They're bigger, noisier, and dumber than... well, whatever movie you just saw. They all seem like good ideas taken to their illogical next step. That's not to say that Michael Bay films do not have their place in the cinematic landscape. When he hits (Bad Boys, Armageddon), the films are nearly transcendent spectacles of good, loud summer fun. But when he doesn't (The Island, anyone?)... whoo boy.
Michael Bay-isms
By now, Bay-isms are easy to spot: at least one explosion in the first three minutes, scrolling info across the screen for gravitas (ex: SHANGHAI. CHINA. 07:00), military aircraft shadowed in the sun that peel away from the camera, and of course, the low-angle, rotating shots. These are all to be expected, and to an extent, enjoyed. In Transformers 2, however, Michael Bay out-Michael Bays himself. All his usual tricks fall flat, even though he makes them bigger, faster, and more plentiful. It may seem impossible to get bored during 30 straight minutes of explosions, but somehow Bay pulls this off. What's most disappointing is that Bay now appears to be ripping off himself. Shots seemed pulled from Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Island, and almost all of his other films.
The Big Problem
Bay's only previous sequel, Bad Boys II, suffered from the exact same problems as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: He took what worked in the previous film, didn't add anything to it, and made it longer. And its the filler material that really kills the film (see below).
The Plot
Plot-wise, there can't be any complaining- anyone seeing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, has probably seen the first film, and knows what to expect. But here it is: Sam (Shia LaBeouf) finds a piece of the All Spark cube in his sweatshirt, and when he touches it (even though he's touched it before), it downloads a bunch of Cybertronian info into his brain, which causes him to constantly write alien symbols, and he is then hunted all over the world by the Decepticons because he now knows the location of an energon generating/sun-destroying machine built by the Transformers 20,000 years ago. If this summary doesn't make any sense to you, don't worry. It doesn't matter in the least.
Complaining about realism in a Michael Bay is like complaining about how wet rain is. Suspension of disbelief is a prerequisite when entering a Michael Bay movie: Characters drop from a hundred feet and get up unscathed; thousands of tons of rocks fall all around, but never hit the protagonists; super attractive women end up with Shia LaBeouf; And in one scene, characters exit the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C., into an aircraft field in the middle of a vast dessert. A desert. In Washington, D.C. What's really wince-inducing is the myriad of other stupefying creative choices-- robots who speak English with ethnic accents; giant robots who use canes to walk; a university where every single women is a super model; a dog-sized robot humping Megan Fox's leg. Oh, and for the first time on film: Decepticon testicles.
The Cast:
As for the actors, besides Shia LeBeouf, everyone else serve as props. Megan Fox reprises her role as the uber-hot and loyal girlfriend. Josh Duhamel is back as Captain Lennox, and does a remarkable job of making a key figure seem utterly superfluous. John Tuturro cashes another enormous paycheck and shows off his underwear again. And John Benjamin Hickey plays Galloway, a government bureaucrat who really embodies the problems with this film: He takes up too much time and won't just get out of the way and let the the Transformers do their job.
Bay and the writing team do a good job of sticking in some nuggets for longtime fans-- the Matrix of Leadership, more classic Transformers characters, etc., but even a Michael Bay fan couldn't possibly say this is a superior movie to the first, which was at least likeable and watchable (if not re-watchable). And in a final reminder that this film is in all ways inferior to the first, even the Linkin Park song at the end credits is inferior to the Linkin Park song at the end credits of the first movie.
Perhaps one viewer, overheard after the screening, summed it up the best: "I think that is going to make me seriously reevaluate my enjoyment of the first movie."
