Please stop making these movies!

Rating: 2/10 (19 February 2012)

The first movie was cute and entertaining. I was pleasantly surprised that Bay could take a beloved toy and cartoon from the '80's and make it into a good action flick. Beyond the first movie, there really isn't that much of a story to tell and so they should have stopped. Transfomers also lack a wider culture to draw from so each movie feels the same- I'll compare it to Indiana Jones which usually has the same hero and villains, Nazis, but Indiana has the benefit of a plethora of interesting civilizations to write stories around. So please stop Hollywood, stop making these movies. They are merely a product for consumption and merchandising.
This movie was way too long with unending action scenes. Am I the only who gets annoyed by Shia's fumbling? I felt the movie also went into an inappropriate realm the others didn't. There was a scene where a man is killed and it is made to look like a suicide. It is depicted comically as he falls by the window and there are even jokes afterwards about him being splatted on the pavement. This is just one example. I don't mind dark humor, actually I love dark humor, but this just seemed out of place with the tone and audience of the movie. I thought these movies were at least in part for kids?
Lastly, since I completely zoned out in the middle of the movie and was just hoping it was going to end soon, something dangerous started happening - I got to thinking. Autobots are supposed to be gender neutral but are all voiced by men? Why? It is not as if they have synthetic voices. There does seem to be an affect on some of the voices to add a deeper growl but why can't that be applied to a female voice? The autobots could have the same personalities and be voiced by a woman. I would guess most people view the transformers as all male. I looked into matter and read how at one time female autobots were added but were somewhat anatomically correct and were stereotypically more feminine. Sigh... However, I'll take no female voiced autobots over giving "female" autobots breasts and gender specific roles which is far more tragic! These movies are decidedly male and I do not mean that because they have explosions.
I gave it 2 stars because someone works very hard on the CGI.