Transformers: Age of Extinction

Transformers: Age of Extinction - Dir. Michael Bay (2014)

"A new era has begun. The age of the Transformers is over…"

Oh, where to even begin with this movie. We might as well start with the plot, such as it is. Transformers: Dark of the Moon concluded with the heroic Autobots repelling a Decepticon invasion that left Chicago devastated and 1200 humans dead. Age of Extinction picks up five years later as the American government has cut all ties with the Autobots. CIA agent Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) heads up an off-the-books operation that involves hunting down all Transformers, regardless of whether they are Autobots or Decepticons. The robots are harvested for parts and shipped to Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci), the brilliant head of a technological conglomerate. Joyce has discovered an unstable metal dubbed "Transformium," which he and Attinger plan to use to create their own army of Transformers. In order to gather more of the metal, Attinger has struck an alliance with the bounty hunter Lockdown (Mark Ryan). In exchange for capturing Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), Lockdown will give Attinger the Seed, a terraforming device that would create Transformium.

In Texas, Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) is a down-on-his-luck inventor who is struggling to pay the mortgage on his farm and send his daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz), to college. He purchases a rundown semi-truck hoping to find something salvageable. The exasperated Tessa can only remark that he's just turning junk into other junk, which could be a perfect metaphor for this entire franchise. The truck turns out to be Optimus Prime and his presence alerts a CIA strike team led by the remorseless Savoy (Titus Welliver). Now classified as fugitives, Optimus and the few remaining Autobots must protect their new human allies.

The human protagonists from the previous movies are gone and forgotten with nary a fleeting reference. Not that the new characters are an improvement, they are all just as bland and uninteresting. Sure, Mark Wahlberg is a better protagonist than Shia LaBeouf, but his being an inventor bears no little impact on the plot. He never invents anything to defeat the Decepticons, he just grabs an alien gun and shoots stuff. On the other hand, producers are wise enough to fill the supporting cast with actors like Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, and Titus Welliver to lend some legitimacy to the ridiculousness. Grammer and Welliver play standard issue cardboard villains, but Tucci has fun hamming it up as an evil Steve Jobs. If you didn't get that reference, there's a black and white portrait of Tucci in a turtleneck sweater hanging prominently in the background.

As Michael Bay's latest ingénue, Nicola Peltz isn't given any opportunity to differentiate herself from Megan Fox or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Peltz is dressed in cutoff shorts just like Fox and even uses a tow truck to assist the Autobots during the climax. There are plenty of shots from between her legs as the camera leers at her thighs and buttocks. The way Michael Bay fetishizes Peltz feels dirty when you consider that her character is 17, despite the actress being 19 in real life. However, that's nothing compared to the sequence in which Bay justifies statutory rape. Tessa's boyfriend, Shane (Jack Reynor), a 20-year old Irish race car driver, pulls out a copy of a "Romeo & Juliet" law allowing the two of them to be together since they dated before he turned 18. Yes, one of the heroes in Age of Extinction, is a creep who carries around a photocopy of a law that allows him to have sex with an underage girl. In a film about giant robots from outer space, why is this subject even being broached?

Congratulations to Michael Bay for hitting all new lows though the usual trademarks of a Bay production are present here. We have the rampant misogyny represented by the fact that nearly every female character in the movie is thin and impossibly gorgeous. The only exception is the sassy, overweight black woman who serves as comic relief. Aside from Peltz, the only other actresses who receive any significant screen time are Sophia Myles as a geologist and Li Bingbing as an executive in Joyce's employ. They are just as one-note as everybody else in the whole series and both women appear and disappear whenever it's convenient for the plot. Li Bingbing's inclusion and an entire third act set in Hong Kong is a blatant attempt to pander to Chinese audiences, who have become increasingly vital to the wallets of studio executives. The product placement throughout Age of Extinction is equally forced with actors shoving Bud Lights and Beats speakers into your face in full IMAX 3D. One would think Bay was doing this with a hint of irony, but it's hard to tell anymore. Next, we have racist caricatures in the form of Drift (Ken Watanabe), an Autobot modeled after a samurai who speaks in Haikus composed of broken English.

