This review contains minor spoilers, so get over yourself
I enjoyed the first Transformers movie. I really did. It's not a particularly good film, but it has a certain goofy energy about it that I really enjoyed. Even though it is huge robots kicking the shit out of each other, I was thrilled by it.
I wasn't really expecting this one to be better then the first, but boy did I not expect it to be this bad. "Tender" moments between Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox are underscored by terrible pop songs that inform but don't enhance the moment. Robot battles go on endlessly, and the climax of the film must have been at least thirty minutes.
The movie picks up with the AutoBots (the good guys) hunting down the remainder of the Decepticons (the bad guys). Megatron, the villain from the last film, is being caged in an underwater prison, surrounded by an elite guard, but sneaking by them is no problem for pesky Decepticons looking to revive Megatron. Though why would you store Megatron on one place? Why not just chop him up into little bits, compact his different parts, and spread them to different points of the world? I think this would guarantee his resurrection would not occur (alas, it does).
LeBeouf is off to college, while Fox stays behind, and they establish a long distance relationship (though when trouble arises, Fox quickly hops a flight to the East Coast to rescue him). LeBeouf (or Sam)'s new roommates are incredibly annoying hacker types who just happen to be onto the whole giant robot events from two years prior. Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) tags along for the ride, but he does nothing more then whine and complain about what's going on.
I don't mind crazy action where shit blows up all over the place, but there has to be some substance to what is going on in the film. The first had the simple premise of boy trying to win over girl with new car, and I was intrigued by the Transformers themselves. Now, the robots are boring and an actual plot needed to be assembled. MOTIVATION! IT DOESN'T EXIST IN THIS MOVIE!
Well, it does for Sam and Megan Fox I guess. They have to stop the Decepticons from destroying the earth (they want to blow up the sun). But why are the Decepticons so hell bent on blowing up the sun? It's not merely motivated by what happened in the last movie, because apparently "the Fallen" (the supervillain for this film) has been trying to do this since 17,000 B.C. (as the prologue helpfully establishes).
It also feels like Bay took comment cards from the first one, saw what people liked, and amped it up to the next extreme. I enjoyed the moderate amount of sexual humor the first time around: the mother accusing Sam of masturbating, Bumble Bee "lubricating" on an annoying character. But in this movie it is taken to RIDICULOUS extremes. The mother is even more over the top, and in the college scene eats a pot brownie and just gets plain annoying. Other unsightly gags are John Turturro's ass and a Decepticon's balls. Really? Are you this childish, Bay?
I also like to note the obvious product placement in Bay's movies, as they are filled with them. Mountain Dew, Southwest, Cisco, all get their due. But I only bring this up because it really got to me: in Sam's dormroom, there are posters. One is Cloverfield, which has it's obvious ties to Transformers (the teaser debuted before it); second is a poster of Bad Boys II (another Bay film) which gets a considerable amount of close-up time. Really Bay? Really? Advertising things you would find in real life is one thing, but shamelessly plugging your own movies? A new low.
The movie runs at 150 minutes, which go by quickly, but when you get to the end you realize nothing of substance happened. Optimus is killed by Megatron, and then Sam saves him in the end (oops, spoiler), and apparently some significant "character" moment is realized there. The parents also have a moment letting their child go, and there is a Far and Away moment (not involving Optimus). AGH!
I saw this at the midnight screening for God knows what reason (probably because today is my day off), and at these screenings you are seeing it with devotees to the franchise. Two rows up sat a particularly entertaining kid how cheered when the AutoBots came to the rescue, whopped when a "badass" moment happened, and lifted his arms in the air whenever something exciting was happening. I have to admire someone who can so thoroughly enjoy a movie this much, because he truly loved what he was seeing. I don't like placing myself in a higher authority to such misbegotten creatures, but I think all of us in the theater who saw this kid were amused (or annoyed) by his conviction.
There will be a third one. This movie ends with Optimus saving the day, and as soon as that happens, it just ends. There is no coming to terms with what has happened over the last 150 minutes, it's just Optimus, LeBeouf, Fox, and company standing on a Battleship as the sun sets. I saw this movie because I enjoyed the first one, but now I know exactly what will happen the third time around. So I will not see a third installment in this series.
One last note: a main character should have died. There are probably millions of bystanders that get blown the fuck away, but no one of importance dies (oops, spoiler). That really needed to happen.
Rating: 2/10
Kid Who Absolutely Loved This Movie: 7/10, for making some moments bearable.
