Bigger, Louder, But Not Better

Rating: 5/10 (28 June 2009)

So the film goes like this. Sam decides to put on his old shirt from the first film, when he takes it out, a piece of the cube falls out. He picks it up and it imprints a bunch of alien text into his brain. Anyways, bad robots are after this information, good robots must protect him, people run in slow motion, Megan Fox looks hot, someone wants to destroy the sun, they require help from robots so old they use walking canes and then Boom. Something explodes. This is Transformers in a nutshell. The film is so confused on what it's intentions are that it has to literally have one character ask the plot of the film from another. This actually happens.
A sequel to Transformers has to be bigger and louder, or else what would the point be right? Michael Bay seems to be an advocate of "We Can Fix It In Post" or "We'll Throw Some CGI At It". This is never a good sign and this film is a prime example. For starters, the film is too long. It has unnecessary scenes that do nothing for the film. Seeing Sam's mother on drugs for comedic relief is not funny, it's rather eye rolling. This is screen time that could have been giving to develop a bit more of a story, or been axed all together and shave of 20 minutes of failed comedy.
You simply cannot rely on Giant Robots Fighting as a draw for the audience. You need to give them substance, something this film lacks. For one, the main villain from the first one, good old Megatron, takes orders from some dude on a random planet. This guy is the "Fallen" and he returns to earth to destroy the sun, blah, blah, blah he has very little screen time. We don't feel the threat. Speaking of very little screen time, let's look at the main stars of this piece. No, not LaBeouf or Fox, the Autobots. The main reason this movie will make money is because of them and they get shafted hard here. Aside from Prime and Bumblebee, every other Autobot is basically background filler. With one key scene in the beginning, then nothing else. Why alienate the fan base that warranted a sequel in the first place. Oh wait, I forgot, they do focus on some Transformers. They are called the twins, speak jive, can't read and one has a gold tooth.
The entire film feels like Bay is just trying to out due himself. I can picture him on the set thinking how to make things seem bigger and more hectic, without giving a damn about the script. A script that is full of pages that read character jumps from explosion here, character runs from explosion there, character screams. But hey, what did I expect from a Bay flick right? Well, he did do The Rock and the first Transformers was really good. The final battle scene in that flick had more going for it, here I couldn't give a damn.
Megan Fox, sure she is hot, but can she act? Not if we are going on this performance. Her orange skin was distracting in the first flick, this time it's her big Jolie lips. Labeouf? His role consists of the aforementioned running and screaming. I didn't know who was who, a problem from the first film. The robots, now I consider myself to have basic knowledge of the Transformers universe. but I couldn't tell what was what unless they were specifically mentioned, like Starscream or Soundwave. I finally figured if I see a robot, it has to be an evil one because that's all they seemed to be focusing on. Where was Barricade? The cop car that mysteriously disappears from the first film before the climactic battle. I thought they would bring him back here and mention that, but nothing. Instead we get a 5 second cameo from Scorponok, the one who tunnels underground, before he gets lights out. There is a new character, who basically plays the role Anthony Anderson played in the first one, a tech geek. His only purpose is to re-introduce Turturro.
I wanted more from this film. We all know going into a Bay film we will get this, has he given up on giving us anything more? Has it been dumbed down to us guessing just how many explosions he will use in his films now? Too many, for this one. Giant robots fighting each other is cool, but we've seen it once. Is the only thing you're going to offer us is the same thing in a different setting? Change the city to a forest and some pyramids and it's all good?
In defense of the flick, the special effects are top notch, they are epic. They look great up on the big screen and that's where you should see this flick, if you have any interest at all. The big screen and loud sound was made for this flick. The fight sequences are interesting, even if the last one drags on too long. The idea behind the this film is good, the whole history and origins of the Transformers, but instead of diving deeper into that, they wanted to blow stuff up.
Too many characters (did we really need a robot chick who looked like she belonged in Terminator 3), too many robots (and the ones we actually care about are left for background filter), and an overblown and overly long film. This film could have been 20 minutes shorter. Transformers feels hollow inside. The first film had heart, this one is just dread.
It will please the target audience of teenage boys who want to see things blow up or Megan Fox run in slow motion. But for everyone else, it's just another summer blockbuster that is louder then the original