I was totally addicted to Transformers as a kid and I really wanted to like this, but instead the film just upset me at how wrong so much of it was. If only this was directed by someone with actual talent it could have been the most awesome blockbuster ever. But Michael Bay is frankly an incompetent hack with virtually no respect for his own source material.
Of the many things wrong: * The film was still dominated by the human sub-stories and excessive comedy relief moments that mostly fell flat. The one comedy moment that actually made me giggle involved the "Wheelie" character, which I won't ruin by giving detail on. Almost all of the comedy was juvenile (including the bit I found funny).
* Bay constantly spins the camera round and round during "dramatic" talking scenes. That stuff is what people that don't know how to build tension do to fill in for their lack of actual skill. It just makes me dizzy and want to vomit.
* The Power balance seemed all wrong in this movie. The deceptions pretty much seem to be complete pussies and the big scary "ohhhhhh how can we beat him" Megatron from the previous film has been replaced by a wimpy lackey Megatron that needs help to fight Optimum Prime (who he soundly pummelled in the first film). Even the weaker autobots seemed to be kicking butt while the decepticons seemed to drop like flies.
* The focus for both Autobots and Decepticons seemed to be mostly on the comedy relief bots. Megatron and Starscream had some good moments between them and Optimus was cool as always, but it seemed the other decent characters were pushed so far into the background they were just miscellaneous background fodder. I really don't care that much for a non-talking Bumblebee (that's Wreck-Gar's gimmick anyway) and the ghetto twins (who seemed like superimposed cartoons half the time). Plus there just seemed to be way too many of them to really do any justice (especially the decepticons).
* I really didn't have a frigging clue what was going on at the end with the action. I'm sure I saw the same deception die about 25 times. Most of them look and sound so similar and the action was so all over the place (and of course not really focused on the robots) that I just found myself baffled as to who was fighting who half the time.
* The whole idea of using the Fallen just overshadowed the rest of the decepticons, especially Megatron. I remember in the animated Transformers movie, Megatron/Galvatron always planned to betray Unicron. He answers to no one, at least not willingly. If that version treated the enormous planet eater like that, I find it hard to accept the movie version so willingly serving the Fallen. Not the the Fallen is actually used much as a character, he just seems to be there to make the rest of the deceptions look like Tools.
On the positive side I like the use of Soundwave and Starscream in this and the way they worked Jetfire into it. Overall there was a good film in there but there was a couple of really bad ones mixed up with it. A few bits I enjoyed, a few bits puzzled me, a few bits made me want to cry they were so wrong, but most of it I just found boring.
Of the many things wrong: * The film was still dominated by the human sub-stories and excessive comedy relief moments that mostly fell flat. The one comedy moment that actually made me giggle involved the "Wheelie" character, which I won't ruin by giving detail on. Almost all of the comedy was juvenile (including the bit I found funny).
* Bay constantly spins the camera round and round during "dramatic" talking scenes. That stuff is what people that don't know how to build tension do to fill in for their lack of actual skill. It just makes me dizzy and want to vomit.
* The Power balance seemed all wrong in this movie. The deceptions pretty much seem to be complete pussies and the big scary "ohhhhhh how can we beat him" Megatron from the previous film has been replaced by a wimpy lackey Megatron that needs help to fight Optimum Prime (who he soundly pummelled in the first film). Even the weaker autobots seemed to be kicking butt while the decepticons seemed to drop like flies.
* The focus for both Autobots and Decepticons seemed to be mostly on the comedy relief bots. Megatron and Starscream had some good moments between them and Optimus was cool as always, but it seemed the other decent characters were pushed so far into the background they were just miscellaneous background fodder. I really don't care that much for a non-talking Bumblebee (that's Wreck-Gar's gimmick anyway) and the ghetto twins (who seemed like superimposed cartoons half the time). Plus there just seemed to be way too many of them to really do any justice (especially the decepticons).
* I really didn't have a frigging clue what was going on at the end with the action. I'm sure I saw the same deception die about 25 times. Most of them look and sound so similar and the action was so all over the place (and of course not really focused on the robots) that I just found myself baffled as to who was fighting who half the time.
* The whole idea of using the Fallen just overshadowed the rest of the decepticons, especially Megatron. I remember in the animated Transformers movie, Megatron/Galvatron always planned to betray Unicron. He answers to no one, at least not willingly. If that version treated the enormous planet eater like that, I find it hard to accept the movie version so willingly serving the Fallen. Not the the Fallen is actually used much as a character, he just seems to be there to make the rest of the deceptions look like Tools.
On the positive side I like the use of Soundwave and Starscream in this and the way they worked Jetfire into it. Overall there was a good film in there but there was a couple of really bad ones mixed up with it. A few bits I enjoyed, a few bits puzzled me, a few bits made me want to cry they were so wrong, but most of it I just found boring.