EDITOR'S NOTE: If this review seems familiar, that's because it's largely the same as our review of the "Big Screen Edition" of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a Wal-Mart exclusive. To jump to the differences, see the "Picture" and "Sound" sections below. The extras are identical between the two editions.
The Movie
I think there might be something wrong with me: I didn't hate the first Transformers, and neither do I agree with all of the vehement bashing of its sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It's big and it's loud and it's more than a little, y'know, stupid (the two-and-a-half-hour running time would be much shorter if director Michael Bay didn't keep stopping the story to make us "laugh" for minutes at a time), but it's based toys for Pete's sake, and the first movie let us know what to expect.
It's been two years since Transformers, and the good-guy Autobots have stuck around to find and destroy any of the bad-guy Decepticons who might still be hiding here on Earth. Those happy days of cooperation are numbered though as the consequences of their increasingly overt police actions are noted with concern by the government, even as The Fallen--the original Decepticon--is preparing for his return, and the ultimate decimation of mankind with the activation of his secret invention, The Harvester.
When he's not "borrowing" from James Cameron, Bay does a good job repeating himself (see Pearl Harbor, Armageddon). I will say this: His movies are grand in ways that only mega-budget sci-fi can afford, with the sheer quantity of large-scale action that audiences obviously can't get enough of.
Also be sure to check out movie critic Joe Lozito's take on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
The Picture
Colors are amped but not cartoonish, soft imagery somehow manages to keep the ringing and other artifacting to a minimum, and even darker or out-of-focus areas of the frame, typically poison for Blu-ray, are relatively clear and natural. Much of the movie is special effects-intensive, and all of these shots are very big and very crisp. Two sequences in the film were created for optimal reproduction in high-end IMAX exhibition, and whereas the aspect ratio of that Wal-Mart-exclusive "Big Screen Edition" shifts to 16:9 during those scenes, this standard edition of the Blu-ray maintains a constant 2.4:1 aspect ratio.
Side-to-side positioning is consistent between the two versions, and so the top and bottom cutoff is shifted on a shot-by shot basis. In one shot in the 16:9 (1.78:1) Big Screen Edition we will gain a lot more headroom; the very tops of trees in the forest with additional sky, while the bottom edge remains the same, for example; but later we will see only a slight additional margin above a character but more robo-feet than before. I noted a more lifelike image for the entire movie on the Big Screen Edition, versus the standard Blu-ray, not just during the IMAX portions, and subtle differences in color between the two. I won't say that one is better or worse in that regard, but I expect I will be reaching for the Big Screen Edition when I want to give my next HD demo to friends. But whichever version you choose, you are assured of spectacular video.
The Sound
Even the DreamWorks and Paramount logos have been retooled sonically for this movie, with a slick techno twist. The ".1" in the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is packing some sick levels of bass like I have never heard before, rattling the entire home theater within minutes after I pressed Play. To be fair, Transformers had better not sonically disappoint: These guys weigh tons, and they love to smash stuff, plus they shoot! And every channel here is so active, I half-expected to see smoke coming off of my speakers. In a typical scene, meteorites are hitting and helicopters are flying overhead, cars are crashing and guns are blazing. Even during a moment of intimate dialogue, there might be a battle raging in the background. This is action movie audio at its finest.
We had heard reports that the sound levels are noticeably lower on the Big Screen Edition, which would be a surprising inconsistency, considering the exclusive video emphasis of that release. I've now been able to perform A-B demo's of the two discs and can confirm that the Big Screen Edition is indeed quieter. On my Onkyo TX-SR606 receiver, I ran the standard version at a master level of 48, but needed to bump it up to 54 to achieve roughly equivalent volume on the Big Screen Edition. I would consider this a minor flaw in the Big Screen Edition but one that can be compensated for by simply adjusting your volume dial.
The Extras
On Disc One we are treated to a commentary by director/executive producer Michael Bay and screenwriters Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman, always interesting on such an elaborate filmmaking journey as this. The real excitement begins on Disc Two however, a treasure trove of thoughtfully assembled supplements produced mostly by Charles de Lauzirika.
"The Human Factor: Exacting Revenge of the Fallen" is a seven-part "making of" from pre-, through production and post, running 134-and-a-half minutes if watched straight through. The weird, funny "A Day with Bay: Tokyo" (13 minutes) follows the director to the Japanese premiere, but first there's the small matter of finishing the film. "25 Years of Transformers" (about eleven minutes) explores the history and evolution of the toys.
Nest: Transformer Data-Hub is an extremely deep interactive section exploring the robotic characters' entire biography, from the original animated series, the toys, multiple comic book lines and of course the movies. A lot of love went into this. The BD-exclusive The Allspark Experiment interactive game meanwhile allows us to customize and then transform Earth vehicles into other-worldly robots.
Following an introduction by Bay himself, "Deconstructing Visual Bayhem" (see what they did there?) lets us toggle between multiple angles of pre-visualization for 15 different scenes (just the pre-vis, or an onscreen comparison of pre-vis and the final shot), with commentary by pre-vis supervisor Steve Yamamoto. The three deleted/alternate scenes total six minutes, "Giant Effing Movie" condenses the entire mammoth-scale production down to a fun 24 minutes, and the music video for Linkin Park's song "New Divide" will cost you five minutes. All of the video extras are in high-definition. Lastly, "The Matrix of Marketing" is a collection of trailers, commercials, poster artwork and photos of tie-in products.
Final Thoughts
Just calling Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen "a big, loud action trifle based on toys" is not entirely fair. It is an exceptionally well-produced big, loud action trifle based on toys, and I'm okay with that. I didn't learn a blessed thing about the world or myself, but I did spend two-and-a-half hours watching and listening with rapt attention while this disc made my home theater its bitch.
As to whether you want the "Big Screen Edition" or the regular version, that is a matter of taste and preferences. If you've got a 2.35:1 or 2.4:1 screen with a projector zoomed to fill that Cinemascope screen, then you may prefer the regular edition which remains constant throughout. If you have a Constant Image Height (CIH) projection system which detects aspect ratio coming in and automatically adjusts the projector and screen masking to suit the input aspect ratio then you might still want to stay with the standard version to avoid the delays that can occur when your anamorphic lens or zoom processing kicks in every time the aspect ratio changes. But if you have a standard 16:9 widescreen HDTV, then you might like the "Big Screen Edition" as it exposes even more of that jaw-dropping IMAX detail. The sonic differences between the two, while real, do not seem to matter too much assuming your system has ample headroom and amplification. Whichever you choose, you're in for a wild ride.
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