Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Review

Even if you’re not a fan, you’ve gotta admit that there’s something perversely impressive about a movie that almost makes the original “Transformers” flick look like an indie.

Where part I had about a dozen Autobots and Decepticons doing battle, part II features at least twice as many robots, including Decepticons who end up joining the heroic Autobots, and a pair of Autobots that manage to be simultaneously offensive to black people and hillbillies. (Black hillbillies?) Where most of the action in part I was confined to Qatar, the Hoover Dam and a stand-in for downtown Los Angeles, part II features scenes in Washington D.C., a northeastern college, Shanghai, Egypt, um, space and prehistoric times (!)

It’s not like the plot matters, but here it is anyway. A few years after the events in the first “Transformers” movie, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is getting ready to head off to college when an accident grants him the ancient secrets of the dueling alien robots. The movie becomes a race between the evil Decepticons — who literally want to get inside Sam’s head to learn what he knows — and the Autobots, who have sworn to protect Sam and the rest of humanity.

The problem is that there’s just too much of everything.

That’s no surprise given that this movie (like the first one) was directed by Michael Bay, aka the Maestro of Too Much (and he knows it). I’m no Bay-basher —I unironically enjoy “Armageddon” in all its cheesy glory, and “The Rock” is one of my top 10 favorite action flicks — and the movie even found a clever way to incorporate the director’s fetish for the U.S. military (the Autobots work with an elite unit to hunt Decepticons). Unfortunately, Bay ends up allowing things to go off the rails.

Though the movie’s special effects are once again OUTSTANDING (the biggest shock for me during the 2008 Oscars was honestly that “Transformers” didn’t win the Best Visual Effects award), the action often gets muddled when the robots go at each other. (Did Optimus Prime just kill Megatron? Oh no, wait — that was somebody else.)

Simply put, there are too many robots! I already touched on the painfully unfunny Skids and Mudflaps (aka Jar Jar Binks x 2 for the new millennium), but, for example, did we really need a senile Transformer? Did we need a Transformer that ends up being domesticated for “comic” relief?

And the robots aren’t even half as annoying as the humans.

Almost every human character ranges from “kinda irritating” to “MILES over the top.” Bay tries to make Isabel Lucas (as a temptress at Sam’s college) the new Megan Fox, but comes up short. There’s also the stereotypically jerky head of the NSA, who eventually gets his comeuppance. Rainn Wilson of “The Office” pops up as a douche-y college professor. (We know he’s a douche because he wears a scarf indoors.) And, while I enjoy Kevin Dunn and Julie White’s banter as Sam’s parents, they were WAY out of control here — and that was before Sam’s mom accidentally eats a pot brownie.

Ramon Rodriguez actually gives a good performance as Sam’s college roommate, but his character is so aggravating, I’m guessing he was put there to please people who thought John Turturro was too subtle in the first movie. (Speaking of Turturro, I’m docking this movie half a letter grade just for the close-up shot of Turturro’s ass in a thong — just WHY!?) It actually made me wonder if the Autobots are wasting their time fighting to protect humanity.

Things get so madcap that Megan Fox’s relatively bland brand of (non)acting is actually welcome, if only to settle things down. LaBeouf also gives another appealing performance, as he does his best to ground the movie. The relationship between a boy and his robot was the most interesting thing about the first flick for me (well that and anytime the robots actually transform!)

While this movie is WAY too busy to focus on that for too long, there are a couple of effective scenes between Sam and his best friend Bumblebee as well as Sam and Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots. I even found the relationship between Sam and Mikaela (Fox) surprisingly endearing, despite the fact that it wasn’t any more developed than the borderline-abusive relationship between Decepticons Megatron and Starscream.

Then again, you don’t come to a “Transformers” movie for character development. You come to see cars turn into robots (again — SO cool!) and stuff get blown up. In that regard, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is the best movie of the year. (Oh no — they can take that last sentence out of context, can’t they?!)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen…C+