Made for kids

Rating: 4/10 (25 June 2009)

As soon as mudflap and skids showed themselves it was pretty obvious that this movie had one primary goal, hook a new generation of fans for the transformer franchise, and to that end I think it worked. This move will definitely drive toy sales, and I think that's exactly what was intended of it, however it will also disappoint a lot of first gen fans.
Soundwave looked like the MIR space station with a transformer head jammed onto it, and sounded like an emphysema patient. They could have done so much more with this fan favourite. I'm not entirely sure but I think he was quickly killed off in the final battle, seen from a distant wide-angle shot.
Deceptions would randomly come back to life or be in two places at once, but Autobots would stay dead to suit the patched together story line which was almost identical to the first movie. Instead of the all-spark buried under the hoover dam it's the sun-killing machine buried under a pyramid this time.
Starscream and Megaton (or is it agent Smith?) both had their voices changed, for the worse, and Devastator (must be a popular transformer name, like Smith for us) looked and sounded like a gorilla. For a $200 mil movie the sound effects were cheap and tacky - Soundwave and Devastators vocals can both be heard in the first Mortal Kombat Movie as Shao Kahn and Goro respectively. Cloverfield created entirely original and amazing sound effects with a fraction of the TF2, and even less than the MK movie budget which was 1/4 that of TF2.
Bumblebee was conveniently still having voice troubles which Fox's character shamelessly had to point out to the audience, despite the fact that it was apparently fixed before he spoke at the end of the first movie. Obviously Bumblebee talking through radio segments is more marketable, but doesn't do much for the movie's integrity. For an advanced alien robot soldier he was reduced to a sobbing weakling.
Starscream was also reduced to a sniveling little weasel (like the original cartoon only more so) but I actually preferred the new and improved Starscream from the first recent movie. Still Megatrons bitch but with a bit more dignity.
You could also see bits of Aeon Flux, The Matrix and even Star Wars thrown into this movie which made it even less inspiring to watch. And they paid these two guys 8 mil to rush this script out. An 8th grader could have done it for a six pack and a play boy magazine, and had the excuse of being an 8th grader.
To my huge surprise and disappointment I enjoyed both Star Trek and Terminator Salvation a lot more than this movie. It's a movie I think you would take your little brother or sister to see, but shouldn't expect much. I'd watch it again if I had nothing else to do, but won't go out of my way to see it again.