Just as he couldn't be bothered to come up with unique personalities for the humans, screenwriter Ehren Kruger couldn't be bothered to do anymore with the Autobots. Hound (John Goodman) fulfills the exact same role as Ironhide that of the grizzled war veteran while Bumblebee gets surprisingly little screen time given his popularity. Lockdown is the most interesting villain in the series, a Transformer who owes no allegiance to either the Autobots or Decepticons. He works for the mysterious Creators (the Quintessons?) who originally built the Transformers as slave labor. Also, long-time fans might be pleased to hear Frank Welker return to voice Megatron who has now been upgraded to Galvatron ala Transformers: The Movie. The designs of the Transformers have also been improved so that the viewer can actually differentiate one robot from the other. The biggest additions to the robotic roster are the fan-favorite Dinobots. Prepare for Devastator-sized disappointment, folks, you will have to wait over two hours into the movie before the Dinobots appear, despite them serving as lynchpins of the marketing campaign.

If you're wondering how Kruger spent his time during the script writing process, it certainly wasn't crafting scintillating dialogue. Nobody was expecting David Mamet in a Transformers picture, but you'd think Kruger would at least put a modicum of effort beyond, "Take that bitch" or "Do you have a warrant?" "My face is my warrant." And it's always thrilling to hear Optimus Prime, the noble warrior that he is, running around rooftops screaming, "I'll kill you."

SPOILERS: At the end of the movie, Optimus shoots off into outer space with the aid of rocket boosters in his feet, which begs the question why didn't he use them before, instead of turning into a truck to slowly save the day? Also, he threatens to kill the Dinobots unless they join forces with him. Then, Optimus lets them loose on the Chinese countryside because it's always a great idea to have mechanical dinosaurs running around completely unfettered.

Story has never been Michael Bay's strong suit. It's traditionally been incidental to the visuals. The last three films suffered from action sequences that descended into incoherent visual noise, but Bay's camerawork seems to grown more patient in Age of Extinction. This allows Bay to make good use of 3D imagery, particularly during a set piece wherein the Cade and Tessa dangle precariously from grabbling cables high above Chicago, a city which shows no evidence of serving as ground zero for an alien invasion a few short years ago. Bay takes a page out of Terrence Malick's playbook by shooting the farm scenes at golden hour with actors silhouetted against the backdrop of a beautiful orange sky. The beauty is almost undone when you realize Bay's idea of small town Texas is a Bostonian, a surfer dude, an Irishman, and a girl who struts around the rural countryside in high heeled boots.

Transformers: Age of Extinction runs two hours and forty-five minutes, a punishing length filled with inane dialogue, illogical plot developments, and relentless stupidity. Revenge of the Fallen still stands as the worst of the bunch, but it has the excuse of being rushed into production during the writer's strike. Age of Extinction has no excuse. However, none of that will mean a damn thing because audiences still eat these movies up with a spoon. The fourth Transformers film scored over $300 million worldwide during opening weekend. If you enjoy Transformers, then more power to you. Personally, I find it sad that this is a resounding success while Edge of Tomorrow, a far better written blockbuster with one of the strongest female characters in recent memory, was a box office flop.

Rating: ** (*****)

Pain & Gain

Pain & Gain - Dir. Michael Bay (2013)

I'm not sure what's more unbelievable about Pain & Gain, the true life story upon which it was based or the fact that this was Michael Bay's idea of a low-budget indie movie.

Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) has a great body, but not a lot of brains to go with his delusional view of the American dream or his staunch sense of entitlement. After doing time for a Ponzi scheme, Lugo goes to work as a personal trainer at the Sun Gym in Miami. Formerly a rundown spot for old folks, Lugo turns it into a haven for the built and beautiful. However, he's not satisfied and spots a big, fat payday in his obnoxious client Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub). Kershaw openly brags about his wealth, his offshore accounts, and the Schlotzsky's Deli he owns at the airport. Lugo hits on the idea to kidnap Kershaw and hold him hostage until he signs over all his assets. This ersatz mastermind recruits his best pal Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), a fellow bodybuilder who has been rendered impotent by steroid abuse, and Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson), an ex-con who has traded his coke habit for Jesus. After several bumbling attempts, the muscle-bound trio snatches Kershaw and tortures him for nearly a month inside a warehouse full of sex toys. Lugo and his crew are able to enjoy their ill-gotten gains primarily because Kershaw is such a prick that the police have a hard time believing or sympathizing with him. When Doorbal and Doyle blow their newfound wealth on penile injections and cocaine, Lugo is forced to abduct a new mark with disastrous consequences.

