[rating:2.5/5]

What can I say. Micheal Bay did it again. Transformers had …Well Transformers thats a big plus. Splendid CG’s. Terrific fight scenes. Plenty of action scenes. And a not so acceptable story with a bunch of whiney humans running around in a nonsensical dance screaming while shouting and complaining. I had high hopes with this sequel only to be let down by a new cast that seemed to have all the character traits in one way or another of the characters penned in the other three Transformers movies. A missed opportunity if you asked me. They could of set thing right with this bunch since they seemed to have a better chemistry then the first lot did. Even the story in this one was disjointed and very similar in the way it is laid out with previous movies. Matter of fact the story even though it varied in theme had some of the elements of the first movie. Let me explain … Boy finds car in a junky condition. Man finds truck in junky condition. Boy has to save world and keep the all spark from the Decepticons. Man has to keep the seed from the new Decepticons. Bumblebee is called a junky looking car and scans a brand new Camaro and becomes that car. And so on and so on. Get where I am going here ?
There were so many little things to bug me on this endeavor that I had a hard time enjoying the film. But there were some high points too but they were muddled by some confusing story changes and inconsistent with the flow of the movie. Not that I mind differences in movies that vary from the original source material mind you. I have come to expect that when Hollywood pees on a beloved franchise to claim it as their own. But in this one there were to many WTF’s going on here and why are you going in that direction. Here are just some examples of what I mean about moments that were great and then screwed up at the same time. I loved the Dinobots even though I thought their intro and the lack of a back story was counter productive. Reintroducing Megatron as Galvatron was cool even though the way he transformed was kind of ridiculous in the manner it would of made him and the other bots indestructible to attack yet they got hammered when they fought the the combined might of the Autobots and Dinobots. Thats just some of the pro/con moments.
Its hard to say with this movie. Being a die hard Transformer fan since the toons came out in the 80’s I loved seeing the characters come to life. There were even some cheers from the audience at some points of the movie when that happened so I am not alone in that aspect. But I did not walk away from the theater with that I was blown away feeling I did with other movies I have previously seen.
In short I think Bay seems happy to cookie cut the franchise in way of its characters, action sequences, and even to a fashion the way the story tends to play out that bothered me the most. Like I said a waste of opportunity to hit this one out of the park. I am hoping that the sequel will make up for this clunker because the set up to the next one has again lots of potential. And yes I will be stupid enough to go see it even if its done like this one. Maybe that is why he keeps making the movies like these for people that are willing to plop down the money without question in hopes of seeing something better from the franchise. Its like being a Mets fan I guess. You hope for the best to always get disappointed.

Plot and spoilers from Wikipedia

The movie starts off with a spaceship entering the Earth at the time of the Cretaceous and leading the extinction of dinosaurs. Four years have passed since the final battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons left Chicago in ruins and claimed the lives of over a thousand civilians. The U.S. government has severed its ties with the Autobots and branded them as fugitives. An elite CIA unit called “Cemetery Wind” is formed by Harold Attinger with the intent of hunting down and exterminating the surviving Autobots with the aid of Lockdown, a Transformer bounty hunter. Meanwhile, using data obtained from destroyed Transformers, business tycoon Joshua Joyce and his technology firm Kinetic Solutions Incorporated (KSI) have discovered “Transformium”, the molecularly unstable metal that is the lifeblood of Transformers. Joshua’s prized creation is Galvatron, a Transformer created from the data inside Megatron’s severed head under the supervision of a captured Brains.

In rural Texas, struggling robotics inventor Cade Yeager and his friend Lucas Flannery purchase an old semi-truck in hopes of stripping it down and selling the parts to get Cade’s daughter Tessa into college. Cade discovers that the truck is an injured Optimus Prime, and it is not long before Lockdown and Cemetary Wind operatives led by James Savoy storm into the Yeagers’ farm and threaten them. Optimus comes out of hiding to fend off against the operatives while Cade, Tessa, and Lucas are rescued by Tessa’s boyfriend Shane Dyson, an Irish rally racer. They lose the operatives in a lengthy chase in Paris, Texas, but Lucas is killed by Lockdown’s grenade during their escape. Using a drone he took during the raid, Cade discovers that the operatives and KSI are working together. Optimus rallies the remaining Autobots – Bumblebee, Hound, Drift, and Crosshairs – and travel with their new human allies to infiltrate KSI’s headquarters in Chicago. There, Cade, Shane, and Bumblebee discover the firm’s reverse engineering of Transformer technology. Upon discovering that Ratchet has been slain and his head is being melted down, Optimus and the Autobots storm into the headquarters to destroy the laboratory and rescue Brains, but Joshua convinces them that their actions are futile and they are no longer relevant to this planet.

As the Autobots leave the premises, Joshua launches KSI’s prototype Transformers Galvatron and Stinger. Optimus and Galvatron engage in a grueling battle where Optimus realizes that Galvatron is Megatron in a new body. Suddenly, Optimus is blasted from behind by Lockdown, and in the midst of the chaos, he and Tessa are captured and taken into Lockdown’s ship. Aboard the ship, Lockdown explains to Optimus that the Transformers were created by a mysterious alien race known as the “Creators”, which hired him to capture the Autobot leader. As a reward for Optimus’ capture, Attinger’s operatives are given the “Seed”, a bomb that cyberforms any wide area of land if it explodes. Cade, Shane and the Autobots storm into the ship to rescue Optimus and Tessa; while Bumblebee, Crosshairs, and the humans escape and crash into downtown Chicago, the other Autobots detach the rear section of the ship before it leaves into space. Joshua and his business partners Su Yueming and Darcy Tyril retreat to Beijing, where Attinger hands Joshua the Seed in exchange for a stake in KSI control. The Autobots and their human allies follow them to prevent them from detonating the Seed.

At KSI’s Beijing factory, Galvatron suddenly activates by himself and infects all 50 of the firm’s prototype Transformer soldiers to do his bidding. Realizing the folly of his creations, Joshua betrays Attinger before he, Su, and Darcy take the Seed to Hong Kong. There, the Autobots struggle to protect Joshua and the Seed from Galvatron and his minions, which shoot down the Autobots’ ship. Cade kills Savoy during a fight in an apartment building. Outnumbered and outmatched, Optimus Prime releases a group of legendary knights and leads them back to the city to destroy Galvatron’s army. Lockdown returns to Earth and uses his ship’s magnetic weapon to pull anything metal into his ship, in an effort to recapture Optimus. Optimus destroys the weapon and engages in battle with Lockdown before killing Attinger to save Cade. Lockdown grabs Optimus’s sword and impales him, but the combined efforts of Bumblebee, Cade, Tessa, and Shane distract the bounty hunter before Optimus stabs him in the chest and slices his head in half. Galvatron retreats, vowing to battle Optimus another day. With Lockdown destroyed and Cemetery Wind dissolved, Optimus sets the Dinobots free before flying into space with the Seed, sending a message to the Creators.