Sorry Mr. Bay, you've let us down...

Rating: 3/10 (19 June 2009)

The first Transformers movie, despite its few problems, managed to do what everyone wanted it to do... Entertain! The original transformers, comics or TV show, very rarely ventured into a great story or even exceptional originality. But what made it work was its simplicity and entertainment value. Two opposing sides of an alien race that can each transform into various vehicles (or weapons, in the case of Megatron) and battle it out over planet earth, whether they were fighting for the Autobot matrix or energon the concept was the same. And, one of the best things about the impact of the original movie was how Optimus Prime ended it with 'a lot like us humans are more than meets the eye', which gives the film and gave the cartoon depth.
Much like the cartoon, the first film took that concept and introduced these Transformers (both Autobots and Deceptacons) as their own characters and gave them a bit of space to develop. The story was the simplest and correct one, both sides wanted the allspark and a young human is caught in the middle. Let the action do the rest...
This time, the Autobots and the military have joined forces to make a special unit to hunt and destroy the Deceptacons on earth. Optimus Prime informs the military chiefs that he believes the Deceptacons are looking for something, which is why they are still on Earth. Meanwhile, Sam is about to depart for college and discovers that he has a small shard of the allspark. Once the Deceptacons discover this and the location of Megatron they set about retrieving the shard and the secret it held which was accidentally unlocked by Sam.
So, the plot is basically the same as the original, the young boy has the key to total destruction of earth and the only ones in the way of the Deceptacons and him are the Autobots.
This is not a problem! The problem is the rest of the story, which i got lost in quite prominently, i didn't know who i was meant to be following or why and even when i was sure the whole scene seemed to move to a completely new area without any acknowledgement of it.
The development of the overall story needs to be kept in check, in this case the story lies with its human stars who don't have enough of a formal interaction with the Transformers to develop. Also, the new Autobots and Deceptacons come in from nowhere and we are supposed to know which side they are on. The thing is we want to know about these transformers, we enjoyed learning about them in the first one it just didn't happen enough, here it doesn't happen at all and it is a huge problem. The fans of the Transformers will know who's who but for a basic audience they have no idea who or what is going on. The new Autobots are never introduced, they are simply there, we don't even know what there names are by the end of the film. I know of Arcee, who was a rather popular member after her debut in the Transformers animated movie, and the twins, who actually manage to get some screen time to themselves, but we want to know a bit more of them.
As for the Deceptacons, its more or less the same thing. We are subtly introduced to the Deceptacon Hound, which is actually quite nice, but its first scene leads to nowhere and leaves a huge loose end in the story. The character of The Fallen is the only real introduction we get, which at least is one of the tings that works in this film. The resurrection of Megatron kinda speaks for itself and does work.
It goes without saying that the special effects are amazing! If there is any reason that people should see this film it is the scope of the action and how well the special effects make it happen. The action itself is too simple, which i was so surprised at considering its a Michael Bay film. Nothing really happens for long enough, the best action scene is a very nicely filmed battle in a forest which is easily the most exciting part of the film. The rest is not looked at closely enough and contains too much fast cut editing between military commanders giving orders and not what we paid to see... Autobots vs Deceptacons! The film is supposed to be about the Transformers, not the humans who are stood in between (or around) the Transformers. The humans take up too much screen time and don't let the robots have any.
The film is much darker and more focused on the evil force of the Deceptacons, not in the best way however. The action scenes are more intense, i will give it that, but when it meets with an unbalanced story to action ratio the problems start to arise. The very little story thats there is attempted to be thickened when its not necessary, if it was kept simple and all the loose ends were tied we would have had much more fun from this film, but as it is we don't get anything that is worth the hype.
Better luck with the next one Mr. Bay...