Heavy Metal

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Michael Bay has made some ugly summer blockbusters before, but none have reached the level of incoherence, shallowness and audacity that are found in Transformers 2. In his newest film, Bay gives to his audience all the terrible things moviegoers despise about popcorn movies and none of the good. It's 150 minutes of overblown special effects, confused and undisciplined cinematography, and shameless product placement. In short, it's a mess.

Transformers 2 takes place several years after the events of the first movie, in which an unsuspecting teen (Shia LaBeouf) found himself in the middle of a war between rival robot warriors millennia old. An elite group of Autobots (the good robots) have struck an alliance with the United States government in order to track down what remains of the Decepticons (the bad robots).

After a short and pointless preamble, the audience is reintroduced to Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) preparing to embark for college. Across the globe, in China, the Autobots and their human military allies fight a rogue Decepticon in the first of many unsatisfying action set-piece of Transformers 2, filmed in custom Michael Bay fashion: like a music video set to fast-forward. Upon dying, the Decepticon whispers something about "The Fallen."

Soon, more and more Decepticons appear on Earth in a desperate search for Sam, whose very mind seems to be the key to reviving "The Fallen" and the destruction of the planet.

Transformers 2 drags on for two and a half hours, alternating between numbing special effects set pieces and failed attempts at humor. The first Transformers was funny; the second Transformers is not, save for a handful of amusing moments. At times it is even racist and anti-Arab. And it, like many of Bay's projects, glorifies runaway militarism.

But it's the action that is the biggest disappointment. It's a difficult task to make fist fights between skyscraper-sized robots tedious and boring, but Bay pulled it off. Watching the all-out melee at the climax of the movie, all I could think was, "I bet all the money spent on this could have funded a lot of other projects."

Bay should be ashamed for his newest movie, if he was capable of such an emotion. Transformers 2 is truly an ugly film with no heart, soul or conscience.

ZERO stars out of ****