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Secondly, Revenge of the Fallen suffers genre-identity confusion. Pick a genre popular with American audiences, and it's probably shoved into this movie. Revenge is part stoner comedy, part American Pie sex romp, part disaster film, part war film, part alien invasion movie, part National Treasure adventure mystery, and sadly, only part Transformers. There are also several scenes borrowed from well-known movies.

Thirdly, it means that the script feels more compiled than written. Of course, the plot is thin and is only a means to lead to lots of robot rumbling. That's fine. But it feels as if this is a movie version of plywood—just random pieces of popular myth, thematic fodder, and common narrative haphazardly pressed together here and there.

The Transformer is the one on the left

One of these themes felt especially surprising and out of left field to me. Toward the end of the movie, Sam suddenly begins to talk about his mission as a matter of destiny. He believes his seemingly fruitless task will work. In fact, it's what he was meant to do. (For Lost fans, this feels pulled straight out of John Locke's life story.) While undoubtedly unintentional and clumsily delivered, the culmination of this destiny theme seems to take the movie into a supernatural realm. A character has an otherworldly vision, receives advice from beyond, earns a "heavenly" reward for faith and diligence, and experiences a rebirth.

This got me thinking of the transformers in a different light—seeing the fight between Autobot and Decepticons as spiritual warfare. After all, it's hidden forces battling over humans. One side is led by the Christ-like Optimus Prime, and the other by a fallen angel.

I'm obviously reading too much into Bay's extravaganza, but it certainly points to what could have been with a different director who took his material seriously. And besides, isn't God's truth lingering beneath even the most unlikely of surfaces? There is often more than meets the eye—maybe even in this mess of a movie, whether the filmmakers intended it or not.

Talk About It

1. What things in the film were offensive to you? Why do you think the filmmakers chose to include those things?
   
   
2. What do you think of the line when a character looks at Optimus Prime and says, "God made us in his image. So who made him?" What did that imply to you?
   
   
3. How is the Fallen like Satan? What parallels do you see to spiritual warfare in this franchise? What makes it different?
   
   
4. In what ways is Optimus Prime a Christ figure? Why is the "Christ figure" such a recurring, dominant theme in movies? How many different ways do you see sacrifice in this film?
   
   
5. One of the franchise's themes is whether humanity is worth saving. Is it? Does our goodness outweigh our propensity for evil? What does the Bible say?
   
   
6. Were you surprised to learn that being an Autobot or a Decepticon is a choice? What does that mean to you?
   
   
7. What did you think of Sam's destiny plot? What happened during that vision sequence? What does it mean that the matrix was "earned"?
   
   

The Family Corner

Revenge of the Fallen is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material. The film sends confusing messages, mixing the kind of action/adventure that families and children would enjoy with an American Pie/Judd Apatow tone of sexual and drug-based humor. There are multiple scenes of dogs and robots humping. A man rips off his pants to show he's wearing a G-string. One gigantic robot has two wrecking balls hanging in a suggestive place and in case you don't get it, a character points out what it looks like. Every woman in the movie is sexualized—often to shocking degrees. Two Autobots are African-American gangster stereotypes. The violence is largely comic-bookish with little to no human death actually shown. Language includes several uses of profanity including the Lord's name in vain, suggestive sexual language and discussion of sexual organs.

Photos © Dreamworks

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