'Transformers' sequel too much of bad thing
First it's numbing.
Then it's numbinger.
Michael Bay's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" launches a full-scale sensory assault on its audiences, pelting them with retina-ripping visuals, beating their eardrums with sonic overkill and decimating IQ points at will.
Devoid of any hint of wit or cleverness, this slam-bam, thank-you-Sam sequel to Bay's 2007 hit "Transformers" thinks that if one CGI Autobot changing into a car is impressive, then 60 zillion CGI Autobots changing into cars is really impressive. And noisy.
That seems to be Bay's approach to this special-effects-packed sequel, make everything bigger, noisier, flashier and sexier, and more racist. In two jive-talking comic relief Autobots called the Twins, we get black stereotypes that not only sound dumb, they take pride in the fact they can't read.
If audiences like one dead character being magically brought back to life, "Revenge of the Fallen" figures that audiences will flip out over the three - count'em three - dead characters magically brought back to life. One even comes with a Peter Pan pixie dust reference.
"Revenge of the Fallen" begins with a prologue set in 1,700 B.C. when those nasty Decepticons first came to earth. (If they were real Decepticons, why didn't they morph into ox carts and chariots? Something's wrong here.)
The story jumps ahead to the 21st century when Sam Witwicky (played again by Shia LaBeouf), having just saved the world from a Decepticon attack by joining forces with the good Autobots, heads off for college, leaving behind his teary mom (Julie White), dull dad (Kevin Dunn) and ultrahot mechanic girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox).
Sam barely settles into his university dorm when an alluring Decepticon siren (America Olivo) tries to kill him during sex, and his cocky new roommate Leo ("The Wire" regular Ramon Rodriguez) tags along with him like narrative dead weight for the rest of the movie, which clocks in at an eyeball-abusive two and a half hours.
The plot, treated here as an optional element, involves the emergence of the evil The Fallen (voiced by Tony Todd), a Decepticon that can only be destroyed by one of the seven Autobot Primes, except that last one, Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen), sacrificed himself to save Sam's life.
Meanwhile, the alluring Mikaela, looking like a Hooter's employee on break, catches up to Sam just as the U.S. Army moves in to help the Autobots save Earth, but not from a plethora of action movie clichés and stale jokes.
LaBeouf, who portrayed Indiana Jones' son in 2008's "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," deserves an Oscar just for trying so hard to anchor Bay's Hasbro feature commercial with some drama.
Fox, with her iridescent blue eyes and pneumatic lips, doesn't act so much as pose, except in the final reel when Bay's slow motion cameras capture her running in a low-cut tank top. Over and over.
It's hard to say which is sexier: Fox running or John Turturro's Agent Simmons, a G-man sporting a G-string.
Gee.
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"
Rating: 1½ stars
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro, Roman Rodriguez
Directed by: Michael Bay
Other: A Paramount Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for drug references, language, sexual material, violence. 149 minutes