Pain & Gain is unmistakably a Michael Bay film even without the widescreen mayhem and deafening explosions. His garish aesthetics are simpatico with the bizarre, true-life events adapted for the screen by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (Captain America, Chronicles of Narnia). For once, it actually makes sense for Bay to populate the backgrounds with buxom babes since the story involves strippers galore. The saturated orange and teal color palette accentuates the sun soaked paradise of Miami. The camera whips along at a frenzied pace with super slow motion employed to great effect during a SWAT team raid. When Doyle barbecues a pair of dismembered hands to destroy fingerprints, an intertitle is stamped onto the screen to remind you that this is still based on fact. The question remains: is Bay just doing what comes natural or has he developed a sense of awareness that allows him to lampoon his own style?

As Bay flirts with the notion of self-parody, he walks a thin line between glorifying and condemning the actions of his characters. There's no doubt that these men aren't the least bit sympathetic, not to mention aggressively stupid. The fact that their brutality was played for laughs has upset the real victims of the Sun Gym Gang. The dark humor eschews closely to the works of Guy Ritchie or the Crank films. Stomachs may turn when chainsaws are broken out to chop up corpses or when a severed toe comes into play.

The cast really sinks their teeth into their respective roles with Mark Wahlberg excelling as the archetypal meathead. His Daniel Lugo is definitely cut from the same cloth as Dirk Diggler with a more sinister side. Tony Shalhoub brings Victor Kershaw to odious life while Rebel Wilson, Michael Rispoli, and Peter Stormare fill out the colorful supporting cast. Ken Jeong is thankfully utilized in small doses as a motivational speaker ("Be a do'er, not a don't'er") that inspires Lugo.  Ed Harris portrays the straight man as a retired cop turned private investigator. He essentially takes on the Tommy Lee Jones role in No Country for Old Men as the one good man in an insane world. The best performance in Pain & Gain belongs to Dwayne Johnson, who bulked up to bigger proportions than he ever had in his WWE career. There's a naiveté initially displayed by Johnson that makes Doyle a gentle giant, then shows deft comedic timing when he reverts into a desperate coke head.

Pain & Gain is easily Michael Bay's best picture, which may be a backhanded compliment when his filmography includes Bad Boys 2 and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Rating: *** (*****)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Dir. Michael Bay (2011)

"Years from now they're gonna ask…where were you when they took over the planet?"

The summer blockbuster season reaches its nadir with the third installment of Transformers, based on the popular toy line from Hasbro, and directed by Michael Bay, purveyor of overblown schlock. Bay’s first Transformers film was lifted above its leaden coming-of-age narrative by a Spielbergian sense of wonder as an unassuming suburban boy meets a race of giant robots from outer space. The sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, was an atrocity of epic proportions that was hastily slapped together before the Writer’s Strike of late 2007 to early 2008. Even Bay and star Shia LaBeouf apologized for the rancid turd they unleashed from their bowels. Not that it matters, audiences ate it up as if the manure pile were a tasty bowl of ice cream. Thanks to them Revenge made over $800 million worldwide. Dark of the Moon has already grossed half that in its opening week. In financial terms, it's a rousing success, but what about the actual movie?

I can honestly say that Dark of the Moon is better than Revenge of the Fallen. However, that's the equivalent of saying being smashed in the face with a pipe wrench is better than having your genitals hooked to Bumblebee's car battery.

Much like X-Men: First Class, Transformers plays with revisionist history by planting the idea that the entire space race was predicated on the discovery of an ancient Autobot ship that crashed on the moon. The prologue is peppered with archival footage and actors who look nothing like their real-life counterparts. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (who makes a cameo appearance) explore the massive spacecraft and sworn to secrecy about what they've seen. And just when you think the story is building momentum, it all comes crashing back to modern-day Earth as we follow the plight of Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) in the current economic crisis.

