Okay, so I'm not really sure where I should start on this one. I guess I should start by saying that I really enjoyed the first one. I thought it was a lot of fun, it had action and humor and romance, and there was only one plot hole that bugs me ("we need to hide the Cube! Bring it to the city!").
So, that being said, the first one is exponentially better than the second one. I guess we can only expect so much since the screenplay was written before the writer's strike, but they also didn't clean it up or fix things that needed to be fixed. And, because of that, the movie felt rushed and unprepared with as a many gaping plotholes as swiss cheese. But it's the combnation of the rushed storyline, the gaping plotholes, the cheesy dialogue, the racist robots, and the photography that make this film far below sub-par.
So I'm a relative Michael Bay film. And when I say that, I mean to say that I like to see s**t get blown up, and Michael Bay provides this service. Never have I really expected any big, mindbending story coming out of him (think Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Rock). Just simple, dumb stories where lots of explosions happen and lots of people die. Fun times. But I at least assumed that Bay LOOKED at the screenplays before starting to film his movies, but the new Trasnformers movie proved me wrong.
One of the biggest problems I have with the movie is the random jump cuts. And to those who don't understand, let me explain. In one scene, we have the main characters searching for a lost key, and they're entering a tomb (during the day) where they think it might be hidden. In the next shot, Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox are on top of a scaffold (at night), cuddling. Now, was it too hard to have 10 seconds where one of the characters could say, "Okay, let's bunker down for the night"? Setting up an establishing shot is one of the most important shots of a film, and Michael Bay is completely skipping (numerous times) in order to get to the action faster. And this happens all over the place. In another part, Megatron is holding down Shia's character (Sam), and then the Autobots burst in. The next shot is of Shia, but he's standing up, WITH MEGATRON GONE. Megatron just apparently vanished. What Bay is forgetting is that we can't see everything that's going on, which is why his camera needs to provide the windows for the action. However, we don't see Megatron leave shia, we just see him fighting Optimus Prime, but we don't know how he got there.
Okay, so I kinda got use to all that stuff, although it was pretty easy to make fun of. As for the gaping plotholes, there are just too many things missing in the story to think the film is anywhere near realistic. When Shia reaches college, there's a hot girl who starts hitting on him, and eventually turns into a Decepticon (SPOILER!!!). Yeah, whatever. So, my questions are these: how did she find Shia? Is she even a Decepticon (I assume she is, but you never find out). And, finally, since when could Transformers transform into effing humans? I'm sorry Michael, but you should've gone through this to make sure that it made sense. Becuase it really doesn't. I could go on for awhile about the plotholes, but it's easier just to stop here.
The dialogue is cheesy, but we all could've expected that. After all, we're here for the explosions and destruction, not the dialogue. As for the characters themselves, they all pretty much work. Shia actually does a pretty good job in the leading role. He just needs an action movie where he actually fights the enemy rather than running away. Maybe then I'll actually consider him the action star that Hollywood is so set on making him. As for Megan Fox. Well, she does a decent enough job. But her character is so damn annoying, spending the entire movie whining because her boyfriend won't tell her he loves her. Sorry, b***h, but he's being chased by killer alien robots. Get off his back for a few hours. How about a bj? Sooth the nerves? No? Well, then shut up.
As for robot characters, there's a slightly offensive humorous side to the movie that really isn't expected. That comes in the form of the two ghetto robots and the giant Destructicon that pops up at the end. The two ghetto robots fulfill every possible black stereotype aside from fried chicken. One has a gold tooth, they talk with a ghetto accent, they can't read, etc. I even thought for a moment one of them had a doo rag (sp). As for the Destructicon, he's made up of entirely construction vehicles, and yes, he in fact has two wrecking balls as his testicles. That you get a very vivid shot of. It's quite obvious. And I'd expect it from Family Guy. But, the first Transformers movie is pretty much all about the story (it just has very little, which is why it was easy). The humor in the first movie flows very nicely, but they never resort to semi-offensive or blatantly and unnecessarily sexual. The new one does. And it takes away from the film (as much as it can).
Okay, so I've sort of laid out the groundplan for what's wrong with the movie (and all of this continues for the 2 and half hours that it is). Constant questioning of "how?" or "why?" coupled with unrealistic story. You really need to shut off your brain and avoid all logic or realism to even try to enjoy the movie. Assuming you can. But the biggest thing that's wrong with the movie, and what ended up bringing it downhill in the end, is the rushed writing. Had Michael taken the time to look at the script before filming, it may have turned out pretty good. Maybe they would have changed the story, or the dialogue, or both. But the film was just too rushed that it seemed unfinished and unprepared, and ultimately didn't feel like a full movie.
Now, the Transformers movies are supposed to create a trilogy, so we can only hope that the third one is better than the second (cross your fingers, knock on wood, etc.)
SCORE: 3.5/10
PS The robots are cool.
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