Three minutes and ten seconds. That’s approximately how long it took director Michael Bay, the king of explosions, to blow something up in Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. Don’t go expecting the debris to settle for a second thereafter; once Bay’s canons have warmed up, he doesn’t stop firing.  Sure, this might make for some of the most explosive action ever to be captured on celluloid, or more accurately modelled on computer, but it doesn’t cease for 150 exhaustive minutes. That’s two and a half hours of epic robot battles, thunderous explosions and Megan Fox running in slow motion. Two of the three grow incredibly tiresome.

The fact that it took Michael Bay twice as long to explode something in his first live action rendition of the Hasbro toy franchise says something; almost everything about Transformers 2 has been double-sized. There are twice as many robots whom are twice as big, and twice the number of action sequences featuring twice as much CGI. Whilst it mightn’t be twice as long, it certainly feels that way.

Maybe screenwriters Ehren Kruger and Roberto Orci are not familiar with the adage ‘less is more’.  Either that or they selectively applied it in the two places they really shouldn’t have; character and plot development.

Set two years after the original, Shia LaBeouf returns as Sam Witwicky, who has a habit of finding himself running franticly  beneath  fireballs. We are assured he’s on an important mission for the sake of humanity, but heaven forbid we find out what that is until just shy of the two hour mark. That’s when Michael Bay concedes and gives the plot its 15 minutes of fame (if that). All we do know is that there is an evil Decepticon alien named the Fallen, who has a long unresolved grudge against the planet Earth. Take another  glance at the film’s subtitle and it becomes apparent that Mr. Fallen is gearing up to enact his revenge on the planet and it’s inhabitants. Yup, he’s one nasty hunk of metal.

Back on Earth, the Autobots have been helping the US military rid the planet of remaining Decepticons, who are searching for  fragments of the Cube destroyed during the first movie. The only know fragment reaming sits  within a secure US army facility. Yet ‘secure’, as the army soon discover, is a relative term when dealing with 30 feet tall robots with giant photon canons for arms. Meanwhile,  Sam discovers another fragment hiding in his coat pocket, which upon touching, uploads a bunch of alien symbols into his brain (a la TV’s Chuck). As he embarks on a quest to discover what the symbols mean, the Decepticon’s become aware of his new-found knowledge and place him, once again, atop of their most wanted list. With the plot under way,  all that’s left to do is insert love interest Megan Fox into the equation, pit her against temptress Isabel Lucas and add snippets of comic relief from Kevin Dunn and Julie White and you’ve got yourself a movie. Smother the above with a whole lot of explosions and you’ve got yourself a box office smash.

But not a very good one, might I add.

By devoting all his attention to the relentless onslaught of action, Bay has condensed the enjoyable character development that owed much to the success of the first film into intermittent tidbits. It’s a fatal mistake; not only because solid characterisations are neglected, but because it turns what should be anticipation for an exhilarating action sequence into a long sigh followed by the words “not again…”. Action shouldn’t be this monotonous, especially when the effects by Industry Light and Magic (ILM) are this spectacular.

Despite introducing an array of new digital Transformers, ILM have learnt a thing or two from Pixar’s Wall-E when it comes to personifying a robot. Take the example of Sam’s guardian Autobot Bumblebee, who is still unable to talk, has been upgraded with a great array of humanistic expressions. Whilst some of the newcommer robots should be sent to the junkyard,  such as the blatantly stereotyped smack talking twins Skids (Tom Kenny) and Mudflap (Reno Wilson), others like retired Deceptecon Jetfire (John Turturro), who comes complete with a metallic beard and robotic walking cane,  are more welcome.

The new human character’s aren’t nearly as agreeable. Australia’s Isabel Lucas might be pleasure to look at, but her presence in the film is frustratingly unexplained. Then there’s the new sidekick Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), who is just as taxing on our patience as he is to Sam’s.
At least the returning cast are solid; LaBeouf continues to prove he’s a capable lead and Megan Fox doesn’t have to do much more than simply be in the frame to fulfil her role. John Turturro’s feverishly patriotic Agent Simmons makes a show stealing return, despite being elsewhere for the first half of the film. Then there’s Sam’s manic mother Judy, who after providing some early laughs, succumbs to being overplayed by Julie White.

In fact, ‘overplayed’ is Transformers 2 in a nutshell. The colossal explosions, frantic robotic duels and a thumping soundtrack are each overplayed to nauseam. Ultimately though, running at two and a half hours long, the thing most overplayed is the film itself.

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