A huge blockbuster smash like the 2007 Transformers requires a sequel, and Michael Bay got to work cranking one out as fast as he could. Ready for release just two summers later, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is even bigger, longer, louder, and dumber than the first film. Consequently, it was another massive hit, despite the fact that nobody seemed to actually like the damned thing.
Almost immediately upon its release, Revenge of the Fallen was regarded as a huge drop-off in quality from the first movie, a fact that didn’t stop it from raking in over $800 million at the box office and landing as one of the Top 5 money earners for 2009 (a pretty impressive feat in the same year that also dropped James Cameron’s Avatar). As more sequels have followed over the ensuing decade and a half, this one has maintained its reputation among fans as the worst of the franchise.
Personally, I had no great desire to watch it again, and probably wouldn’t have except for the benefit of my son, a big Transformers fan eager to go through the whole series with me. Doing so now, however grudgingly, I had one obvious question in the front of my mind: Is it really as bad as I remembered?
| Title: | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen |
| Year of Release: | 2009 |
| Director: | Michael Bay |
| Watched On: | Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Max Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
During both its theatrical and initial home video releases, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was a critical punching bag that scored some of the worst reviews of its year. I’ll admit to being part of that pile-on. When the film hit Blu-ray, I wrote a lengthy review tearing it apart. I stand behind every word of that article. Re-reading it now, every complaint I made is still valid.
The movie is bloated and obnoxious from start to finish. Most of the human characters are idiots and the robots (even the supposedly heroic ones) are assholes. The screenplay cobbled together by the trio of Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Ehren Kruger is nonsensically plotted and overflowing with what even Michael Bay himself would later classify as “dorky humor.” A number of normally respectable actors demean themselves with embarrassing performances. (Poor John Turturro seems to enthusiastically subject himself to the worst of the film’s abuse.) Most torturous of all, the movie just feels endless. The official running time may only be five minutes longer than the prior movie, but I could swear that getting through it felt at least four or five hours long.
All that being true, most of these are problems shared with Bay’s first Transformers. Watching them again now, back-to-back, Revenge of the Fallen may not be as (ahem) “good” as the first movie, but I’m not sure that it’s really all that much worse, either. The two films feel very much of a piece with one another.
Perhaps I’ve mellowed on this franchise with a little time and distance. Or perhaps, having already experienced the film’s idiocies before, I was better braced for them this time, such that none could shock or appall me as they did on the first viewing.
The other factor affecting my perspective is that I watched this time with my son, who’s still a little young to have developed what we grown-ups like to call taste. He just likes Transformers, and most of that dorky humor was right on his level. He thought the little robot humping Megan Fox’s leg was hilarious, he cheered during the big action scenes, and he wasn’t much bothered that hardly any of the story makes a lick of sense.
When I asked him about it afterward, he said that the first movie was better, but I suspect that his saying so was influenced by knowing the film’s reputation in advance (both from myself and some YouTube spoiler videos he’d watched first). In my observation, he seemed to enjoy himself just as much with this movie as he did the first.
Back to the original question, is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as bad as I remembered? Objectively, broken down point-by-point, perhaps yes. Nevertheless, I was more tolerant and forgiving of its failings on this watch, which allowed me to better appreciate its “Bayhem.” On that mark, the director once again delivers pure cinematic spectacle on an impressive scale, and the visual effects still hold up great.
Do I like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen now? Not really, no. But I didn’t hate-watch it quite as much as I expected. For my son’s sake, I’m glad I owned a copy, and I don’t regret watching with him. All the same, I’ll be happy to let it go another decade before spinning this one again.
The Blu-ray
For a movie I’ve never much liked, I’ve wound up owning multiple copies of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen anyway. The first was a Blu-ray review screener that I thankfully didn’t have to pay for. However, when I learned that a Walmart exclusive called the Big Screen Edition contained an alternate version of the movie, I paid for that one out of my own pocket to review it as well. The main difference between the two is that the standard Blu-ray presents the film entirely in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio as it played in a majority of theaters, while the Big Screen Edition expands in height to full-screen 16:9 during two scenes, to emulate its appearance on IMAX screens.
The Big Screen Edition also runs 32 seconds longer than the other Blu-ray. In the best of my ability to compare them, this amounts to selected shots being unnoticeably extended by a second or two. I don’t believe the longer version contains any fully new shots or scenes.
Despite already having two copies of the movie at that point, I was too weak to resist a SteelBook edition in 2012 (2.40:1 version only) just for the sake of consistency on my collection shelf. I then gave away one of the redundant 2.40:1 copies and stuck the Big Screen disc into the SteelBook case.
Revenge of the Fallen was later released on the 4K Ultra HD format as well. Feeling that I’d already wasted enough money on this movie, I haven’t upgraded to that and don’t expect to. Like the standard Blu-ray, the 4K release was mastered at constant 2.40:1. The alternating aspect ratios gimmick remains exclusive to the Big Screen Edition Blu-ray.
Following the example set by Christopher Nolan with The Dark Knight, Michael Bay shot portions of Revenge of the Fallen with IMAX cameras so that the movie would have a Variable Aspect Ratio (VAR) presentation exclusively in IMAX theaters. Technically, the IMAX theatrical version was originally formatted for 1.43:1, but that would result in a smaller picture during those scenes on home video (exactly the opposite of the intent), so the Blu-ray compromises by using 16:9 instead.
