At least I can say I saw it

Rating: 3/10 (6 February 2010)

Wow, what a difference 2 years can make in a franchise. The original Transformers, while not a great example of filmaking, was at least fun. Dumb and vacant, yes, but fun. Can't say the same thing about this one. I never thought I'd call a Michael Bay action pic boring, but this movie proved me wrong, and I'm not sure why. All the requisite "Bay-isms" are there: big explosions, the fetish for military hardware, dizzying whirl-a-cam, second long shots that leave you with no sense of space, mostly naked chicks, loud thundering soundtrack, and generic music score. It should work, hell, it's worked for most of his other movies. For some reason, all of the elements fail this time around. None of the action is even remotely exciting, despite the blaring bass and immersive surround sound. In the middle of the final battle, I was reading texts on my phone instead of watching the carnage, since after 25 minutes of constant booms and bangs I just didn't care anymore.
While Bay's films have rarely had 'great' scripts, also rarely has one failed on this many levels. Showing all the hallmarks of something rushed out the door, the script used to film this movie is horribly disjointed. Contrary to others I was able to figure out the 'plot' fairly well, but that doesn't mean that I liked what was going on. Each transformer comes either personality free or saddled with a juvenile ghetto stereotype (complete with a gold tooth and illiteracy, in some cases). So many outrageous coincidences happen to propel this movie forward, from the 'other primes' to the instant resurrection of Megatron, to the convenient 'death' and instant resurrection of Optimus, to the 'transformer transporter', to the 'robot gods', I could go on and on. Point is even by summer popcorn standards, this script is horrible and makes the ridiculous script from the first movie read like something from the Nolan brothers.
Still, that shouldn't be a deterrence, since Bay has always been about devastation, explosions, and groundbreaking special effects. The explosions, on their own grounds, are pretty, and the destruction is technically adept. Surprisingly, I found the CGI to be a step down from the first movie. While most of the models appear to be the same, the rendering of the robots appears much more 'fake' this time around. Rarely do they take on a physical presence in the shot, and the physics violating animation of the first movie is taken to such a Loony Tunes extreme here that I never bought into what I was seeing. It's been a long time since I've seen CGI sand look as fake as it does when Devastator kicks on his vacuum.
Still, despite all this I didn't hate the movie. I'm actually very ambivalent about it. I'm genuinely puzzled how it made so much money. I'm also more and more convinced that Michael Bay is turning into a modern equivalent of Ed Wood. He clearly loves the process of making films, and seems to genuinely enjoy setting up big explosions and playing with real tanks. He seems to care less and less about the end product as the years go on though, as if everything that doesn't go BANG isn't worth his time. Given how much cash this movie hauled in, I don't see that getting any better.
Oh, I forgot to mention the actors. There are a few of them in the picture, and they run around and scream a lot. Then they get out of the way so another CGI cartoon can bound through the scene, cause a few over-sized explosions, and get shot at by tanks.