Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Rating:

* *

Verdict:

How the mighty have fallen.

The first Transformers movie was as much of a hoot as it was a hit. Not just because it managed to make the giant robots of the Japanese-inspired 80s cartoon toyline visually dazzling, but it also made sure its whole story wasn't just about battling bots from outer space.

Instead, it pivoted on LaBeouf's Sam Wiwicky and his nearest and dearest getting mixed up in the whole Transformers showdown.

That gave the CGI extravaganza a heart and a funnybone, the sort that its executive producer Steven Spielberg used to be able to put into his adventure films.

This sequel, however, is the big stupid Michael Bay movie the gung-ho director had surprised us by not delivering the first time. It's loud, convoluted, derivative (

Aliens, Gremlins, Indiana Jones, Jumper

) and nearly an hour too long.

The Spielbergian character touches have seemingly been replaced by crass humour that sure feels a bad fit for a film based on toys.

Bay and his writers' idea of funny is to have one small robot hump Megan Fox's leg, which at least makes a nice change from the leering camera angles she gets throughout the rest of this.

Granted, it is long because it has many convolutions and characters to fit in - yes, there are many more Transformers on both sides of the Autobots/Decepticons divide.

And many more supporting characters - here even the comic sidekicks seem to come with comic sidekicks, all of them annoying.

But none of it serves the story - something about the Lord High Decepticon reviving his mission to extinguish our sun, after being thwarted in his efforts nearly 20,000 years ago, by getting to the long-hidden matrix-thingamy before Sam.

Which means pitch battle after pitch battle and one early notable Autobot casualty, a moment which should really have more gravity.

But, as he proved before on movies like

Pearl Harbor

,

The Rock

and

Armageddon

, Bay is a man with a military industrial complex. That's all this movie cares about.

Sure, there is some imaginative stuff with the shape-shifting cyborgs - if cats have furballs, giant robocats have ball bearings, which are really microbots. And Shanghai getting renovated by a Godzilla-sized rampaging unicycle at the start is something to see. Pretty funny too, especially when Optimus Prime shouts: "Pull over!"

As he was in the first film, John Turturro's bitter former government agent also provides some light relief. "Beginning! Middle! End! Condense! Details! Plot!", he shouts at a rambling Sam, while attempting to get up to speed. Though you do wonder whether the line started out as someone's script notes and got confused for dialogue.

As it heads past the two-hour mark, the rest of this ditches Sam's seemingly impossible quest to become a war movie with Bay apparently using the Pentagon as his own toybox. There is one sign of restraint: it's more than an hour into the film before he delivers his signature shot of gun-toting guys walking in slow-motion across an airfield tarmac.

And towards the big showdown, Turturro's character is stuck on the side of an Egyptian pyramid (don't ask) while tracking the biggest Transformer of them all.

Underneath the monster, he looks up to see two steel orbs hanging suggestively below and radios his location: "I am beneath the target's scrotum."

In other words, a giant balls-up.

Russell Baillie

Cast:

Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro

Director:

Michael Bay

Rating:

M (violence )

Running time:

150 mins