‘Transformers 2′ Reviews Are Bad News for Box Office

Big box office flop?

“Transformer 2″ reviews are in, and unfortunately they are not going to help my prediction that this film will be a box office smash.

While 80 percent of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes loved the first Transformers movie, about the same amount hated “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” I know people who are so excited to see this movie that they’d take out a fast payday loan if they had to, but it sounds like those people might end up  disappointed.

Inverse reactions

“Transformers” the first got great reviews. That film made almost $320 million in the U.S. alone, and a whopping $700 million worldwide. This time around, however, only 21 percent of the Rotten Tomatoes critics gave “Transformers 2″ a good review.

Out of 115 Rotten tomatoes critics, only 24 gave it a good review. The vast majority agreed with Suite101’s Nick Rogers, who said:

Revenge of the Fallen Becomes a Train Wreck of Plot, Stereotypes, Incoherence

Revenge of the Fallen collapses into exposition so loudly shouted and flagrantly incoherent that it makes the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel plots seem like standardized test questions.

Essentially, it boils down to Decepticons – led by the resurrected Megatron – again seeking to enslave Earth’s people, this time with the help of the Fallen, an exiled evil elder. By the time the story makes its turn toward low-rent Indiana Jones archaeology, it’s hopelessly convoluted.

Financial translation

Train wrecks are expensive, and so was “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The movie had an estimated budget of $200 million. So although it cost $50 million more to make than the first one, my guess is that it will make less. Probably a lot less.

Still, despite one bad “Transformers 2″ review after another, I think it will still pull in a lot of money. At the box office, it will at least make back the $200 million it spent.

Not all bad

For those of you who are determined to see the movie regardless of what some “Transformer 2″ review says, you might be comforted to know that there are a few critics who really enjoyed the film.  Tom Maurstad from the Dallas Morning News had some good things today in his “Transformers 2″ review:

The action-chase-battle sequences of Transformers are cutting-edge and undeniably powerful; only Star Trek has delivered anything this summer that can match what’s here. From the opening chase-and-battle set in Shanghai to a tour-de-force finale that seems to blow up every ancient edifice in Egypt (there’s a hilarious shot of one of the robots standing next to the battle-scarred face of the Sphinx), Bay proves he can deliver on the whoosh-and-wow factor. Best-in-show honors go to one of the Transformers in this movie, the giant Devastator who lumbers up one of the great pyramids and starts eating it.

Not everything he said was so glowing, but he gave the movie an overall good review, as did 23 of his fellow critics. The positive reviews all indicated that this film is strictly action-movie buffs, as you won’t find a lot of character or plot development here, but there are a lot of explosions and robot fights.