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Unlike Keith, I feel I can accurately place a review of this movie while only seeing it once.  If you want explosions and giant fighting robots fighting, this movie is for you.  Well, unless you don’t care about a storyline or any characters you care about except for two autobots. 

I thought there were a few positive points about the movie.  It was not lacking in great CGI and the robots actually look like they are forms of their vehicles.  In the original cartoon, they very rarely looked like they could turn into their vehicle mode.  As much as I loved the old cartoon, decepticons like Megatron and Soudwave never really made sense.  You had two large robots that transformed into, get this, a hand gun and a boom box. 

I did enjoy the two autobot characters Optimus Prime and Bumblebee.  Now you come away from the film caring more for those two then any human in the movie.  I could have cared less if the Decepticons wiped out Sam and his family but I was more concerned with if Bumblebee survived.  As far as the Decepticons, I enjoyed the relationship between Starscream and Megatron.  I also liked the fact that Michael Bay had them interacting, even for a brief minute.  This follows along with the storyline and it would be nice to see a story where a defeated Megatron is overthrown by Starscream (kind of like the Animated movie).  It was also nice to hear the original voices from the cartoon used for both Optimus and Soundwave.

Ok, here we go.  This movie sucked.  I wanted to like it but had a hard time sitting through it.  First, it is way too long.  They spend the first hour having Sam and his parents do stand-up.  Just when you couldn’t think it could get worse, Sam’s mother happens to purchase pot brownies and freak out.  Now I went to college and I never remember students having bake sales for parents to buy items like this.  This leads me to my next problem, this movie had some really questionable language and sexual overtones to it.  One thing I liked about the original movie was the fact that they didn’t feel they had to recreate Eddie Murphy’s Raw.  This one had some pretty filthy comments and none of it was needed.  I don’t know why these higher life forms would resort to calling humans names like they did. 

I can also see a racial  issue being brought up.  There were a set of twins who fought all the time, had gold teeth, made dirty ganster comments, and had Flava Flav accents.  I was offended by these two and can definitely understand why  African-Americans would be offended.  These two were stupid, rude, aggressive and even though Michael Bay has said he just let the actors voice them as they wanted, he should have picked up on this real issue. 

Now for the storyline, or lack thereof.  I think that this was too big for one movie.  I don’t think they should have gone to this supreme being just yet and this movie should have been something a little less intense, like bringing Megatron back to life, overthrowing Starscream, introducing Devestator, etc…  Michael Bay has said he couldn’t see how the Dinobots could fit into a movie…seriously?  Is he really being serious?  While robots are there for no good reason, he shouldn’t worry about how they fit.  If this lifeform had been here since the beginning of time, wouldn’t the Dinobots fit in back then and could be recreated to defeat the Fallen?  Just my opinion on the topic.  I do understand the basic premise of the story but it was just too much and it seemed like he wrote it as he went along.  Maybe Bay should create a storyboard first so he can have an idea of where this is going first. 

The actors were, well, the same as the first one.  Megan Fox, while looking good, didn’t add to the movie.  It seems like she spent two and a half hours trying to convince her boyfriend of telling her he loves her.  They almost die, she mentions this.  The world almost ends, she brings it up.  Is she that self-conscious?  Sam’s parents were nonexistant and didn’t even need to be in it.

Ok, let me sum this up.  Great CGI, nice to see some of the G-1 Transformers brought to the big screen.  If you want a movie where you don’t care about the storyline or characters, this is definitely a movie to see.  It would also be neat to see at a I-Max theater but don’t go in expecting much or you will be disappointed.  I expect Craig to be a middle ground between Keith and I.