Just watched Transformers ROTF and I want to do a casual review on this movie. I'm of course not an expert. So feel free to comment on my personal opinions. Or feel free not to read because it's looong.

*SPOILER WARNING, don't read if you have not watched*

Overall, Transformers ROTF is a good sci-fi action+adventure film. It's fun, it's entertaining. The story is better and more complex than the first movie, but nothing surprising, it's your regular saving-the-world type story. Character development is definitely lacking, I'll get into that in the complain section.

What I like:
What I like about this movie is the action, and the special effects. And that's about it.
Fight scenes are well done, at least easier to follow than the ones in the first movie. Fight scenes in the first movie were too fast, coupling with the design of the robots all you could see was scrap metal crashing onto scrap metal, excluding the Ironhide slo-mo action. This time, occasional slo-mo, steadier camera and longer shots does make the fight scenes look better and cleaner.
Also, there are definitely more Transformers in this film, aka. much more special effects and action, which is a huge plus.
Some new characters are fun and adds a lighter mood to the movie. Jetfire was a nice character. The grumpy old man personality , details like bits and bolts falling off as he move was nicely done. I liked this character a lot. The two gansta-bots aren't that appealing to me that much. A minor plus would be the story is actually easier to follow than the first film. Just personal opinion.

What I don't like:
I have quite a lot of things I didn't really like about this movie. Basically, the humor, robot gore, character development/treatment and the ending. I don't really have a problem with the story. After all it's just your regular summer-time blockbuster, so it was as expected.

Humor in this movie wasn't bad, the audience laughed at numerous jokes the movie had. However it is the excessive toilet/sex jokes in this movie that bugs me. I am not trying to ban all sex jokes but it's definitely excessive, for a movie aimed at children. That said, even adults get tired of them in this movie. Sexy shots for Megan Fox, okay; several humping action including a dog on a dog and a robot on Megan Fox, o-kay; even Simmons show his underwear, now that's enough. At the point where a Decepticon showed its giant balls, it's not even funny anymore. Plus other numerous sexual references throughout the first half of the film. Is that not excessive enough? To me it is, and they serve no particular purpose.

Robot gore. Wheelie got tortured, Ravage got his spine ripped out while spilling green goo, and many more. Not that they were obscene, but they were unnecessary. There was no need to explicitly show violent robot deaths to make the movie cool. Instead, extra CGI could have been put onto Megatron's revival and Optimus Prime's combination with Jetfire, yet those two could-have-been awesome scenes were lousily made. Robot gore is a minor thing, but still bugs me a bit.

Now, the worst thing of the movie: character treatment. Humans got most of the parts, while most Transformers weren't even treated as characters, just huge robots of destruction. Most new transformers just appear out of nowhere, and disappear or die in the next 2 minutes. Some characters don't even have a point to appear, they have no lines, and did nothing much. Jolt, for example, pops out of nowhere to combine Jetfire with Optimus Prime, a significant part to the story yet Jolt only appeared in the rest of the movie for 20 seconds. Such significant task could have been given to a more developed character like Rachet. And not by throwing in a new character, to make audience wonder whom the heck that is. That is not good character treatment at all. The problem is there are too many characters thrown into the movie, and almost none of them get any development. Cut out some useless characters, and save CGI for scenes to develop the rest.
Some supposedly serious human characters also did ridiculous things. William Lennox, the army dude from the first movie once again goes against military orders for a kid he hardly knew. Last time, he pointed a gun at a Sector Seven agent, this time he thrown a government official off a plane, just for a kid. Sam also had problems. Other characters could be thrown meters away, get hit by sharpenals, stand close to an explosion and not get a single scratch mark. Yet Sam got hurt from an explosion that everyone was caught in, and later die from a small explosion. Nothing is unreasonable since it’s a film, but that seems awkwardly done when compared to the increbible survivability of other characters. It’s like Sam died for the sake of dying.

Finally, the ending of ROTF could be the most half-assed ending I have seen in a movie. The movie ends almost right after the final fight, leaving most characters’ fate unexplained. Wheelie, Chromia and Moonracer, and other Autobots would have begged for a proper closure for them. There weren’t even explanations. Even Sam, the main character’s fate has to be explained by a 10 second clip after the credits starts rolling. What kind of ending is that?

Sum up:
I like the movie, I think it’s worth the money I paid for. A very solid movie that would not dissapoint you(unless you are some sort of transformers fan). Though there are a whole lot of things that could have been done better, or not done at all.

