Transformers 2

Movie review time! I realize that it has been a while since I have done one of these, and that in that time I have seen several movies. My plan is this: I am going to give a full review ofTransformers 2, and then give much shorter reviews of a few others I have seen in the meantime.

Transformers 2

Where to begin? I thought this one was better than the first. For starters, the fights were a lot less of the "Im just going to throw myself into you" variety. And there seemed to be a lot more of them. It is a safe thing to say that this installment of the Transformers series significantly amped up the action quotient. There were more bots, bigger bots, and bigger "booms" than in the first. There are even a couple of bots that are made of other bots; one reminding me of my Power Ranger days.

But, with the upgrade in action came a few other unwanted upgrades. First, the robots picked up a few of our language's less-tasteful words and phrases. Actually, "a few" might very well be an understatement. For the most part, the harsher language was used for joke telling which is just unfortunate. What a great lesson to be teaching the youth of our nation, right? The rating for this one was PG-13, so a kid as young as 13 could have purchased a ticket to this one outright and been permitted to watch it unsupervised. But, being that this series is based on what is widely viewed as an older (and even recent) children's show, there were many in the theater with me much younger than that. Normally, I dont have an issue with language in movies, but being that this one is based, as I said, on a children's show and thus the audience will then be laregely comprised of kids, they should have omitted the language as much as they could. And its not like they couldnt have taken it out, either. Its one thing for a soldier on the battlefield to shout an obscenity after being shot and another thing for a robotic character to use one just joking around.

The plot was a little fantastic, too, taking a page or two out of the National Treasure movies and maybe a little from the latest installment of the Indiana Jones anthology. But lets be realistic here: Its a series being built around the idea that a talking alien race of robots that can transform into any machine they scan brings a bit of their homeworld's war to earth. If you can be okay with that much, you can overlook the craziness of the Pyramids of Giza hiding an ancient, sun-destroying machine and that a certain number of the alien race has been hiding on our planet for thousands of years.

Lamest part of the movie: LeBouf has this weird dream towards the end in which the Primes (a sort of branch or species of the alien race of machines) explain to him that they key that he needed could not be found but earned. Really? If you KNEW that, Primes, why not have just avoided the whole "the key turns to dust" schtick?

Coolest part of the movie: Optimus Prime gets a serious upgrade at the end and does some pretty fantastic butt-whooping with it. The fight between him and a couple of the Decepticons in the woods was very cool, too.

Megan Fox is still just that: a fox. LeBouf does a fine job, too; we are coming to expect that of him. I still like John Turturro's role, although you see WAY more of him than you would like, for sure, and I mean that in several senses. And then there is the new character, Leo, who I thought the movie could have easily done without. He was dropped into the mix for comic relief and that is IT. He lends, essentially, no significance to the film.

And one more thing: You are subjected to dogs getting it on twice in the span of five minutes for "comedic relief." I didnt get that.

All in all, I wasnt upset for having dropped the $9 to catch this one in the theaters. It was a bit longer than I would have preferred, but I didnt feel that it was running itself into the ground dragging on in the end. This movie wont blow you away, but it wont disappoint, either.

So far this summer, I have been disappointed by the movies Ive seen for the large part. Here are a few, smaller reviews of others I have watched:

Up - It wasnt bad, but I didnt think it was great, either. It felt very slow and a lot less humorous than I had hoped for. It was, however, a very touching story.

Land of the Lost - Okay, I tried watching this last night online and gave up 20 minutes in. This made me sad in part because I remember loving the old TV show as a kid. There was nothing there to catch and hold my attention, though. Its possible that I gave up too early, but I didnt feel guilty turning it off since I wasnt paying to watch it.

Star Trek - Even if you've never seen even a fraction of an episode of the show, this movie should easily top your summer movie list. Hands down, in my opinion, the best movie of the summer. Its closest contender was probably Wolverine, but, as I posted previously, the fan in me was disappointed in a major way with aspects of that one. Had I not been a fan or knowledgable about the comics, it would have been a serious contender.

The Hangover - Contender for one of the funniest movies I have ever seen, but ashamedly so. Not all, but a significant chunk of its humor was "inappropriate," and there was more than a few things in it that it could have gone without. If you catch it, do not, under any circumstance, stay to watch the slideshow during the credits. Run.

Night at the Museum 2 - Meh. The first was better, and I really didnt think much of the first one. This is a pass.

I still plan on catching The Proposal, Year One, and maybe The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. I will try to get those reviews up as I catch them.