Well, I tried really hard to just sit back and enjoy the ride of this mindless creation, but in the end left the theater with a throbbing headache. Maybe I'm just getting too old to enjoy the visual eye-candy of muddled CG action. Perhaps my aversion of zombies won't allow me to turn off my brain and overlook the lousy plot and characters. Most likely, I'm once again astonished that despite all the cartoon/comic history and major movie moolah, Micheal Bay manages to serve up a steaming pile of monkey crap.

Now, before you right off my criticisms as the rantings of some geeked out loser that can't handle the slightest change to any of his beloved childhood memories, just hear me out. I'm not against change as long as it's change for the better. I don't hate the movie completely, just mostly. So here is the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on the Transformers 2.

The Good:
The clever adaption of soundwave as a satellite spy. Ravage and his infiltration of the government base with nanotechnology. The brief glimpse of Cybertron. The visual design of the Fallen. The concept of Devastator.

The Bad:
The extreme lack of clarity and inability to distinguish Transformers in action scenes. Once again, way too much time spent on Sam and his friends and family. Poor plot movement, such as Jetfire with the inexplicable group teleportation, or the suddenly absent Autobots while Optimus is slain, or the entire college sequence. Not to get too political, but it was a bad choice to actually name Obama as the President. Especially since it implies the President appointed the administrative jerk who wanted to get rid of the Autobots. The "candidate for change" is against Autobots? Seriously? And don't forget the balls of Devastator.

The Ugly:
First Jazz, then the Twins; I wanted the Transformers to have more character, not poor, cultural stereotypes (did they not learn anything from the mistakes of Jar Jar Binks?). Who needs blackface when you can have a gold tooth! The Transformers Pretenders were just kind of lame in the original toy line, but it's absolutely tragic as Sam's sexual predator. Plus, it seemed more like a rip off of Terminator more than anything. Then there's John Turturro in bikini underwear. Save it for an Adam Sandler movie. Seriously.

I'm sure there's more, but those are the highlights and my head is starting to hurt once more from thinking about this flick. I can only hope that somewhere down the line, somebody who somewhat cares for making a movie about the actual Transformers will step up for a reboot. They did it for Batman with the new Dark Knight series. Perhaps, in time, Hollywood will evolve to make something better of the robots in disguise.

On the hi-five scale, Sci Fi Lounge gives Transformers 2 an almost too slow, low-five.