The 'Transformers' sequel suffers from too much boredom

The new Transformers film is an exciting robot-fighting movie, but it is far too long for its own good.

Admittedly, any Transformers nerd would be afraid that “Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen” would suffer from an awful storyline. After all, “Transformers” was the first film that finally redefined the action genre of humongous monster-fighting movies. Although the star actress of the film, Megan Fox, was far too stereotypically sexy, guys enjoyed the love story and the robot fights.

But we all know that some movie sequels really suck. Thankfully, Transformers won’t agitate audiences as much as “Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest.” But it will agitate them.

In “Transformers 2,” the Decepticons manage to revive the evil Megatron. He notifies the U.S. government that the Decepticons are prepared to destroy all the major cities around the world unless they bring Megatron Sam Witwicky (played by Shia LaBeouf), who was also in the first film.

Why Sam? Well, after Sam touched a remaining piece of the Cube from the first film, his brain stored the location of a device called the Matrix of Leadership. The Decepticons want to use this Matrix device to activate a machine to harvest the energy of the Sun. But the Matrix can also help Optimus Prime defeat the Decepticons.

That’s the plot in a nutshell, but “Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen” is still too complicated to even describe in a half-page review. There are too many loopholes in the film’s storyline. We don’t know why a Decepticon captures Sam’s parents in Paris and conveniently drops them off in Egypt, where Sam just happens to be looking for the Matrix. We don’t know why President Barack Obama would want to send some buffoon to annoy the military and the friendly Autobots. And we don’t know why the Matrix crumbled into Sam’s hands, only to reappear in some dramatic sequence with fancy special effects.

The new film also includes some robots that are weirder and more annoying than meets the eye. For example, Sam meets the friendly Decepticon named Jetfire, who uses a big metal cane to walk around and speaks like some old geezer who is past his prime.

There are also two Autobots, named Mudflap and Skids, who speak in gangster Ebonics. And there’s also a Decepticon Pretender who takes the form of a sexy college girl to attract Sam, just so she can literally blow him up. There are so many robots that are terribly out of place, and they certainly don’t look as cool as the realistic high-tech automobile designs of original Autobots.

The two-and-a-half hour film is filled with so much noise and fighting that even action fans will get tired near the end. Director Michael Bay could have cut a few lines of dialogue or at least cut down the number of computer-animated robot battles, but he didn’t. Because of his insistence on showing off long, repetitive sequences of fighting, explosions and loud noise, this film gets extremely redundant.
Don’t get me wrong. “Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen” is a visually compelling film. But it is also a long, draining film as well. Transformers fans will love it, but other movie-goers may definitely get bored.