Let me start out by saying that I like movies that include lots of action, big guns, fight sequences and lots of bass.  Transformers 1 was good enough in this respect with the nice surprise of Megan Fox eye candy and some actual humor.  If only Transformers 2 had managed to follow the same recipe, it would have been passable in the tradition of fairly mindless summer action movies.  By trying to cram too much of what made the first Transformers movie good and bring back all the flaws typical of a Michael Bay movie along with a convoluted story, Transformers 2 truly stumbles.

First off, the situation at home is ridiculous and way over the top.  College is  a circus where we are introduced to characters we dispose of almost immediately.  The sole reason the roommate exists in this film is to reintroduce us to the Sector 7 guy from the previous film.  So much failed comedy here, it felt like this whole section of the movie was conceived poorly and then edited on crack to try and breath some life into it by upping the tempo ridiculously.  Personal interactions remain baffling the entire movie in the same tradition.  The banter was almost too much in the first movie and evidently the felt an even bigger helping was needed here, which was a mistake.

Ah, hello Michael Bay.  Could you cut around anymore?  Can you ever, *ever* let the camera sit still?  It’s like you take all the cool stuff you can do with a camera and then do it every damn shot.   It is interesting when you use a nifty camera technique to illustrate a particular dramatic sequence.  Using them all the time is nauseating and disorienting.  Show some restraint.  Further, show you know how to tell a story through a steady narrative.

Finally, that story.  Did we really need to crush that all into two hours?  There are huge holes in it that are boggling in retrospect.  For example, why would the primes sacrifice themselves to hind the shiny key to everything if all you needed to do to get it back was to walk in and grab it?  Did they all need to die to do that?  How did the bad guys not know they had all those allies somewhere out there in our solar system in the first movie?  And that was the father of the Decepticons, in our solar system?  Yet the Decepticons ended the Transformers home world?  Clearly the Decepticons could have completely taken out the armed forces of the world on their little destruction spree, but they didn’t bother.  It goes on and on.  While I was watching the movie it was OK, but the more I think about the worse it seems.

Not to say I didn’t enjoy some parts of the movie.  The opening scene, Optimus’s first battle, Bumblebee taking out the tiger thing and the bulldozer bot both were very enjoyable.  Seeing the forces of the United States military was also pretty awesome.  CGI effects in the movie were incredible.

Anyway, here is to hoping they wait a long time to make Transformers 3.  So long that Michael Bay isn’t going to direct it and they can find some people to write a cohesive screen play.

B- when I watched it, C- in retrospect.  Mindlessly entertaining.  Very mindlessly.

And yes, Dave, you did tip me off to this and I watched it anyway.  At least I didn’t get tortured in an IMAX like you did…

–Nat