Other stuff:
Transformer fans will be dissapointed by the fact that all Transformer characters in this film are under-done. Sideways got sliced up after appearing for 2 minutes, Demolishor demolished everything in Shanghai but not even scratched one autobot, Sideswipe said almost nothing and only sliced up Sideways in the whole movie, Soundwave just sits there with a satellite, etc. And the biggest dissapointment is Devestator being so weak. A vaccum cleaner for main weapon, and devestated nothing but a pyramid then got killed by a rail gun. There were also numerous repeating alt-modes in the Decepticons. Even Bonecrusher who died in the first movie appears in this alt-mode again. It’s just very confusing but whatever, I had no time to recognize them before they die anyway.

ROTF Optimus Prime is the most ruthless Optimus Prime in TF history. He hunts down and execute Decepticons, he has a fetish for multilating others’ faces, he has NO MERCY. Basically everything that a Decepticon would do, and yet he is still the symbol of freedom and justice, teaching humans to be nice. I cannot stand that.

And ROTF Megatron could have been the weakest Megatron. He cannot even get even with Prime when having 2 other Decepticons helping. This is just unbalanced. He could beat the crap out of Prime in the first movie, and now he is no better than a grunt. He is weakened just to give room to The Fallen, I think, and that’s lame.

Besides that, majority of the final fight was the US army VS Decepticons. They killed more Decepticons than the Autobots did, seriously.

Cut unwanted characters. They can’t help to sell toys to kid if they get blown off after 20 seconds of screen time anyway. Save those CGI money and put them on developing a few characters. I just hate how the characters were done.

It was pretty cool but not amazing or anything.
It would be pretty lame on a smaller screen though since half the point of it is the fancy cgi effects as they smash everything in fights you can't keep track of.
I recommend seeing it in the theater if at all.

Yeah optimus was kind of a ass in this one.
"Here, dramatically take my parts."
"Cooool I can fly now. Wheee."

You say you liked this movie, but the list of what you didn't like about it, is twice as long. a robot had balls, 2 of the characters where racist, too many characters to even remember, not well written, the budget went in the wrong places, the morals where a bit to ambiguous (prime) the plot is inconsistent with the first movie, and it had a robot with balls.

That sounds like an all around terrible movie, doesn't it.

The only thing about it that made it worth watching, was action sequences, and robot gore. if the only things you need to make a movie watchable, are action sequences, action sequences, action sequences, with no identifiable plot, backstory, or decent character development, then go watch random videos of explosions, punches, and gunshots, you'll be just as satisfied.


but seriously, if your list of complaints is twice as long and in depth as what you liked, you cant honestly say that you enjoyed this movie.

Perfectly possible to appreciate a film for its action, visuals, and suspense and hate it for its character development, plot consistency, and writing/directing.

There are tons of movies that fit that description. It is completely possible to find enjoyment in movies that aren't gripping dramas.

Glad your first post back from bantown was as useless as all of them.

I did like this movie. The sexual references were a little annoying, especially the humping of the leg, that was just weird. Those little Autobot black dudes were the worst part of the movie. Very annoying and completely worthless besides one of them tearing up the giant vacuum dude (who was awesome, because he was MASSIVE). Leo (Sam's roommate) was pretty damn funny and so was Simmons.

I liked it, but it didnt stick to the whole "trilogy" idea.
in a trilogy the first one, the good guys win, yay. in the second one the bad guys win. this didnt follow that rule, because then in the third one the good guys win to set it off at a happy note.

The amount of ♥♥♥♥ jokes bugged me. It was like the movie was written by twelve year olds. The plot also got ridiculous, especially towards the end It was like "My robot can suck up other robots" "So My robot can absorb other robots and gain ridiculous powers and ♥♥♥♥." The other part that bugged me were the black twins. That wasn't helped by the retarded guy sitting behind me who would repeat exactly what they just said and then laugh obnoxiously loud. I mean that doesn't make sense, robots don't have races, asses, clowns, or balls, hell I was half expecting the girls robots to have fifty foot vagina's sticking out of their faces. I thought it was thoroughly disappointing.

I should state more clearly. I like the movie's action and CGI and that's it, and they made the movie worth the money I paid. And there is nothing more I can elaborate on the action and CGI because, that's what they are.

Worth the ticket fee is one thing, being a good movie is another. And there is no way this is a good movie if story and characters are considered too.

I just gotta say I'm so glad skynet didn't show up.

On the bright side, Michael Bay isn't coming back.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen.

I agree almost completely with this review.

I thought it was awesome.

I mean yeah, the plot and stuff was lacking, but I really went to see the amazing special effects in the movie, not the plot. I got what i came for, so I'm happy.