Poor Sam has helped the Autobots save the world twice, but he can't find a job and mopes a lot. You'd think he would be way happier considering he has yet another insanely gorgeous girlfriend. Following the acrimonious departure of Megan Fox, Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley replaces her as the pouty lipped, hot chick that runs away from the robots. She plays Carly Spencer, a former British attaché now working for millionaire playboy Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey). The film spends an interminable amount of time introducing us to a cavalcade of new characters like John Malkovich as Sam's orange-skinned boss, Frances McDormand as a director of intelligence, and Ken Jeong doing his usual Ken Jeong schtick. We are also reunited with several returning characters such as soldiers Lt. Col. Lennix (Josh Duhamel) and Robert Epps (Tyrese Gibson), Sam's parents (Kevin Dunn & Julie White), and the eccentric Agent Simmons (John Turturro). It goes on and on until finally scenes of actual importance occur in rapid succession as Decepticons murder human beings and Optimus (voiced once again by Peter Cullen) revives his long-lost predecessor Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy). It all builds to 45 minutes of pure, unadulterated Bay-hem as a full-scale Decepticon invasion force lays waste to downtown Chicago.

Dark is just as loud, obnoxious, and over long as the previous pictures and filled with plot holes big enough for Optimus Prime to drive through. On the positive side, Bay has toned down the puerile humor as well as the blatant misogyny and racism. The ridiculous, buck-toothed Twins from Revenge are thankfully gone though the Joe Pesci-esque Wheelie (Tom Kenny) is still around to provide a poor excuse for comic relief. Still, Michael Bay cannot help being Michael Bay and there is underlying sexism throughout the narrative. Dark of the Moon has no strong female character whatsoever. Women in Bay movies are generally nattering twits (Sam's mother), shrewish harpies (McDormand's Charlotte Mearing) or blatant sex objects (everyone else). This is never more apparent than the replacing of Megan Fox with a lingerie model, who can serve as each one of those archetypes. At least, Bay had no pretensions at all to the role. Why hire an actual actress when all you need is someone to walk around in their underwear. Bay's sensibilities for fast cars and beautiful women are comparable to a hormonal adolescent boy getting aroused by covers of Lowrider displayed at the local supermarket magazine rack.

The first shot of the film following the prologue is a gratuitous butt shot of Huntington-Whiteley as she pads up a staircase barefoot and clad in skimpy panties and a man's dress shirt. Fox may not be an incredibly nuanced actress, but at least she displayed some semblance of personality and got involved in the action scenes. Huntington-Whitely is a complete cipher whose only talents are squeezing into form-fitting dresses and staring blankly into the distance as objects explode behind her in slow motion. Her romance with LaBeouf's Sam arbitrarily runs hot and cold according to narrative conventions.

The main problem with Bay's Transformers films has always been the inordinate amount of screen time wasted on human characters that nobody cares about. You would think a Transformers movie would be about the Transformers. Not that the machines are depicted as multi-dimensional beings. Giving them funny accents are about as deep into characterization as the writers go. There is just something about giant death metal robots clashing and causing massive amounts of property damage which appeals to simple-minded pleasures. Bay provides that in spades with an extended battle in the Windy City as skyscrapers topple and Transformers perform Mortal Kombat-style fatalities on each other. It's certainly the most ambitious action Bay has ever directed. It feels like he watched Independence Day, Cloverfield, Inception, and Spielberg's War of the Worlds and said, "I can do better." However, the climax is lacking in any kind of coherent flow. There's never a sense of where everyone is located in relation to each other and how each section connects with the other. It's more like a jumble of incomplete sequences strung together. Bay appears to be afflicted with the worse case of ADD as scenes and subplots abruptly end as if he walked away halfway through and moved on to the next thing.

Bay also has a habit of recycling the same action sequences over and over. How many times have we seen a highway chase where cars attempt to dodge heavy objects hurtling at them? There's one in every Transformers movie. It's gotten to the point where Bay has lifted entire shots from The Island and reused them for Dark of the Moon. Granted, he was unable to complete the sequence due to the horrific accident to an extra. Nevertheless, the fact that Bay so easily integrated old footage from an entirely different picture speaks volumes to his unoriginality.

