Special-effects heavy summer popcorn flick

Rating: 7/10 (24 June 2009)

What constitutes a summer popcorn flick? Three things: sex, explosions (and special effects), and comedy. Transformers 2 contains all three in abundance.
First, the sex. Meghan Fox: a rather good actress who seems to always be typecast as the "Hot chick", along with, in this sequel, a second hot chick who vies for the attention of Sam.
Second: explosions. To be expected of a Michael Bay film, explosions and special effects seem to take a main role in the film, not the action and the story. The only recent big budget action film I can recall that didn't rely on special effects was J.J. Abram's Star Trek, in which the special effects complimented the film and story.
Third: comedy. Any good serious story must have comic relief to help the audience take a breather from all the drama unfolding. However, in Transformers, the comedy seems almost out of place at times, detracting from the emotional impact of the main story.
In conclusion, Transformers 2 is worth the ten dollar ticket, and was able to keep my attention for the two and a half hour run time, which passed by just fast enough so that I wasn't looking at my watch wondering when it was going to be over.
7 out of 10