It’s been two years since the events chronicled in the original transformers movie. Sam is trying to be a normal kid again and go to college. His girlfriend is still a grease monkey and the Autobots, under the command of Optimus Prime are now fighting to clean up the earth from the last of the Decepticons. Little do they know that the Decepticons have a plan of their own. They are determined to fulfill their original mission to destroy the earth and they’ve found a new way of accomplishing that objective.

Okay, if you haven’t seen the movie and you want to, I’ll ask you to stop reading here. First, because I’m going to give away lots of spoilers you likely wouldn’t get just from seeing the trailer and secondly because by the time you finish reading this, unless you are a die hard fan, you may not want to see the movie anymore.

First, most of the original cast is back including Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox. And they definitely do make some smoke on the screen together (and I’m not just talking about things blowing up, but that happens too). Even agent Simmons is back, although he now smears cream cheese for a living in a bagel shop (before heading off to Egypt to battle Decepticons once again).

Now I’m not one to complain, but the writers of this movie seemed to be the epitome of amateur writers, creating a story full of holes and using plot devices that are so bad they make Plan 9 From Outer Space look like a cleverly written movie. First, every single detail the Decepticons need to know, where Megatron is, where the last sliver of the All Spark is, exactly how it’s being hidden is transmitted over and open channel by some buffoon from the President’s office who is determined to shut down the cooperation program with the Autobots. This is known as the ‘As you know Bob’ mistake. There is no one this guy is talking to who doesn’t know all these things. Even the audience, if we’ve seen the original movie knows these things, but it’s all said so that the Decepticons can conveniently intercept the message. Really guys? I could write a better story than that in my sleep. What do they pay you to make up a plot device that obvious?

Then we get into resurrection. The sliver of the All Spark is stolen and used to revive Megatron. Never mind that the sea pressure where he was dumped was supposed to have crushed his body. The Decepticons in Transformers 2 are now immune to that it would seem. Okay, I’ll buy that. But another sliver just happens to turn up at Sam’s home (two years later — yeah, because he never got around to straightening up and never touched his clothing from that day for two years — way to go writers. Good job). When Optimus is killed however, no one can seem to put two and two together and figure out that the sliver should be able to revive Optimus the same way it revived Megatron. In fact, the second sliver is a pretty useless plot point which is used instead to revive a different transformer, an oldster who used to be a Decepticon but changes sides.

It gets sillier. Like I said, agent Simmons now runs a bagel shop, but also has a super secret stash under the shop where he has all his old high tech equipment and all the super top secret files stored. Uh huh.

Basically, Transformers 2 just fails to deliver on almost every level. Yes, there is another fight to death and yes there are plenty of explosions, but with a plot so weak that a 5 year old could find the flaws in it, you really need to be into those explosions not to be bored by this movie.

Michael Bay came back to direct this film and the one thing he did right was to have tons of cool special effects. For example, there is one robot monster apparently even has balls (it is referred to by Agent Simmons as a scrotum — and yes, he’s back; more on that later). Bay also apparently decided to take a page straight from the Terminator movies even though we have never seen a transformer who looked like a human being and in point of fact, in the entire original animated Transformers series, there has never been a transformer that turned itself into a person. That didn’t stop Bay however from bringing in a female seductress for Sam (Shia LeBeouf) to be caught in a compromising position with. She gets him on the bed just as his girlfriend shows up to rescue him.

Of course just to make sure Mikala (Megan Fox) isn’t left without some booty, we have a toy car Decepticon who apparently is into the whole S&M scene. She burns out one of his eyes but he later pledges his fealty to her, declaring that he has switched sides to the Autobots and by the way, I’m going to hump your leg now.

Did I mention by the way that in the Transformers 2 movie, Bumblebee has apparently lost the ability to speak? Readers will recall that at the end of the first movie he regained speech and told Optimus he wanted to stay with Sam. But his speech apparently has been lost again and explained by Sam simply commenting that “oh, you’re having problems with your speech again.”

The story revolves around an ancient machine the Decepticons built to harvest suns in order to power the All Spark. Optimus Prime, who presumably would know something about it, conveniently dies before he can tell us and we need to rely on an old Decepticon to tell us instead. Although even he doesn’t know the details.

Apparently, the original Decepticon, The Fallen is hiding somewhere in our solar system and wants to snuff out our sun. He can only be defeated by a Prime and Optimus dies so we know he can’t be defeated. That is until Optimus is brought back to life by an ancient device the Primes left behind. Why only a Prime can defeat him, we are left to ponder. Optimus doesn’t seem to do anything special in order to defeat The Fallen, but let us be certain, whatever it was that wasn’t special, he’s the only one who could do it.

Oh, and by the way, this time Agents Simmons needs to save the world after being rescued from working with his mother in a bagel shop in New York. Yup. That makes real sense.

The Transformers 2 movie should be on DVD by the time you read this. I wouldn’t bother renting it though.