The one shining light in Dark of the Moon is Leonard Nimoy, who is related to Bay by marriage, proving you can pick your friends, but not your family. Nimoy previously voiced Galvatron in the animated Transformers: The Movie and imbues a gravelly gravitas to the inane dialogue he's forced to spout. There are also a couple Star Trek references thrown in, a call back to Wrath of Khan and another that cleverly foreshadows a crucial plot twist.

Michael Bay has lashed out at his critics by claiming his movies are meant to be fun summer films, which means his films aren't supposed to have highbrow nonsense like logic, great acting, and a coherent storyline. There's no reason for these things to be mutually exclusive. Iron Man and The Dark Knight are proven examples that big-budget blockbusters don't have to be mind-numbing special effects extravaganzas. Unfortunately, Bay seems more than content to wallow in soulless spectacle and audiences are happy to line up around the block. The two highest grossing movies in 2011 are The Hangover Part II and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Transformers: Dark of the Moon has taken the fourth spot less than a week after release. I admit Dark of the Moon provides a visceral gratification to our base desires of seeing things get blown up, but I crave something with more substance.

Final Thoughts: I caught Dark of the Moon in IMAX 3D and if you are going to see the most excessive movie of the year, see it in the most excessive way possible. The 3D effects are surprisingly effective. The opening sequence, in particular, has a very noticeable depth of field. It's one of the most pleasant 3D experiences I've had and I'm no advocate for the process. There's no feeling of flatness and very little dimming since Bay implored theater owners to burn out their projection bulbs to display the film at the proper brightness levels. The 3D also forces Bay to rethink how he directs action sequences since rapid editing, tight close-ups, and jarring camera movement do not work with 3D cameras.

Rating: ** (*****)

Transformers

Transformers - Dir. Michael Bay (2007)

Any child of the 80's will remember how their Saturday mornings and after-school afternoons were spent watching mind numbing cartoons based around toylines. For girls, there was My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, and Rainbow Brite. For the lads, there was G.I. Joe, Thundercats, He-Man, and Voltron. Without a doubt, one of the most popular franchises was Transformers. The concept was pretty simple. Boys love playing with cars and robots. What if they had a toy that was both? Hasbro bought the rights to several toylines in Japan and merged them into one brand for distribution in the States. They created an entire world of colorful characters with assistance from Marvel Comics and tasked Sunbow Productions with animating the TV show. Hasbro, Marvel, and Sunbow were also the Holy Trinity behind the G.I. Joe series. Over the next three decades, the original Transformers (dubbed by fans as G1 or Generation 1) would return in various incarnations like Beast Wars, Transformers: Armada, Robots in Disguise, and numerous shows that aired only in Japan. The original series was also spun-off into Transformers: The Movie, a feature film version that traumatized countless children due to the death of the heroic Optimus Prime.

Fans have clamored for a live-action adaptation and they finally got it thanks to Michael Bay, master of mayhem and entrepreneur of explosions. Bay knows how to construct spectacular action sequences (or at least he thinks he does) and screenwriters Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman have become Hollywood's go-to guys, but it was executive producer Steven Spielberg who knew how to crack the story. It was his idea to inject a little E.T. flavor to the film by making the movie revolve around the story of a boy and his car.

In this case, the boy is Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), a dorky high schooler who has the hots for the insanely gorgeous Mikaela (Megan Fox). Hoping to make some extra cash to get a car, Sam sells paraphernalia belonging to his great-grandfather, a famous explorer. Among those items include a pair of glasses with a map etched into them that leads to a powerful source of energy known as the Cube. Two tribes of alien robots from outer space are after the Cube. The benevolent Autobots wish to use the Cube to restore their dying homeworld, Cybertron. The evil Decepticons want to use it to conquer the universe.

Transformers weaves together several plot threads with the central story being Sam and Mikaela making first contact with the Autobots. We also follow a detachment of American soldiers in the Middle East as they are being pursued by Decepticons. Finally, there's a subplot involving government officials investigating the possibilities of an alien invasion.

The cast also includes Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as two of the lead soldiers. Jon Voight co-stars as the Secretary of Defense with John Turturro as an eccentric man in black, and Aussie actress Rachael Taylor as the world's hottest computer analyst. Fans of the original cartoon will be pleased to hear Peter Cullen once again provide the voice for Optimus Prime. The late-Bernie Mac appears in a bit role as a car salesman while Hugo Weaving is the voice of Decepticon leader, Megatron.

