses. The rest of the film is a race to find the All-Spark before the evil Megatron (voiced by an unrecognisable Hugo Weaving) and his Deceptions find it first.

Shia LaBeouf proves to be an effective leading man, giving he's playing a teenager and has to hold our attention whenever the Transformers are not on screen. Megan Fox provides the requisite eye candy as the love interest, but also manages to be feisty and tough, particularly in the action scenes that climax the film. Jon Voight is his usual solid self as the Secretary of Defense. The rest of the ensemble is equally effective, all creating solid, likeable characters which are actually endearing and not irritating as with other Michael Bay films.

The visual rendering of each Transformer on screen is one reason alone to watch this film. Given they are fully computer generated, the amount of detail and care which has been put in by the visual effects team is so astonishing that you would think they were filmed for real. This is no more apparent than in the big action sequences, undoubtedly the film's biggest selling point, where the robots are on display in full sunlight, making astonishing mid-air manoeuvres as they battle each other to the death. There's one sequence where a Decepticon who moves like an ice-skater crashes through a bus before performing a rugby tackle on its opponent that is one of many jaw-dropping sequences, particularly with Bay's use of slow motion.

The flaws in this film stem from Bay's occasional slips back to his over-stylised technique. To be fair, he's actually quite controlled and disciplined with this film, but there are some moments that still have the more unfortunate Bay trademarks stamped all over them. A reference to a Transformer being better than "Armageddon" is cringe-worthy. I guess it's just his style, and Bay deserves points for better focusing his technique in this film, even if he occasionally lapses back to his usual tricks.

"Transformers" is a fun, enjoyable blockbuster that looks fabulous on DVD; despite some silly moments and Bay's usual excessiveness in certain areas, the film will entertain you thoroughly during its entire running time while shaking the floors of your home theatre in the process!

TECHNICAL REVIEW: The presentation of this film on DVD is technical perfection. The picture looks absolutely spectacular, particularly in all the big Michael Bay action sequences. All the images are crisp, clean and clear, with magnificent colours. The audio soundtrack is spot on, and is great to use as a test for how hard to push your surround sound system. A perfect transfer.

EXTRAS REVIEW: The extras package is very extensive, offerring a number of features that cover the making of the film in great detail. On the first disc is the audio commentary from Michael Bay, which is extremely informative, but also gives you an insight in to the man behind some of the most hyper-stylised, hyper-energised and hyper-edited films in recent memory. The second disc contains a wealth of featurettes, split in to three distinct sections. The first is OUR WORLD which has four lengthy documentaries focusing on story development, the casting process, the use of the US Army in the film, and the location selected. The second is THEIR WAR which is again broken up in to four lengthy documentaries focusing on the original Transformers cartoon, the selection of cars for each autobot and the car companies which sponsored the film, a look at the Decepticons and their development, and a look at the incredible visual effects developed by ILM and Digital Domain. The third is MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE, which has featurettes on the Desert Sand attack, concepts for the film and the theatrical trailers. It's an incredible set of detailed and informative extras, making for over three hours of quality additional viewing to the main feature.

BOTTOM LINE: Worth having in the collection.

For the complete, original DVD review, click this link: http://www.allaboutmovies.net/dvdreviewtransformers.htm

Alex DeMattia is the lead DVD reviewer at the film/DVD review web site http://www.allaboutmovies.net

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Movie

The 2007 box office smash hit.