Movie review: Transformers 2

Ever since the first Transformers movie came out a few years back, I have said the same thing about a sequel: it will only be good if the opening sequence includes a robot stepping on Shia LeBouf's character, giving him the ignominious death he deserves. Transformers 2 failed to deliver.

They did manage to take some of my advice from the first movie. First, there is way more robot on robot fighting. I really felt like the first one, for a movie about giant robots who fight, displayed a serious lack robot fighting. They mostly fixed that.

Second, in the first one it bugged me that the top secret squad of super soldiers carried only small arms. If you're using pistols to fight giant flying robots it just doesn't matter how many Jason Statham jumps you do. You're still going to lose. In this movie, they pull out the gunships, tanks, miniguns, railguns and other things that delighted the little boy in me. Could have used more, but I was glad they tried.

Megan Fox is still attractive, though I found her less attractive in this one than in the first one. But the movie makers definitely went out of their way to remind the sweaty nerds in the audience that they were doing them a huge favor by including lots of boob shots. After about 20 minutes it got a bit silly in that respect.

Speaking of boobs, the immature humor was a bit much. And coming from a guy who just started a paragraph with "speaking of boobs" that means a lot. There were dogs humping each other, robots humping legs, and enough crotch jokes to make even the most seasoned Boy Scout think it was time to grow up. Nobody needs to see that a Constructicon (robot made from construction vehicles) has testicles made from wrecking balls.

The plot was pretty bad. There were so many different MacGuffins that it was often hard to keep track which one the characters were interested in at the moment. The bad guys have an elaborate plot with a trap and all...to get the good guy to go literally 20 yards out of his way for an ambush. Characters just sort of disappear and reappear when it is convenient. And, of course, the entire good guy team has a combined I.Q. of 34.

All in all, it was nice to see the extra explosions and fighting, but I'm not sure if it was worth enduring the confusing main plot and the extremely painful love story on the side.