As the director of shlock like Bad Boys and The Rock, Michael Bay was probably as good a choice as any to helm a movie about giant robots. The action sequences are chaotic and loud enough to make the toughest ears bleed. The special effects by ILM are impeccable and there's never a moment when the Transformers looked phony. The transformation sequences are incredibly detailed with shifting panels and whirling cogs. While the visuals are amazing, the story leaves much to be desired.

First of all, the film is called Transformers, not 'Lame Humans We Don't Care About.' The picture spends far too much time with bland cardboard characters, despite the fact that the Transformers are far more interesting. Many of the scenes involving different government departments could have been cut and the less said about Anthony Anderson's annoying hacker, the better. Speaking of which, what is it with Michael Bay and juvenile humor? Black people always seem to be wacky comic relief in his films. If I go to see a movie about giant robots, I want to see them smashing stuff, I don't want to see them spend ten minutes playing hide and seek while a dog pees on one of them. Finally, who came up with the brilliant strategy of leading the death metal robots into a heavily crowded city in the middle of the day?

MICHAEL BAY RAPED MY CHILDHOOD!!! That was the rallying cry for Transfans the world over after Transformers hit theaters. It can still be heard to this day. Optimus Prime has flame decals. Michael Bay raped my childhood! Bumblebee is a Camaro. Michael Bay raped my childhood! While I wouldn't break out the torches and pitchforks, I will say Bay's Transformers is all sound and fury with a distinct lack of substance.

Rating: ** ½

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - Dir. Michael Bay (2009)

I previously thought Transformers was the most Michael Bay that Michael Bay ever Michael Bay-ed. But, the Bay actually out-Bays himself with the sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The second film based on the popular Hasbro toyline is bigger, louder and longer than every previous version of the property combined. It’s a two and a half hour assault on the senses. Notice I haven’t said anything about it being a great movie?

Like most sequels, Revenge of the Fallen has more of everything, more robots, more action, more characters, more explosions (including one that took seven months to set up) and more glamour shots of Megan Fox, etc. It actually has more story. Not a better story, just more half-ass subplots strung together into a semi-coherent narrative.

It’s been two years since the Transformers arrived on Earth. The Autobots led by Optimus Prime (voiced again by Peter Cullen) battle alongside an international taskforce led by Maj. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson) in hunting down any remaining Decepticons still in hiding. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) says goodbye to his Autobot protector Bumblebee and girlfriend, Mikaela (Megan Fox) as he prepares to go to college. I don’t remember what school he enrolled in, but every female student is thin, flawlessly beautiful, lathered in make-up, and horny for advanced theoretical physics. Sam’s new roommate is Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez), a tech head who runs a conspiracy theory website attempting to uncover the truth about the Transformers. Leo replaces Anthony Anderson’s character as the annoying, comedic sidekick computer nerd. Meanwhile, Sam’s long-distance relationship with Mikaela is put to the test by an overly aggressive co-ed (Isabel Lucas).

Sam barely makes it through day one before his hopes of a normal life are dashed. He breaks out into near-epileptic fits after touching a sliver of the Allspark that had been destroyed in the first film. He goes into John Nash mode, seeing ancient Cybertronian hieroglyphs everywhere. The Decepticons want what’s in Sam’s mind as it will lead them to a machine that can destroy the sun and harness it into their fuel source, Energon. The villainous robots resurrect their leader, Megatron (Hugo Weaving), who now takes his orders from the title character, the Fallen (voiced by Candyman Tony Todd). The Fallen was one of the original Transformers who betrayed his mechanical brothers. He’s the Palpatine to Megatron’s Darth Vader.

There’s also a government toady who blames the Autobots for all the death metal destruction and pushes to have them deported off-planet. John Turturro’s Agent Simmons is also back, now working the counter at his mom’s deli.

