Good if you are a fan of mindless explosions, otherwise ...

Rating: 4/10 (24 June 2009)

OK first of all yes I know its supposed to be a summer blockbuster action film and yes I know its not meant to be considered a serious film, but come on there's only so many explosions and fighting robots I can take before I get board
Lets put the fan-cruft aside for a minute and I'll focus on the film as if it were intended for a general audience, First off keep in mind that this is a sequel so if you haven't seen the first film yet I suggest you go watch that first, speaking of which the first film was fantastic, so well paced great action scenes and great character development that'll make you love some of the characters in the film,
Lets start with the biggest problem of the film's storyline, and thats the balance between being serious and silly, the film has a few serious characters in it but they are way too overshadowed by characters that are in there just for comic relief, it's fine to just have one or two in there problem is this film goes for about 5 and most of them are the main characters. There's a few military scenes that take themselves seriously but the problem here is that you don't know if this film really is taking itself seriously with an over saturation of comedic relief.
The introduction for some of the new characters most notably Skids and Mudflap are rather painful to watch at times, whilst they have their moments their personality seems way too troublemaker stereotypical. The Fallen who is portrayed as the big baddie over Megatron (of all things) in this film has very little to no character development and barely any screen time.
The Deceptacons especially the ones that were given no name are problematic because I feel like most of their basic designs were recycled with some of the characters, their biggest problem is the fact that most of them have the same paint job especially Megatron and Starscream, at times it can be difficult to tell them apart especially during the climatic battles. This is quite a problem cause there are times where you think a certain Deceptacon has been killed only to realize that it was a no named one.
Now onto the Fancruft stuff
First of all the fact that Megatron is a servant for a bigger bad is a kick in the nuts, its well known in the Transformers universe that Megatron is loyal to no one but himself. It also sucks that most of the new Autobots got little to no screen time or lines for that matter, you'd have to actually be a fan to know who some of these characters are and what they can do but for non fans ... Oh and remember the classic transformation sound and the tie in of "More than meets the eye" from the first film? yeah no real fan throwbacks here during this 2 1/2 hour long film
Bottom line see the film you you are both a transformers fan AND an action movie fan. If you're not both I'd suggest giving this one a miss or at least wait till the DVD comes out.