Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009): Starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, Ramon Rodriguez
Michael Bay's idiotic "Transformers" is exhausting to sit through. Just as your senses are pounded by the deafening (and nonstop) explosions and blinding visuals, your intelligence is assaulted by the nonsensical plot and sitcom cliches that were ancient even before television was invented. I'm sure in the annals of history cavemen have written stories in which the hero is seduced by some evil temptress just as the girlfriend unexpectedly drops by for a visit and is thusly heartbroken by the seeming betrayal. Shia Labeouf may be my least favorite actor since Ashton Kutcher, and I dislike him for the same reasons. He's a bit of a dullard who thinks of himself as incredibly funny and witty. The scenes of him being "funny" are just incredibly painful. Megan Fox has all the personality of a barbie doll, and if the filmmakers had decided to fire her from the picture, they could have easily replaced her with a still photo, and the effect on the film would've been negligible. As for the stars of the film (the robots), they are virtually indistinguishable from one another. In fact, the only two I could pick out from the others were Bumblebee and Optimus Prime. The Decepticons were all pretty much identical. And while I'm on the subject of the robots' appearance, I have to confess I have a major problem with their design. It's very busy. Too busy in fact. There's so much detail to each robot that the whole thing becomes indistinct. And when two robots are fighting hand-to-hand, the effect is you're not really sure what you're looking at or what's going on onscreen. It's headache enducing, most of the time. Other scenes show Michael Bay's "Ed Wood"-like lunacy knows no bounds. At one point, the heroes rush to the Smithsonian and accidentally revive a robot who walks out the hangar doors and into the Washington D.C. desert(???). It's as if Bay forgot where his scene was taking place and changed locations in the middle of it (and no one in the entire production staff seemed to notice either). There are other scenes where logic breaks down completely and you're left marvelling at the universe of dunces populating Michael Bay's films. I'm speaking mainly of the ending, where the decepticons have unveiled a machine that will suck all the energy from the sun for use in creating "energon" (which is essential in the transformers' reproduction). A massive battle ensues, where the U.S. military throws everything it has at the decepticons, while simultaneously ignoring the machine (or the fact that destroying the machine would effectively end the purpose of the battle in the first place). At one point, the navy uses a powerful gun to blast a giant robot away from the machine, while carefully avoiding the machine altogether. But enought nit-picking. If I can say one thing about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, its that it's better than the first Transformers movie, but this is faint praise as I absolutely hated the first one. At least in this one, there's no slapstick involving cute dogs or nonsense about giant robots sneaking around in people's flower gardens.
2 out of 5