Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

RATING: C-

When you go to watch a movie about robots that can transform into cars, you go to watch that movie  pretty much just to watch the robots fight each other, right? Just verifying as I get underway with this one. Because both Michael Bay and some of the audience don't seem to entirely get this. 

The Transformers series continues as the Autobots are still working on cleaning up some of the remaining Decepticons on Planet Earth with Megatron dead, but turns out his master is still alive--The Fallen. (If he ever had a different name, we never hear it.) And he's ready to begin his conquest to exact his "revenge" upon Earth; which includes resurrecting Megatron. So now the Autobots and Decepticons are going to war again, and Sam Witwicky gets dragged into things again when he looks into a shard of the All Spark, which transmits a bunch of symbols into his mind--which supposedly lead to an Energon source. Or something. 

If you didn't care much for the first one, you're going to have a difficult time with this one. Following a pretty awesome opening sequence in Shanghai, the movie's next 45 minutes are spent around stupidity regarding the humans, a Decepticon that can turn into a human, and boring college stuff, and more horrible attempts at comedy that feel out of place in a movie about robots fighting each other. In other words, it's more of the same of what you saw in the first movie... only put some emphasis on the word "more." 

Unfortunately, the plot (which was just okay in the last movie) takes a bit of a dive in this one. There are bits and pieces of a decent story here and there, but there are quite a few inconsistencies. Namely, this legendary key that can supposedly only be used by someone who's earned it--and then the villain proceeds to use it right away.

There's some issues also regarding the usage of the robots. Of course, there's a pretty long stretch where we don't see much of them early on in the movie same as the first one. The good news is, Megatron gets a lot more screen time than the first one. The bad news is, Optimus Prime doesn't. The good news is, Soundwave is finally brought in. The bad news, The Fallen doesn't really do much despite being a pretty formidable villain until the very end--and then is killed in three minutes in a pretty awesome but incredibly rushed final fight. And of course, now there's a LOT more robots on both sides and it's getting more difficult than before to tell who's who. Not to mention the fact that a few robot characters just disappear completely without explanation and are never seen again. 

So what is there to enjoy about this film exactly? Well, watching the robots fighting each other or just wreaking havoc in general is pretty great as before. There are some genuinely awesome fights and visuals. Although most of the cast isn't that good (*cough* Megan Fox), Shia LeBeouf fares better in the second movie as an actor, and John Turturro is actually more funny for most of this one. Oh yeah, and Steve Jablonsky writes a fantastic soundtrack. 

So really, what much of this comes down to (again) is if you enjoy watching robots fight each other and if you enjoy the Transformers to begin with. If you don't, this will probably be a dumpster fire of the highest order, due in part to the sloppiness of the story and the idiocy of the script. If you do, you still won't find this to be a classic by any means, but you might want to check it out if this kind of thing is up your alley. Otherwise, you probably shouldn't bother.