A junky movie that takes itself too seriously

Rating: 5/10 (2 July 2009)

Those of you who have seen the cartoons but haven't seen the first movie might be surprised that the Transformers do not resemble the sleek, cool designs from the cartoons. Instead, the larger Transformers resemble rock monsters and the smaller ones resemble muppets. I found it hard to tell the difference between classic characters like Starscream and Megatron, as they both looked and acted like big, dumb, lumbering rock monsters.
The script of this movie seems to be the product of some decent writing and also a great deal of junky writing. The director Michael Bay seems to favor the junky writing, often rushing through a decent part of the script to make more time for a lame action scene and more over-acting.
What's really sad about this movie is it takes itself seriously. Shia's character appears to be honestly frightened as a Muppet-like transformer probes his mouth and nose. Later in the movie several rock monster-like Transformers make threats to human soldiers, and it's just totally unbelievable.
There are a couple of glimmers of hope in this movie. There is one scene where Optimus Prime meets Shia's character (Sam) in a graveyard and asks for his help. Sam honorably refuses to help, saying that he deserves to have a normal life. There's another scene where Optimus Prime takes on several Decepticons while wielding sword-like weapons. These are some very short scenes, not lasting longer than several minutes.
There's one funny scene in this movie that almost makes it worth the price of admission. It's a scene where Shia's character is attacked by a girl Transformer. Shia's character screams like a bitch as he runs away from her.
This movie also contains several scenes of dog-humping, and several racist Transformer designs.