June 24, 2009 -- The first time I looked at my watch I saw to my dismay that this overlong movie had another hour and a half to go. I caught myself dozing off a few times, despite the wall to wall action, which becomes kind of numbing after a while. I kept checking my watch right up to the last five minutes of this movie that I thought would never end, even though Megan Fox is nice to look at, and the camera is used to constantly peer up under her cutoffs and down her tank top so much it had to be embarrasing for her. Talk about making a girl into a sex symbol instead of a character. Then there were those endless shots of Megan running, bouncing along in slow motion. At least counting the bounces would make the movie slightly less boring. This is Hollywood at its worst. The first Transformer movie (the 2007 movie “Transformers”) was pretty good. This latest film is more like what one would expect from a movie based on a Hasbro toy.

In this chapter of the Transformers saga, Sam Witwicky (played by Shia LaBeouf, reprising his character from the first film) is once again destined to lead the Transformers of the world to their destiny. The Decepticons and the Autobots are destined to fight some more and Witwicky is also destined to find some ancient Transformers called, not surprisingly, “The Fallen.” This leads Sam and his beautiful girlfriend, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox, also reprising her role from the first film) go traveling all over the world, being chased all the way by Decepticons and government agents. Why? It's destiny of course. They are joined by Sam's college roommate, Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) who is into alien conspiracies, but lacks even the tiniest semblence of courage. Also resprising his character from the first film as Agent Simmons is John Turturro. Simmons is the best character in the movie, spouting movie clichés as he bravely, and somewhat crazily, pursues the giant machines. Turturro seems to be the only person in the movie with a vision of what it should be, wild wacky and funny. There is one sequence when the movie unexpectedly detours into much-needed humorous scenes. It was a welcome respite from the endless string of meaningless action scenes. Unfortunately, there is not nearly enough humor in the film. It is way too serious. Did I mention destiny? Destiny is very important in many bad Hollywood films. It must be because so many writers feel powerless, at the mercy of none-too-bright Hollywood executives, who evaluate scripts like the one on which this movie is based.

Those of you who saw the first film will recall a big, or small, cube of magic stuff called the Allspark. It was the cause of much fuss, and then boom, it was destroyed. Well, it is back, at least pieces of it, and it is causing a lot more fuss. And wouldn't you know it, the Egyptian pyramids figure into the plot, too. Whoa, there's a first, with the exception of a thousand or so other movies that earlier had the same idea. There is also a big fire fight in some little Egyptian town, just like in the first movie. Ancient ruins get even more ruined by transformers and modern weaponry. In this very long meandering story there is a plot somewhere. It doesn't amount to much more than an excuse for lots of explosions and battles between warring factions of Transformers. Even Transformers who are supposed to be on the same side fight amongst themselves sometimes, as if there wasn't enough fighting in the Middle East already. Transformers also change allegiances for no particular reason in this movie. None of this makes much sense. Characters are very inconsistent and they do and say wild and crazy things in vain attempt to advance the plot. The movie is, like Shakespeare once wrote, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It's 2.5 hours long, but only has a half hour of entertainment value, if that. You could maybe make a decent 90-minute mashup film by combining the highlights of the first and second transformer films. This film rates a D.

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Copyright © 2009 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
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