Movie Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Michael Bay movies are just like pinatas: No matter how much we critics bash the bejesus out of them, they still shower the eager masses with tasty, colorful, easy-to-swallow junk.

I'm pretty sure there is nothing I can say to make you take a pass on “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and, perhaps, see “The Hangover” for the second or 15th time. You've probably already had your mind made up way back when you saw the trailer for it during the Super Bowl. It's been embedded in your head for months. Thanks to the Hollywood hype machine (a machine that's a lot more dangerous and unruly than any of the giant, shape-shifting ‘bots in this flick), you have been mentally conditioned to see this movie. The thought that it could, indeed, stink has barely crossed your mind. Heck, some of you may be going for that reason.

It seems practically pointless to point out what this movie has to offer, which is not that much. I don't know how Bay did it, but he's made a sequel that's dumber and more inept than its 2007 predecessor. The low-brow bits that went on when there weren't any robot fights happening in the first film seem to make up most of “Fallen.” (If you've ever wanted to see a little, trash-talking 'bot hump a girl's leg, then this movie is for you.) It's like Bay and the screenwriters, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Ehren Kruger, are deliberately being tasteless and tacky this time around. (If it wasn't for the purposely, effectively crude/rude “Crank: High Voltage,” this would be the most shamelessly crass action flick to come out this year.)

For this installment, the Autobots have joined forces with the U.S. military to battle the Decepticons hiding out on Earth. But the Decepticons have a plan to resurrect their leader, Megatron, as well as The Fallen, Megatron's master (basically, he's the Emperor Palpatine to Megatron's Darth Vader), to destroy both Earth and the Sun.

The robots are loud, clanky and a bit on the uppity side – and I'm talking about both good and evil robots. They're even bigger tools (and I don't mean that as a compliment) than the people they're protecting. (And the people aren't that worthy of saving their dang selves.) The most horrendously-written robots are Skids and Mudflap, bumbling, ghetto twins who sound like Shawn and Marlon Wayans.

To say there is a human cast would be putting it mildly. Bay spends so much time making the robots look kerfawesome on screen, that he hardly bothers making the characters resemble actual human beings. Even Shia LaBeouf, whose motor mouthed charm was the only thing that made the first movie worth sitting through, doesn't come off all that appealing. In “Fallen,” his reluctantly heroic, college-bound lead character touches another piece of the AllSpark, which makes him spaz out and see ancient robot text in his head. This requires him to act like an autistic person having a brain seizure in some scenes. Yeah, this doesn't make him look good.

As his way-outta-league girlfriend, Megan Fox doesn't so much act as pout, as she once again wears close to nothing and straddles any motorcycle she sees. Oh yeah, John Turturro once again camps it up as that alien-obsessed agent.

“Fallen” manages to be more unbelievable than the original – and in more ways than one. The most unbelievable thing about “Fallen” is that screenwriters Kurtzman and Orci wrote both this and the superb “Star Trek.” But, maybe, they spent all their time concentrating on making “Trek” such a great summer movie that they didn't even bother putting any effort into this. And, to be honest, I can hardly blame them.

It's now expected that every summer Bay comes out with a movie that is as stupid as it is soulless. Where rampant chaos and cataclysmal destruction reigns. Where product placement runs wild and nobody acts like a real person. Where the extras are just as breast-enhanced as the lead actress. Where cultures are defined by their worst, most stereotypical traits. (This movie actually made me sorry for the French – THE FRENCH!) And where nothing makes any sense because nothing seems to be thought out.

The only thing that's certain is that Bay will destroy everything that he comes in contact with – and that includes a person's good taste in movies.