For better or worse, you won't be able to take your eyes off it

Rating: 5/10 (25 October 2009)

This isn't a case of "If you liked the first film, you'll love the sequel." It's not even excusable with "It's a movie about alien robots fighting!" Transformers 2 can only be summed up by: If you love summer blockbusters, you'll understand why this fails to fully live up to blockbuster standards.
Plot specifics are elsewhere, so let's just dig in. It's basically EVERYTHING in the first film multiplied by 10: The women are more glistening and bronze, the robots have more comically stereotypical accents, the stakes are higher, and the fight scenes are 10x more incomprehensible. Where the first film failed, this one fails. Where Transformers WOWED and raised the bar for CG epics, this film surpasses that standard.
The parents were funny in the first film, so they're used excessively (and given drugs) in this one. Megan Fox made all the males pitch tents in the cinema so she flashes her panties a little. Everything is in excess, and Michael Bay's thirst for destruction and sex and stereotyping knows no bounds. His sense of story (teleporting as a plot device) and lightening the tension with minority characters is boggling. His trademark scenes of bystanders or extremely minor characters getting more than two lines of dialog derails the film between action scenes. It's more distracting and goofy than silly and charming. Just picture a massive chase scene that follows two Decepticons chasing down Bumblebee...and then picture than ending with a butcher lamenting about his missing teeth. It plays like it reads.
Let's not discuss the twins. I'm not a super-sensitive racism whistle-blower. All you need to do is look at the first film and tell me which race is targeted as a caricatured comic relief. Yes, I'm aware of Bad Boys but that only reinforces my point. Moving on.
It's not all bad, folks. If you loved the action more than anything in Transformers, you'll be blown away here. Though occasionally hard to follow, the fight scenes are well choreographed and mesmerizing. The futile army reinforcements get redundant, and slow-motion transforming and running away from explosions are used in excess. But that's nitpicking. If there's any reason to see the film, it's for the action. You might get impatient just waiting for the next time a Decepticon and Autobot are in the same frame but if you can hold out for 5-10 minutes at a time, you'll be alright. There are about 6 huge set pieces here to satisfy you.
In any other movie I would say that's just way too much animated robot fighting. In Transformers 2, however, it's enough to match the lack in humanity.
The characters spend so much time shooting and running and yelling "Look out!" and spouting exposition that there's no time to care. Near the end, more characters are added to the climax to raise the tension and not to provide emotional depth. Deaths are not permanent, the drama is stale and truncated by over-the-top action and cleavage, and the stuffing of superficial personalities doesn't make a story more full. It makes it more lacking in emotion. When the world is at stake, aren't I expected to care about those little ants falling off of the aircraft carrier? Or the dots being stomped? Or the people who share the screen with the CGI? Where it lacks in cohesive and mindful storytelling, it matches in stunning visual effects work. Because I can't ignore one without the other, I'm giving this an even 5/10. For better or worse, you won't be able to take your eyes off of it.