It's been a long time since I was sitting in front of the television on a Saturday morning watching the Transformers cartoon show, so I can't claim that I recall the series with shining clarity, but I remember it well enough to know what made it great. There were the colorful robots transforming into vehicles, humans and machines working in tandem, and a clear cut struggle of good vs. evil. Transformers: Rise of the Fallen included all of these concepts, and a plethora of others. You can witness brightly colored and well-animated robots in action; the sight of marines mobilizing along with the Autobots in their struggle against the Decepticons is a formidable one, and Optimus Prime, when he isn't tearing off an evil alien's face, has quite the saintly demeanor. On top of all that, you can see Shia LaBeouf struggle with a wacky and highly inaccurate portrayal of college life, view a pair of hick robots make painful wisecracks, and there is gratuitous sexual innuendo to boot. In short, this movie just has too much going on. It makes an attempt to appeal to every conceivable audience, and the result is a Frankenstein's monster of movie genres that tries to be bigger than it really is.

Revenge of the Fallen is a what would otherwise be a solid teenager action movie that is plagued by errors, the chief among them being its lack of direction. It attempts to simultaneously be an action flick, a comedy, and a drama. While any two of these elements may often be found in the third, Revenge of the Fallen attempts to focus on all three. I don't care how good of a director you are, you simply aren't going to pull off a heart-touching moment that speaks to the truth of humanity in the same film that features and aged stealth bomber robot that needs to walk with the aid of a mechanical cane. The movie would like to be taken seriously, but half of the characters seem to be there for comic relief. I don't believe I have ever experienced so much bathos in a 3 hour period.

Which bring me to another point. The movie is unnecessarily long. There is too much happening, so much, in fact, that even with the impressive span of the film, much is left unaddressed. Very little time is spent on the main attraction of the film: the robots themselves. Instead, the film relies more on direct exposition than to tell their hackneyed backstory. This leaves the Autobots and Decepticons as poor, half-charactized husks that have little to no individuality, and in many cases lack names as well. It's very hard to care about the robot dying in agony when you don't even know what to call him. Without the appropriate characterization or explanation, many of the inclusions in the movie simply seem like random fluff, such as a quartet of Decepticons that could fuse together into a demolition-specialized monstrosity. I am assured by friends that this creature was a major part of one of the series, but it is left without history, name, or explanation in the film.

Despite the eclectic hodgepodge of colors and styles that abound in Revenge of the Fallen, the action sequences are truly terrific and serve as its one saving grace. The robots are gorgeously animated, and even as I cringed at other aspects of the film, I offered a delighted cheer of approval at Optimus Prime's righteous fury and brutality as he entered combat with the Decepticons, and in the final stretch of the film, all forces converge at a single point for a battle of proportions befitting a multistory anthropomorphic machine. Sadly, I cannot even recommend seeing this movie for the action sequences, because even though they are quite good, they are few and far between.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is no timeless piece of craftsmanship, and even though it's pretty bad when all is said and done, it does serve to entertain. In seeking to please all audiences, it only serves to alienate them, and it's pulling in so many directions that it's practically falling apart at the seams. It is redeemed from absolute failure by top notch animation and stellar battles, but these are only enough to push it up into the category of “well below average.” I wouldn't advise spending money to see this movie, but when it comes out on DVD, you might want to get someone else to rent it.