Do not read before seeing movie!

Rating: 6/10 (20 June 2009)

The ideas in this film for the introduction and use of new characters are fantastic! Soundwave, Ravage, Constructicons, Devastator - wonderful additions and the shape and form of these are superb.
The twins on the Auto-bot side are good comedy characters also and along with Sideswipe,and the characters we got to know 1st time round, work brilliantly.
The problem with this movie is that the human characters are totally wasted in the script - both the military group N.E.S.T and Sam etc. The reason for this is that this film does too much - the material here could round out the trilogy! This film should have been about recovering Megatron from the depths of the ocean along with the other casualties from the first film. The Decepticons regrouping under Starscream off-world, Introducing the FALLEN as the supreme being on the Decepticon side and the Decepticons undermining the Auto-bots and manoeuvrings to subvert the humans through the guidance of Soundwave in his inspired new form as a Satellite, was so pleased with this. The assault on the human base by Ravage co-ordinated by Soundwave should have been the set piece of the movie - all the espionage agents from Soundwave's arsenal should have been involved i.e. Frenzy, Rampage, Ravage, Nightstalker, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw and Ratbat. When Ravage opened up with his mini-guns and missiles I thought it was smart - imagine that x2 with air support and Fenzy/Rampage doing a fighting retreat with the item recovered - epic!
I always liked Jetfire as a character - Decepticon turned Autobot - a formidable fighter and at some points a little ambiguous. In this film it was good up until he transformed and acted like an old man - rubbish.
This movie should have been literally 'revenge of the fallen' and ended with the Decpticons winning the Fallen returned, Megatron reanimated and Optimus Prime slain in an epic battle with Starscream, Megatron AND the Fallen. The 3rd movie in the series should have been the battle in the Egyptian/Jordanian desert with devastator coming to the fore, the matrix, the return of Optimus Prime and the plot of the fallen coming out and then being defeated. Now these movies would have smashed the box office for all time! The Fallen in ancient times should have originally been defeated by the Dinobots - now that would have been epic and a proper use of such great characters - the SAS of the auto-bots - it would have fit the time-line and worked awesome.
Just my ideas, movie is 6 out of 10, I rate the first movie an 8 because I thought it was just brilliant and kept it simple and introduced us to fantastic characters. This one loses marks by ruining plot ideas and characters but still looks brilliant and definitely entertains.
Small point how can the Constructicons be involved in the assault on the humans when theoretically they are all formed up as devastator at the time? Motormaster, Mixmaster and at least 2 others are seen whilst devastator is doing his thing!?
Mr Bay you make great looking films and you get the look right every time but in terms of telling a story and using characters and developing plot - you still suck!
If Orci and Kurtzman had not been out of action with the writers strike this film would have been way better put together. How did the 'Comedy' transformers get past the hardcore at hasbro - were they drugged and tied up that day?