Where there were about a dozen Transformers in the first film, Bay ups the ante for the sequel with forty-six even including fan-favorites such as Soundwave (once again voiced by Frank Welker who also did Ravage), the Constructicons who merge into the much-larger Devastator, and Arcee, one of the few female Transformers. Many die-hard Transfans will likely be disappointed by their long-awaited appearances. Devastator is reduced to a lumbering quadruped whose main form of attack is to literally suck. There’s also Jetfire, a geriatric Decepticon who defected to the Autobots long ago. He’s nothing more than a plot device to move the characters from point A to point B and drop a huge chunk of exposition in the middle of the film. The biggest problem with the increase in the Transformer population is the fact that you can only tell a handful of them apart. This muddies up the action sequences when you have no idea who is who. Was that an Autobot that got destroyed or a Decepticon? The filmmakers don’t seem to have a clue either as some of the same Constructicons that formed Devastator can also be seen battling the Autobots elsewhere in the desert.

It also doesn’t help when Michael Bay directs the majority of the action with the patience of a ten-year old with ADD on a truckload of methamphetamines. Bay can’t keep the camera still for a second to allow the audience to actually watch the battle, instead choosing to pan the camera around and around in a dizzying pattern. Just because the camera constantly moves doesn’t make the scene more interesting.

With so many new characters, many of the original characters that the audience have known and become attached to are marginalized here. Lennox and Epps barely factor into the film. While Sam and Mikaela were able to get in on some of the action in the first film, they’re relegated here to screaming at the top of their lungs or running away from explosions in slow motion. Ironhide and Ratchet, two of the only Transformers I can actually recognize, hardly do anything either. Even the Fallen, who is supposed to be the big bad, maybe only gets fifteen minutes of screen time and hardly seems anymore menacing than any other Decepticon. No, the Transformers who appear to get the most screen time are the Twins, Mudflap and Skids (one voiced by Reno Wilson, the other by Spongebob Squarepants himself, Tom Kenny), who have garnered a lot of controversy in the press. The pair have big ears, bugged out eyes, buck teeth (one of them gold), and speak in Ebonics. They’re stupid, illiterate and on a level of annoyance that rivals Jar Jar Binks. Remember that annoying, unfunny little robot from the first film? Well, Bay throws in two. There’s an evil version of the microscope Autobot, Perceptor, in The Doctor, a Decepticon microscope that turns into a spider-like robot with glasses that speaks in a German accent. Always one to run a crappy joke into the ground, Michael Bay also throws in Wheelie, an RC 4x4 who looks like Wall-E’s evil cousin and inexplicably speaks like an extra from Goodfellas. He humps Megan Fox’s leg too, not that I blame him.

Does the idea of a robot humping a woman’s leg not seem funny to you? Michael Bay apparently thought it was so hilarious; he also threw in two scenes of dogs humping each other. Bay’s excesses and lack of originality run deeper than just recycling the same shots in every one of his films. He repeats the same lame jokes that revel in the fact that they target the lowest common denominator. We get the robots with bad teeth as well as a butcher with bad teeth trying to earn money for dental work. There’s dry-humping, Transformer testicles and an exceedingly long gag involving Sam’s mother tripping out on pot brownies. Curse words are liberally dropped into dialogue that’s already as clunky as the Transformers themselves. For a film that’s essentially selling toys to kids, Revenge is hardly family friendly.

There are some positive contributions in Revenge. The special effects are the usual top-notch work from ILM. The Transformers fit seamlessly into their surroundings and there are moments where you believe they are standing side-by-side with their human compatriots. Catching the film in IMAX and seeing Optimus Prime in scale was pretty cool. Starscream (one of my favorite characters) gets a bit more to do in the sequel and his additional dialogue brings him more in line with his G1 incarnation.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the perfect embodiment of every negative aspect of the summer blockbuster. It’s a film that panders to the bases, adolescent desires. It’s loud, obnoxious, and unrelenting. Its junk food and for some that’s more than enough to satisfy their appetites. The thing about junk food is, it gives you a quick fix, but you’re eventually left hungry for a real meal. Films like Iron Man and The Dark Knight proved you can be a big-budget action spectacle with a smart story and genuine emotion. Revenge simply substitutes noise and movement for any type of true emotional connection. The audience isn’t taken along for a journey as much as press ganged into it and yanked along. This is the type of messy sequel that was churned out of the Matrix and Pirates franchises. Whatever weak plot it possesses is only there to service a string of action scenes that are directed either blandly or nonsensically by Michael Bay.

Rating: * ½