Transformers 2 starts a year or so after the last one. Planet earth has undergone 6 more attacks from the Decepticons. They are on the search for an energy source to create new bots and Even Stevens is the man at the center of it all. The Decepticons MUST find him. Even Stevens, however, is on his way to Prestigious U to begin life as an adult and his mother is having trouble letting him go (as his dad is excited for him to life). Comedy - apparently - ensues as the theatre was laughing although I can't understand why. From there a bunch of shit happens that takes them to Egypt and Jordan to search for this mysterious piece named the Matrix of Leadership or some such thing. The crew, consisting of Megan Fox, some annoying university conspiracy nut, John Turturro, and Even Stevens are on a race against the evil Decepticons in an effort to save the the one person who can help the four save the planet.
Here's the thing. I can take the Michael Bay-isms; the plug and play script, the cliched characters, cringe inducing dialogue written by a 50 year old who has never met a teenager, an entire universe consisting of swimsuit models - heck, I liked Armageddon and The Rock...I'm not against Michael Bay in theory - but the thing that Michael Bay is known for is special effects and action and neither of those delivered. The action is incomprehensible and the CGI wasn't all that impressive. It looks like a really slick cartoon overlayed on a real world setting. The action is the real culprit, though, as it was impossible to follow and seeing as the robots look pretty much identical in their robot state, it's impossible to figure out what happens. Has Michael Bay even heard of an establishing shot? The best part of using CGI IS THAT THE ROBOTS KNOW HOW TO FIGHT. YOU DON'T NEED CLOSEUPS TO CHEAT THE AUDIENCE INTO BELIVING THE LEADS CAN FIGHT. The plot is also pretty tough to follow and the fact that they didn't develop any of the robots makes the plot hard to follow (and doesn't really help in identifying characters). I'm still not sure I really understood what happens. In the end, you really do need character development and in this movie there was none. Period. Worse than that, it's boring because the action is incomprehensible and because of the lack of deep characters, I didn't really give a shit what happened to them.
Oooooh boy, the Michael Bayisms were out in full force. You've got the low angled shots of people walking past, big sweeping establishing shots used to identify location (but disappear when you are working on a fight sequence), unbelivable shlock, a cringe inducing climactic dream sequence, plenty of shots of military vehicles with triumphant music, and if you are a slow motion fan, you'll love this movie.
Going to see this movie will do nothing but inspire people to pay Michael Bay to make more fucking movies. And when he makes movies, Roland Emmerich makes movies and Uwe Boll makes movies and Brett Ratner makes movies and nobody wants that. PLEASE don't see this movie. I completely regret having seen it. Go see Departures, or rent Hunger when it's available, or shit, go see Star Trek, that movie was pretty good but for the love of god DON'T SEE THIS. Worst movie of the year and earns all 5 pre-wrapped straws.
Oh, by the way, John Turturro wasn't too bad.
