More enjoyable than the first one

Rating: 8/10 (27 September 2009)

I hated the first Transformers movie. The reason I hated it was because I had very high expectations for the movie. Being a fan of the cartoon series, I expected it to have a somewhat serious tone and a coherent story. The movie could have been so much better in the right hands. I couldn't understand at that time why anyone would enjoy this crappy excuse of a movie. The first movie also lowered my expectations for the sequel, and the all round bad reviews that the second movie got when it was released in theaters didn't help either.
And after watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on DVD, I am surprised to say that I enjoyed the movie a lot. The silly jokes somehow worked for me this time, and the nonsensical story actually made sense to me (at the time i was watching it). Now it's the opposite, I can't understand why people hate this movie so passionately. It's not the greatest movie of all time, but it's a summer action movie that delivers what it advertises.
If you are going to watch this movie at home, make sure you watch it in HD. One regret I had while watching the movie was not getting the Blu-ray version of it. The DVD version just isn't comparable to the Blu-ray version I saw a little of. This movie is made to be watched in HD. The action and and special effects are what I enjoyed most about the movie and it needs to be seen in all its HD glory to truly appreciate it.
They have toned down the use of the "shaky cam" technique compared to the first movie and as a result, the action was more discernible this time. You actually know who's fighting whom most of the time and which limb they are using to beat each other up. Plus, the use of slow motion for "cool" action set pieces helped too.
My advice for anybody that's going to watch Transformers 2 is to turn off your brain, get in mood to see lots of explosions and huge robots fighting each other with some juvenile jokes sprinkled in between. You'll be rewarded with two and a half hours of pure unadulterated fun.