I’m not a picky movie goer. I love brainless action movies as much as the next guy who happens to love brainless action movies. I actually thought the first Transformers was a halfway decent movie. It was a nice blend of spectacular action and humour. Not something you’d ever consider showing in a film class (unless it’s a class on CGI), but you didn’t mind spending two and half hours on it.

Revenge of the Fallen? I went into the movie with good faith, believing that at the very least Michael Bay would give me another dumb extravaganza to waste nearly three hours of my time. Instead, I got lobotomized. My mind was intellectually molested. My very humanity was offended that something like this actually came from us, as the advanced society of this planet.

But enough of that, here’s the good, bad, and ugly of the movie:

The Good

• It’s very, very pretty. If nothing else, the CGI army working on this movie delivered the goods. There were many scenes that I just accepted the robots were there, inhabiting the same space as the actors.
• Optimus Prime. The geek in me absolutely loves that they didn’t compromise Optimus at all with any silly “realism.” He is still extremely melodramatic, to the point the cheese is mouldy. But that’s how Optimus should be and damnit, they delivered. Plus, he kicks all sorts of ass. The big bad guy? He owns the sucker in about 20 seconds.
• Megan Fox when she’s not talking. Damn she’s pretty.
• John Turturro. I hated his character in the first movie, and yet here he is playing the exact same person, but minus the authority trip he’s actually the best human character of the movie by 400 miles. He’s extremely funny and badass at the same time. If anything he’s too good to be in this movie.

The Bad

• Human characters. I think the script writers (which are, oddly enough, the writers of the excellent Star Trek) went out of their way to make the human characters both useless and retarded. The soldiers resort to machine gun fire that they should realize doesn’t effect the robots in any way, while the main characters are tasked with being helpless and a liability as they’re propelled along on their adventure.
• Stupid story. I know, I expected this. But not only was it the expected stupid, it didn’t even follow it’s fucking title! There was NO revenge of the “Fallen.” The movie establishes this badass ancient robot to be amongst the most feared ever, but he is NEVER RESURRECTED! The Decepticons never even bother to go to his tomb despite it only being a couple of miles away.
• No logic. There are no rules in this movie. Even some of the worst movies I’ve ever seen at least try to adhere to their own stupid logic. Not Transformers, though. Apparently the Decepticons have a base out on a moon of Saturn! If they can travel that fast between there and Earth in a few hours why can’t they just swoop in a destroy everything in milliseconds? How did the Decpticons know where Sam’s parents were while they were dining t a random restaurant in France when they couldn’t find Sam? Why do the robots have testicles and hump legs when they’re born in gelatinous sacks asexually? The list goes on for 2 hours and 40 minutes.

The Ugly

• Transformers heaven. I shit you not Sam dies and goes to fucking robot heaven. There he meets the spirits of past Primes who revive him so he can save Optimus. Do I even need to write anymore about this?
• Human transformer. The movie actually has a transformer that’s disguised as a human being! If the Decepticons were capable of this why the hell didn’t they start replacing the important human figures of the world? Are super advanced robots supposed to be stupider than us mere humans? Are they supposed to be dumber than our dogs, too?

The Fugly

• The “ghetto” Transformers twins. Watching the movie with a black friend, I have first hand experience that these two characters (I never bothered to remember their names) offended him a great deal. They were perhaps the most stereotypically racist things ever put in a summer blockbuster. Fast jive-talking? Check. Gold tooth? Double check. Acting like mindless thugs? Uh huh. Can’t even read? Super. It was akin to watching robots dancing around in black face.

So yeah, the movie was shit. It makes the original look like Citizen fucking Kane by comparison. This feels like a Michael Bay experiment, really. The parameters? He makes the biggest, most expensive piece of shit ever and sees if the public is stupid enough to watch it.

He’s won.