I seem to recall taking Transformers into sand was a bad idea...

Rating: 2/10 (27 June 2009)

What an appalling piece of tripe.
Michael Bay is a hack. If there is any justice in the world, he will one day be kidnapped by people with actual talent. They will force him to watch his movies over and over in a Clockwork Orange chair until they break the soul he clearly doesn't have.
As someone who loves movies of all genres, Transformers 2 offends me on a deep personal level. Michael Bay's latest opus is a testament to the dark, greedy, soulless side of the movies. Anything for a buck, lowest common denominator, pandering to the base nature of humanity, crap.
That bad? Oh yes. And its insidious. There were 2 things in this movie that were better than the first one. The transformers transformed more slowly so you could actually see it happen... well, you would be able to if it didn't also look like the movie was edited in a wood chipper. The Transformers also had more personality, which was an improvement over last movie where the only way to tell which giant robot was Optimus was to look for the Mac Truck.
However, there is a dark side to these new personality-filled robots. The appearance of Amos and Andy in robot form was awful. Nothing like 2 buck-toothed, illiterate, bumbling, stereotypes to affirm that Michael Bay is either completely racist or completely naive. His comment that, "they're robots," is moronic. And Jar Jar is just an alien.
There was so much action it was sort of like an assault which got increasingly tiring. Yeah, the special effects were pretty and the explosions were loud, but 2 hours and 40 minutes of straight Michael Bay action was incredibly boring. Part of that is his style. The aforementioned wood chipper editing does not help anything. You can barely see whats going on. Despite the loudness, I fell asleep. Twice. In a theatre seat. I've never been that bored in a movie in my life. And it was 2 hours and 40 friggin minutes long! Indulgent and vapid. There was not enough movie to justify it being that long.
The problem is the movie is all surface. There is an overly complicated plot, which really doesn't need to be there at all. Why explain giant killer robots in such depth? To appease the fan boys? I doubt that'll happen. They're already angry. And the plot is not engrossing. The characters are irritating. All the humor is fart and testicle jokes. The dialog... I'm actually in the process of repressing it, but robots + declarative = bad news bears. Out of self defense Michael Bay has to rely on fiery explosives and robots hitting each other with trees. He is incapable of every part of making a movie that is not special effects.
There was a love story, which mostly involved Megan Fox bending over and pouting and then her face spiraling around near the end in a completely mystifying moment. Of course, to show how epic the love was, Bay decides to spiral around our couple in 360 camera shots that directors don't generally use. They don't use them because they are disorienting for the audience and considered amateurish. So after 5 straight minutes of rotating cameras I was ready to vomit, and it wasn't entirely the revolting meditations on saying I wuv oo first from Shia and Fox.
You know, I can't actually do this movie justice. It was that bad. It was everything I hate in a movie. Everything. I think I died a little inside last night.
And Michael Bay? Please do not rape anymore of my childhood memories. I can't take it. You should be ashamed of yourself.