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Derek Malcolm's rating
Who cares who wins the Transformers war?
By
Derek Malcolm
19 Jun 2009
Michael Bay’s effort begins and ends quietly but for the rest of its inordinate length treats us to so much noise, underlined by a somewhat pompous score, that sensitive souls had better take their earmuffs. It’s a crash, bang, wallop of a movie with nothing to suggest anything but technical skill has gone into it.Typical Bay, in fact.
Leading the cast among the human actors is Shia LaBeouf as Sam, who lives with his parents and a pet Transformer who has a damaged eye and sheds tears through the good one when Sam announces he’s going away to college. Megan Fox is Mikaela, his sexy girlfriend, who is also upset enough to say she’s going to leave him.
Alas, he never gets to college because the world is suddenly attacked by Transformers — who would be no good as anyone’s pet. They are apparently after the something or other that holds the secret of their existence, so the movie can go on location to Egypt and other fine-looking places to find it. In Egypt a pitched battle ensues which wrecks several pyramids, and the ruins of Petra get a ruinous going over, too. Bay doesn’t seem to mind what he does to our sense of horror when antiquities are blasted by his peculiar metal monsters, one of whom (the nice one that turns on Sam’s enemies) speaks broad cockney.
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Also in the cast are John Turturro as an FBI agent trying to help Sam and Co out by shouting, and Josh Duhamel as the jolly decent Captain Lennox. But acting is not what this movie is about. There’s hardly a decent line in the entire two hours and 17 minutes of its duration. Even the few attempts at humour seemed written by rote after another look at Spielberg’s ET.
If I seem vague about the plot, it is because I am. Asking around afterwards, I found nobody could explain it to me. But no doubt Transformer freaks will mock my innocence — they will know every twist and turn. Bay’s main purpose, of course, is to provide battles between good and bad Transformers, to which must be added the United States Navy, Army and Air Force. All hell is so regularly let loose upon the world that one wonders whether it is worth saving what’s left by the end.
All this is spectacular and totally meaningless, like a video game transposed to the big screen and worked by a maniacal enthusiast. But Bay is only partly responsible. The list of his assistant technicians is endless — what fun they must have had. I can’t say I did.
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Reader views (4)
It kinda says it all about the fans of this film - V Jays blissfully ignorant comment. 'plot and characters are not so important'. Yeah, I guess you leave your brain at the door for this film.
- Jimmyjoans, London,, 28/06/2009 23:36
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'Pantsformers' went a long way to copy every last detail of the first installment only to come up magnificently short. From one dessert town to another, the battle scenes, the parnets behaviour etc. The first film was fresh and frenetic and didnt go too over the top. I think it is a sign of greed and a 'couldnt care less' attitude that allows a film maker and producer to make such a mess of an otherwise exciting and fun-packed story. Terminator 2 created something very special, as did Indiana Jones, Rambo (?), Batman, Superman, Spiderman. All of which are complete works of fiction that managed equal or better its predisesor. Im not going to go on and on. In closing this was a bigger dissapointment than Spiderman 3 and I dont know how it got off the cutting table!!!
- Bradley Gold, London, England, 24/06/2009 17:29
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It's not often I agree with critics when it comes to genre movies but on this occassion I find that I do.
The juvenile, slapstick humour is irritating in the extreme - transformer twins 
and why would any transformer speak with an accent, cockney or otherwise? The humour in Transformers 1 was handled far better than this and didn't get in the way, unlike here.
The action comes so thick and unrelentingly that I soon got bored with it and you couldn't make out the good Transformers from the bad, it all just merged together.
As for the Fallen ... about as ineffective a threat as Hellboy 2's Golden Army - despatched so easily you leave the cinema thinking, 'Is that it?' ... I went in expecting nothing deep but at least something that'd entertain but this is a truly awful film! Such a shame - on this showing, I sincerely hope there is NOT a Transformers 3 !!!
- John, London, 23/06/2009 13:27
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I think that reviews like this one are unfair. The sheer enjoyment and fun of films like these is their spectacular action sequences. Beyond a point, plot and characters are not so important to a film like Transformers 2, what matters is that the film delivers awesome other-worldly battle scenes, which it does.
- V-Jay, London, England, 20/06/2009 17:38
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