Wonderful pixels and inane writing

Rating: 7/10 (4 July 2009)

When I read some of the newspaper reviews abut this movie being coarse and juvenile, I didn't care very much. And I was going IMAX so it would rock. Well, they were right. I didn't want to believe it was written for and by 12 year-olds. I cringed often. And it was still good. During the fights I got chills. They have upgraded the visuals and the Blu-Ray should be incredible.
They really made this movie dumber than it needed to be. I almost feel like I have to ADMIT to liking it as a whole, signifying shame.
Overall it is a drunken movie. Sensory candy, utter sweetness and brain rot.
In theory they should construct a cohesive plot to answer questions. After this attempt I wish they would just leave unanswered questions. A three minute scene attempting to verbally spell out the entire plot is banal and adds nothing.
My main objections are as follows. One, many of the elements are unnecessary and just made me long for the next explosion. A lot of it is tediously repeated from the first movie, such as the parents and air strikes. The twins are racial stereotypes but more vulgar than many, adding nothing but annoyance.
Oh and our armed forces "gently" disregard civilian leadership in an emergency situation, which was comforting. Who needs the president and NSA when we have the ubiquitous solution of BRINGING THE RAIN!
And this is nothing new but time continues to be disregarded transport from California, the East coast, Diego Garcia, and Egypt flows to about a brief intermission from any one to the other.
At times it feels like an over-sized, overdrawn advertisement for two of the most bloated government-supported organizations: the military and General Motors. Deleted scenes will surely have Bumblebee leading a feel-good "This is ooooour country!" moment while saluting the flag. This is not a huge departure from the first movie but it is gratuitous. Speaking of... Megan Fox basically is a video vixen in this spectacle. Female roles are terrible, we even lack the young techie.
The new Big Bad Villain, in an apparent nod to General Grievous, entered one battle for about 5 minutes and died. The new Super-Sized Decepticon was destroyed by a convenient Super-Size gun in range of Egypt. Oh and the Decepticons are apparently powerless against tanks and aircraft. Or humans on foot if they're main characters. Even hill peoples have Soviet flak cannons and RPGs. And everything was made secret after the melee in L.A.... right.
I still can't give it a poor score.
Basically it's a ridiculous $200M shark with LAZERS!!! And some plot attached as a lamprey, straining to complete a story arc. They really could have done a better job with what they wrote down but the pixels are breathtaking. It's like a thrill ride with long boring waits, or a video game with long boring cutscenes. Waiting for BD.
I have renewed respect for Beast Wars and Beast Machines writers, and I wish they had the same technology and money.