Someone needs a geography lesson!!

Rating: 6/10 (21 June 2009)

I've voted a 6, which is perhaps a little low - maybe 6.5 - 6.8, but for me this was a little disappointing. What I really liked about the first one was that it was serious, with non- forced humour. This one for me was less serious, with terribly forced humour - it's the difference between Star Wars a New Hope & the Phantom Menace. In fact the difference didn't stop there, as just as Lucas put in the awful Jar Jar Binks, Bay/Spel put in two similar silly autobots - the names of which escape me. And to be honest, on reflection, that was another issue - whilst watching the movie I had no idea which robot was which. In the fight scenes it was difficult to tell them apart, it all looked quite scrappy - unlike the first one, where each robot seemed more individual.
Now to my main bug bear - and yes I know it's just a movie.... However, the pyramids, the red sea & Petra are no where near each other!!! It would take days to walk from the Pyramids to the red sea, and even longer to walk to Petra - I know, I've been to all of them!!! In addition Sam seemed at one point to be running through Karnak temple??? Luxor is even further!!! Things like this just don't make the movie seem credible & it's sad to think that kids are now going to believe all these things are in the wrong place. I certainly get the feeling that Americans (and I am very pro American btw), do feel that if it's not in the USA, then it doesn't really matter about the accents/locations - I mean for them if it's in the same continent then thats enough - however I think if someone came out with a movie that had the star running from the Empire State Building to the Sears Tower, then they'd think that was very silly and unbelievable - and they'd be right!!!
Overall I did enjoy it - but no where near as much as I did the first one, and part of me senses a Batman-esquire similarity, where we started with a couple of great dark moody Gothic Batman movies, but then descended in to comic-book tripe (Batman & Robin.... yuk...!!) - before it was rescued by Christian Bales latest excellent movies.
Please don't let this happen to Transformers... Make it more serious, non-forced humour - no stupid/camp autobots - and I think one slow-motion shot of Sam running is perhaps enough for one movie.....