From toys to the original cartoon, I’ve been a fan of the Transformers for almost as long as I’ve been alive.  When the live-action Transformers film hit theaters in 2007, I was one of the first to see it, hoping for an amazing update to a classic animated television show.

Unfortunately, director Michael Bay was the one picked to put the film together and it was painfully obvious that he was involved. While the movie wasn’t terrible, it was definitely filled with Bay’s trademark Hollywood schlock, including bad acting, cheesy dialogue, over-saturated lighting, and gratuitous everything else. But at least the Transformers themselves resembled those found in the cartoon and toy series. Yes they were redesigned as twisted masses of sharp, pointy metal, but the designs were unique and each robot did carry over its distinct personality. So I was mostly happy with the first film.

Two years later, Michael Bay returns with a sequel to his live-action Transformers film called Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. Before I had a chance to see this new movie, I heard many rumblings from critics and average movie-goers alike that the film was bad. Really bad. I figured that it was just a standard reaction to more Michael Bay schlock and it couldn’t possibly be as bad as everyone thought. I was wrong, they were right.

Transformers 2 clocks in at a whopping two hours and 30 minutes long. That’s six minutes longer than the first film, though it felt more like it was five hours longer. Out of the 150 minute duration, I enjoyed -at most- 30 minutes of the film. The rest was filled with absurd scenes that seemed like something out of The Hangover rather than the Transformers universe. Filled with inappropriate dialogue and moronic new characters (including many of the robots), Transformers 2 is a must-skip, even for hardcore Transformers fans.

The only good thing I can say about Transformers 2 is that some of the action scenes were somewhat enjoyable. Those made up the 30 minutes that I would want to see again. In the first Transformers film, the camera was placed so close to the action that all viewers could see was random shiny bits of painted metal moving around the screen. For this film, cameras were pulled back wide enough to actually see what was going on, often surprisingly staying on shots for more than a second or two, allowing the action to unfold clearly. Slow motion was appropriately used throughout the movie, allowing an excellent view of the robot battles.

Unfortunately, any time a character, robot or human, opened his or her mouth, it ruined the scene. One new character was present almost throughout the entire movie, tagging along with Sam (Shia Labeouf) and Mikaela (Megan Fox) and ultimately serving no purpose whatsoever. I think he was supposed to be comic relief, minus the comedy and the relief. Add to the mix far too many scenes prominently featuring Sam’s obnoxious and idiotic caricatures of parents and it’s one disaster after another. And that’s without even factoring in the unnecessary robot swearing and recurring inappropriate sexual themes.

I know I’m not alone in thinking that Transformers 2 was really, really bad. And yet, somehow, most of the audience in the Downtown Disney movie theater in which I saw the film seemed to enjoy it. I was surrounded by viewers who were cracking up at the gross-out comedy and didn’t seem to really care about the robot battle scenes. Now I can’t stand most stupid comedy films, so perhaps I wasn’t the intended audience for this film. Perhaps all of the other movie-goers somehow knew that buying a ticket to Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen actually meant buying a ticket to a movie of the same style as American Pie, Dude, Where’s My Car?, and Van Wilder. I guess that’s just not what I was expecting out of a movie that was based on a children’s television show and line of toys. The real stars of Transformers 2, apparently, are not the Transformers. Silly me.

To wrap up, if you’re a fan of stupid comedy, perhaps you’ll enjoy Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. Transformers fans shouldn’t bother.