I want my money back!

Rating: 1/10 (13 August 2009)

If I were in a certain target audience, say, 10-12 years old with ADD, "Transformers 2" would be a great movie. It has everything: Explosions! Robots fighting robots (and they're robots in disguise)! Cool cars! Hot chicks! Numerous jokes about testicles!
Unfortunately, I'm not in this demographic and found "Transformers 2" to be probably the worst movie I've seen in years. From horrible, clichéd writing to confusing special effects to incessant explosions, this movie was 2 ½ hours of noise, blunder and bluster.
I enjoyed the first movie, mostly due to the charisma of Shia Lebouf, as Sam Witwicky, and the over-the- top-performance of John Turturro as Agent Simmons. In addition, Megan Fox was exactly as her surname implies and the action was impressive, although a bit hard to follow. Michael Bay and the script writers clearly believe that more is better and throw so much at the audience in the sequel that the only outcome is vomit-inducing nausea, confusion and unintentional hilarity.
The story bounces around constantly and throws in pointless snippets, such as when Mrs. Witwicky eats marijuana-laced brownies while visiting Sam (Shia Lebouf) at college. This serves no purpose whatsoever other than for cheap, juvenile laughs. Another glaring example is when Sam escapes the clutches of a cute, anorexic freshman who turns out to be a Decepticon. After Sam eludes her once, she completely drops out of the story. If the evil robots could appear as humans, wouldn't they have taken over the world by now?
Taking a cue from George Lucas and Jar Jar Binks, this movie introduces several new, highly irritating and completely extraneous characters, such as Sam's roommate Leo Spitz or new Transfomers, "The Twins." The latter are stereotypes of the worst kind and are clearly based on an icon of self-parody, Flavor Flav. I'm just surprised they weren't called Step and Fetch It!
Probably the main reason I hated this film though is due to its cost. With a budget higher than what the state of Wyoming spends in a fiscal year, this movie attempts to make up for logic and smarts with juvenile humor, special effects and military hardware. I guess if you can't convince them with intelligence, confuse them with BS!
Finally, does anyone else think the character of General Morshower (ironically played by Glenn Morshower) looks like comedian Jim Gaffigan? I couldn't stop giggling every time the General appeared on-screen. How apropos for this movie.