Don’t come to Transformers 2 looking for plot or character development: come for more robots fighting!

The first and last thirds of the film are outstanding! Insane action and the comedy does just about as well as the first film in these sections as well. It’s the middle third that lets the film down in a bad way – a horrifically misjudged pirate robot is hysterically bad, along with a little gangster robot and a bunch of boring humans wandering around for ages trying to dream up some daft macguffin to explain what is going on and failing spectacularly.

Either skip the entire section (you miss nothing) or simply acknowledge that this part of the film can only be enjoyed with post modern irony, much as you might find an Uwe Boll movie hilarious – the dreadful yet profoundly expensive choices on display in this part of the film are so outrageously bad my friends and I have been in stitches.

My irrational love of this movie lies in the robots – there are heaps of classic decepticons on display – Soundwave! Ravage! Insecticons! Constructicons! The set pieces are truly bravura and this time ypu can actually see what the robots are doing in their fights. On that note I must insist you pick up the big screen edition. No digital copy (whatever, don’t need to see this on my ipod thanks) but those precious few sequences in IMAX frame have a fabulous impact on the film: the forest fight between Prime and a bunch of deceps and Devastator combining for Bayhem at a pyramid. They are gorgeous sequences and well worth tracking down this edition for.

This film works best when the autobts are trying to do something and the decepticons attack. That happens a lot in the movie – just like it use to do on your bedroom floor. There are none of the traditional values of cinema craft on display here, just like box office behemoth Mamma Mia. That film wasn’t for me (women simply saying hello by way of screaming gives me tumors), this film is for me. Loads and loads of robots transform and jump about and explode everything.

Transformers 2 is my Mamma Mia.
Rating: 4 / 5