Transmorphers: Fall of Man (2009) is a modern day prequel to dystopian Tranmorphers (2007).Transmorphers: Fall of Man or T2 as I will call it is pretty much an unrelated prequel. The only thing that connect the two films are the zbots and a surname. Despite its obvious flaws, I really like the original Tranmorphers due to its strong tones and unique world it created. None of that carries over to this film. In fact there is nothing Tranmorpher-que in this film at all. This is a “by the numbers” affair. They could have inserted any random monster in and it wouldn’t affect the plot that much.
This film takes WAY too long to get started. I almost turned it off around the thirty minute mark. The first forty minutes is wasted by setting up dull characters and a minimal plot. Everything takes longer than it needs to. These types of films don’t need a lot of set up BECAUSE WE GET IT! “Alien Robots invade earth. Yes, I get it. Stop talking! Let’s see them!” We want to watch cool robot aliens destroying stuff, not a plot that’s goes on where.
Also in these types of films don’t need in-depth characters as much as colorful ones. The first movie had heaps of memorable characters. I can’t remember half of there names but I can remember who they are such as the kooky doctor, the sexy female General and the English cyborg. The only nice thing you can say about these characters is that the lead looks like Dolph Lundgren. That’s not to say that the actors are bad. They seem to be doing there best with the material they have. Naturally Bruce Boxleitner and Jennifer Rubin are slightly better, but I doubt it’s going to make it onto their show reels. On that note I’m SO happy that Tron (Bruce Boxleitner) is in the film. Full marks for casting! The only thing I like about this section of the film is learning about the Transmorphers back-story. It turns out that the alien crash at Roswell supplies the blue prints of all modern technology. This means the Zbots now can tranmorph out of any electrical device such as mobile phones.
This goes into a 20 minutes action sequence in which the humans fight there first Zbot. I don’t know if the sequence is legitimately good, or you’re just so desperate to see action at this point, it seems much better than it is. Who cares? I like it. From what I can gather the humans need to stop the robot before it can get a signal back to the rest of fleet. They managed to stop the robot, but 20 minutes later more zbots attack and Jennifer Rubin gives a bad excuses as to why. What annoys me most about this film is that nothing these characters do has any affect on the plot what so ever. So it’s now around the hour mark and the surviving characters flee to the desert. There they find more zbots that look more like the ones in the pervious film. The cgi is better than that of the first film, but if you’ve seen the first film you know that’s not saying a lot. I would have like to see different zbot as I’ve never really liked their design in the first place. Also all the zbots have a pissy little ray gun that comparable to something Spock might use.
So the humans regroup and they decide to take out “that thing that’s going to stop the Zbots, but in fact does nothing”. They soon meet this old man that gives them way too much information and sets up the plot too much for him. It turns out he has already put explosives in “that thing that’s going to stop the Zbots, but in fact does nothing” but they need someone to activity it aka Jack Van Ryber aka the hero aka the guy who looks a little like Dolph Lundgren. So the old man gets killed before he works out that he doesn’t really need these useless humans. Insert one anticlimactic ending and we’re about done with this movie. It turns out they taken out that thing that’s going to stop the Zbots, but we learn that in fact it does nothing. The robots win, and humanity goes underground. Don’t worry they only have 400 years of fighting the zbots ahead of them.
Two things in the film made me smile. Firstly they actually use the world Tranmoph! Thank you for going there. Secondly the ending is so Terminator Salvation. The only thing that was missing was the line “This is Jack Van Rybe, and if you can hear me, you are the resistance”.
This films isn’t unwatchable. If you have to choice between two unrealized low budget robot films I’ll go for the first one.
LESLIE MORRIS 28/09/09
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