Cast Shia LaBeouf
Megan Fox
Josh Duhamel
Tyrese Gibson
John Turturro
Isabel Lucas
Rainn Wilson
Screenwriters
Alex Kurtzman
Roberto Orci
Ehren Kruger
Director
Michael Bay
Running Time
150 minutes
Sam Witwicky again joins with the Autobots® against their sworn enemies, the Decepticons®. (Paramount Pictures)
I had very high expectations, basically the opposite of last week, because the first one was so great. I really wanted to love it but was disappointed, which isn't to say there aren't some good bits, there are but overall sadly it's an amorphous mess. It's too long having numerous unnecessary scenes/characters and therefore not allowing the important ones enough development. There were gaps within sequences, for instance the campus fight jumped to a forest fight without seeing them convincingly moving between the two places. The roommate was pointless and annoying who only seemed to exist so that you could have jokes where they complain about him being pointless and annoying which is kind of mad. The mother and father characters worked surprisingly well in the first film but I suppose because of that they were given too much time here, basically it would have been better not to have seen them again after the leaving home scene. Turturro's character who kind of worked in the first one, just, should have been left out or had one brief scene. My biggest problem is that the two leads weren't given anything much to do other than run away like in the first film, surely there should have been some kind of progression in their roles [I know from some comments I've read, rabid fans of the cartoon don't really want them to be in it at all just the robots. Having not really seen them I can't share that but I can appreciate that point of view as having merit because I suppose it is difficult to integrate people as equal combatants in a giant robot war]. The plot has mcguffins coming in thick and fast which is just not needed, it's enough that the two sides are sworn enemies and fight to the death you don't need anything else. Despite the amazing effects, although they had less effect on me than the original, the global attack idea was never really shown at all other than them just hanging around on top of buildings almost like that was cut out. Bay's style works if the story is gripping but when it's not the slow motion worms-eye view close-up shots of actors faces against the sky only accentuates the fact that it's not.
