Transformers 2: Just as bad as you've heard

Transformers 2 (I can't bear to give this movie the honor of a colon in its title) was eviscerated last week by longtime movie critic Roger Ebert, which isn't terribly shocking, but it's still a funny and catty read. So much so that I suddenly got excited to see a good bad-movie. And oh, did it deliver.

The primary culprits of this film's ruin are the excessive length and convoluted story, but then again, Transformers 2 is not what you pick if you want proper plot development; it's what you pick when you want to watch lots of explosions and cool robots performing classic kung-fu kills on each other (a Decepticon's spine gets ripped out! Optimus Prime decapitates with flourish!). In other words, Transformers 2 is like porn. You can't help but watch the plot scenes in-between because you want to witness exactly how bad the acting will be, and how preposterous of a situation will be created to inspire sex. In some ways, its an added pleasure to the experience. But just like a two-and-a-half hour porn movie would eventually get tedious and repetitive to watch, so does this epic battle between strange robots from space and some annoying college kid who whines about being the chosen one (Shia LaDouche, as I started calling him) and some girl that everyone is hot for, but I mostly ignored their attempts at romantic scenes. Rainn Wilson has a brief funny cameo, sporting five day scruff and showing how sexy tweed sport coats can be.

If you still have a soft spot for disaster movies and films in general that go boom, this movie might appeal to that inner fanboy or girl. For the rest, this movie might just make you feel old.

-- A. RAYMOND JOHNSON

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