Even Michael Bay had to admit that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was kind of “crap.” The Writers Guild of America strike of 2007-2008 saw the guild seeking increased residuals on DVD sales, in addition to compensation for new media. The WGA strike lasted 14 weeks in total and would impact the writing of several major projects. For example, Daniel Craig has spoken of the strike’s impact on Quantum of Solace, where the cast had to work with a barely finished script that was badly in need of a punch-up.

Other movies impacted by the strike include Terminator Salvation and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which both felt like a series of setpieces loosely stapled together by a thin narrative. Now, the Transformers movie franchise has never been renowned for its quality storytelling, but even by the modest standards of the series, Revenge of the Fallen was lambasted for its terrible comedy, weak story, and for emphasizing noisy action over just about everything else; the sequel sits at 19% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Why Michael Bay Says Revenge Of The Fallen Wasn’t Good

Bay and Shia LaBeouf were honest about Fallen’s many issues

Michael Bay’s movies have never been critical darlings, but it can’t be denied that he’s one of the most distinct action filmmakers of the last 30 years. Bay has had a couple of duds during his career, but Revenge of the Fallen might just be his worst movie period. It indulges all his worst impulses (obnoxious humor, quick cut action, too many side characters, etc) and is a numbing slog to sit through. Bay was refreshingly honest about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen back in 2011, where during an Empire chat (via THR), he outlined why the sequel didn’t work.

The real fault with [Transformers 2] is that it ran into a mystical world. When I look back at it, that was crap. The writers’ strike was coming hard and fast. It was just terrible to do a movie where you’ve got to have a story in three weeks. I was prepping a movie for months where I only had 14 pages of some idea of what the movie was. It’s a BS way to make a movie…

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was rushed into development following the huge success of Bay’s original. Instead of delaying the sequel’s release when it became clear the strike would impact its development, Bay and his team of writers had to press ahead with the project. They developed the screenplay working from a treatment that was submitted just before the strike began, and this accounts for how messy and unfocused the final product feels.

Star Shia LaBeouf didn’t like Revenge of the Fallen much either, stating “When I saw the second movie, I wasn’t impressed with what we did. There were some really wild stunts in it, but the heart was gone.” It speaks to how critically reviled the Transformers sequel was that Bay and LaBeouf were so willing to throw it under the bus soon after its release. Making a great movie is difficult under the most ideal of conditions, but having to do it without a solid script and with intense time pressure all but guarantees a disappointing final product.

Dark Of The Moon Got Transformers Back On Track

The third Transformers was a big improvement on Revenge of the Fallen

Its 35% Rotten Tomatoes rating may not say much, but Bay and LaBeouf followed through on their promise that Transformers: Dark of the Moon would be better. It still had some of the same issues as its predecessor, including a bloated runtime and forced comedy, but it also felt less sloppy and sewn together. It should be noted that despite being panned on arrival, Revenge of the Fallen still reached over $836 million worldwide (via The Numbers).

The second film might have made even more, if not for the toxic word of mouth that spread following its release. This is borne out by the fact Dark of the Moon made a cool $1.1 billion during its theatrical run in 2011. It’s not that the third film is a particularly masterful piece of cinema, but it was way more fun and the action was allowed to breathe a little. It was also pitched as the final part of a trilogy, so audiences who had invested in Sam’s (Shia LaBeouf) story wanted to see how it would play out.

Bay’s Transformers Were Mostly Critical Flops But The Franchise Is Turning It Around

The RT meter for the Transformers saga is a wild ride

Indeed, Dark of the Moon proved to be Sam’s final appearance (for now), and the series soon moved in a different direction. It has soft rebooted itself several times, though the financial performance of 2024’s Transformers One suggests audiences might be growing weary of the property. Despite being regarded as the series nadir, Revenge of the Fallen isn’t even the worst reviewed; Bay’s fourth and fifth outings, Age of Extinction and The Last Knight, beat it with 18% and 16% respectively.

Weirdly, it seems the better reviews the Transformers movies get, the lower the gross becomes. Transformers One was almost universally praised and nabbed an impressive 89%, but that did little to pull audiences in and get them to the theater. It’s unclear what the next Transformers movie will be, but the franchise has proven too successful (AKA profitable) for the studio to fully give up on it.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes, Empire/The Hollywood Reporter, The Numbers