The forest battle about an hour into the movie is mostly in 16:9, except for several brief cutaways to action in another location that switch back to 2.40:1. The fight with Devastator near the end of the film is much more frustrating. That scene frantically flits between aspect ratios with each shot change, in intervals of about 1-3 seconds each. I catalogued the exact time codes of each piece of IMAX footage in my review of the Big Screen Edition Blu-ray.
Because I have a 2.35:1 Constant Image Height projection screen in my home theater, my preference is to watch the CIH version of the movie. Sadly, when I tried that, I discovered that my remaining Blu-ray copy of that version has gone defective and won’t play the whole movie. I was forced to switch to the Big Screen Edition disc to finish watching.
My projector allows me to apply electronic blanking to mask off the top and bottom of the 16:9 IMAX shots to effectively turn them into 2.35:1 letterbox so I don’t have image spilling off the top or bottom of my screen. Doing so, I found the movie entirely watchable cropped to Constant Image Height. No critical picture information is lost in either IMAX scene. (If you find yourself getting hung up on the difference between my screen being 2.35:1 and the Blu-ray being 2.40:1, see this article.)
That said, it must be noted that cropping the 16:9 version is not an exact match for the official 2.40:1 letterbox version in every shot. While the 2.40:1 extraction may have been taken from the direct center of the IMAX frame in some shots (like the Optimus Prime comparison above), in others Bay adjusted the framing up or down.
Getting a precise frame match for the comparisons in this review was a little difficult. Because my 2.40:1 Blu-ray was defective, I had to take screenshots from a streaming copy on Max instead – which also explains why the letterboxed version looks softer. I’ve done my best to get as close a match as possible based on the robot positions and movements. In this Devastator comparison, the 2.40:1 version actually shows slightly more image at the top of the frame than the 16:9 version, while the latter has much more info at the bottom.
Regardless, as I said, a straight symmetrical crop to 2.35:1 worked acceptably on my CIH screen. Because Bay’s cameras are constantly in motion, shaking and swooping all over the place while cutting between shots at a dizzying pace, any differences in framing aren’t noticeable during playback. Everything important you need to follow the action remains visible, as in the following example of masking the IMAX footage.
Apologies for getting bogged down in the aspect ratio issue, but that’s the most interesting facet of this movie to me. In other regards, the Blu-ray transfer holds up pretty well even more than a decade later. At the time of its release, I criticized the disc for looking superficially sharp but lacking textural detail. I guess that’s still true, but I wasn’t bothered by it as much this time. Bay shot the movie on a variety of different film stocks and formats, from Super 35 to IMAX. He also pumped up the colors into gaudy shades of teal and orange, and cranked the contrast. Shot-to-shot variances in sharpness and grain, as well as a little bit of crushed shadow detail, are a normal part of his visual aesthetic. In general, the disc looks great for a Blu-ray sourced mostly from a 2K Digital Intermediate.
I imagine that the IMAX scenes might provide a compelling reason to upgrade to 4K. HDR and Wide Color Gamut might also offer some improvement. I won’t rule out the possibility that the Ultra HD edition could be a legitimate step up from this disc. For me, though, I don’t need perfection from Revenge of the Fallen. The Blu-ray is still good enough. If this were a movie I cared more about, I might make a different decision.
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is hyper-aggressive with surround activity buzzing all around the soundstage and thunderous waves of deep, pummeling bass that will shake the foundation of your house. I may have thought it was a bit overdone and obnoxious during my first watch, but most movies today are so lacking in bass that this track brought a smile to my face.
The original Blu-ray releases for Revenge of the Fallen came as two-disc sets. The SteelBook only offered the first disc, with the movie and an audio commentary in which Michael Bay lashes out against film critics, Oscar voters who keep snubbing him, and “geography buffs” who had the gall to complain that the back to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. doesn’t open to a vast desert behind it.
The second disc, which I retained and stuck in the SteelBook, has a very thorough making-of documentary nearly as long as the movie itself, plus a bunch more featurettes, trailers, a music video, a still gallery, and a build-a-robot interactive game for kids called The Allspark Experiment.
If you’re inclined to waste a little time playing the game, the following combination of vehicle parts will unlock an extra (completely worthless) video interview with Michael Bay:
- Armored truck: green paint, big cannon, guns on side panels, tires with chains, headlights.
- Jet: white paint, default wings (center option), black missile, triple afterburners, cockpit option on right.
- Small car: red paint, solid hubcaps, big engine block, spoiler option with normal trunk, “66” on sides.
- Corvette: green paint, green spoiler pointing backwards (right option), center wheel option, vented hood (left option), “99” on sides.
- Porsche: black paint, spoiler option on right, center wheel option, lowest headlights (left option), center tailpipe.
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The Video File Blog 
‘Most John Torturrous of all, the movie just feels endless.’
Have only seen the very first movie. Always curious about this one. Is that Megan Fox in the photo? I don’t recognize her at all.
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No, that’s the other ridiculously hot girl throwing herself at Shia LaBeouf in this one.
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Check. But Fox IS in this one, right? If memory serves me well, she insulted Bay (and was fired) between installments 2 and 3.
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haven’t compared this in a while, but the IMAX scenes are slightly extended by about 15 seconds each I think. I do remember the forest fight scene, there are some extended scenes, maybe Prime hitting the big helicopter robot more and the desert scene with Devastator has a some extended bits. Anyways, this movie still sucks. I love the forest fight and some of the action set pieces, but it’s the one I watch least. I picked up the 4k on sale a while back for shits & giggles.
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The length is addressed in the review. The movie as a whole is 32 seconds longer.
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