Parents' Guide to

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

By James Rocchi, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 14+

Violent, crude, pointless sequel just isn't kids' stuff.

Movie PG-13 2009 147 minutes
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 13+

Based on 185 parent reviews

Walter W.
Walter W. Parent of 17-year-old
May 22, 2023
age 2+

Pinnacle of Human Civiliztion

This is a cult classic film that deserves hundreds of Oscars and praise among all generations. as soon as my grandma saw the Opium Prime sex scene she did not hesitate for a second to pull out the mustard and go crazy. I felt a wave of pure euphoria at the theater and my eye began to fill with tears as a realized that the movie was over. Overall this movie a cinematic masterpiece that offers the best sex scene out of any movie. Cant recommend enough

This title has:

Educational value
Great messages
Great role models
1 person found this helpful.
kanchanaburi
kanchanaburi Parent
June 19, 2022
age 15+

Consumerism at it's best - Propaganda inclined.

As the website review stated 'pointless sequel of violence'. But what also should be pointed out, this is one of the biggest propaganda movies I have seen in a long while. From major consumer brands to what almost appeared to be a advertisement for the american military, the movie itself seemed to be an extended action sequence of man and machine dying constantly throughout. Added ontop of that was how the director used Megan and another woman (forgot her name) and capitolized on their sexuality and beauty. If pictures were words, their movie didn't stop swearing from beginning to end. But as I told my son as we watched, the style of this movie was simply to provide non stop adrenoline stimulation while showing a bit of transformers to satisfy Hasbro, so they could sell toys.

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much sex
Too much swearing
Too much consumerism
1 person found this helpful.
See all 185 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, Shia LaBeouf's Sam Witwicky is off to college. But the long-simmering war between the noble Autobots and the villainous Decepticons is about to boil over again as Sam learns he's the receptacle for eons-old information that everyone wants -- information that includes the location of a weapon that could be used to destroy the sun, along with all life on Earth.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (185 ):
Kids say (254 ):

The faults of the first Transformers movie are even worse here. Director Michael Bay brings in robot after robot after robot, making it impossible to tell the metal mega-warriors apart and resulting in action scenes where who's doing what to who is conveyed more by screaming bystanders than clear, comprehensible filmmaking. Whether you loved or hated the original Transformers, it made so much money that a sequel was inevitable. It was not, however, necessarily inevitable that said sequel would be good.

The human characters aren't much better -- the film bogs down in scenes where Sam's parents are concerned about him heading off to school, only to jettison all that in the name of globe-trotting action. The relationship between Sam and girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) is laughably thin, and the film's need to overdo everything results in either misshapen comic relief scenes or action scenes so loud and large and quickly cut that they're simply empty blurs. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is, at heart, the worst of everything that modern big-money moviemaking has to offer -- spectacle, sex, special effects, and sanitized violence -- without a single redeeming feature.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen's robot-on-robot violence. Are brutal dismemberments, stabbings, and shootings easier to take when they involve large metal robots instead of flesh-and-blood humans? Even when the robots talk, think, and "die" like people?

  • Families can also talk about the consumerism side of things. What do kids make of the fact that this is a movie based on a line of toys? Is the movie's goal to sell more toys? If not, what is it?

  • You can also bring up the movie's stereotyping -- including the robot "Twins," one of whom has a gold tooth and later explains that he can't decipher hieroglyphics because "We don't do much readin'." Are those kinds of caricatures funny or offensive? Why?

  • And you can discuss whether the movie objectifies women. Why is more screen time devoted to the leading actresses' bodies than their characters? Why do male characters not get the same treatment?

Movie Details

  • In theaters: June 24, 2009
  • On DVD or streaming: October 20, 2009
  • Cast: Josh Duhamel , Megan Fox , Shia LaBeouf
  • Director: Michael Bay
  • Inclusion Information: Female actors, Bisexual actors
  • Studio: Paramount Pictures
  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Run time: 147 minutes
  • MPAA rating: PG-13
  • MPAA explanation: intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material
  • Last updated: February 18, 2023

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