Chopping Mall (1986)

With the decline of malls on the horizon, it makes sense to go back and check out either the greatest monument to malls or the reason for their decline – Chopping Mall.

Director: Jim Wynorski

Starring: Allison Parks, Tony O'Dell

IMDb

Co-written with Tony.

This was a 1986 movie, which means it was likely made after the director took a huge hit of cocaine, brushed back his mullet and then let a ripping guitar solo play on the electric guitar he keeps in his office at all times. That, I believe, is pretty much how all 80s movies were made. And if you think it's exaggerated or stereotypical to say that, well, just watch this actual fucking movie.

The whole premise of this is that this mall has upgraded its security system to an army of robots that can shoot lasers and electrifying cords out of them as an attempt to stop burglars. Who is trying to rob this mall? James Bond villains? The X-Men? I think if you're getting to the point that you need killer robots to stop a couple of delinquent kids from taking a few things from RadioShack and JCPenney, you need to re-evaluate just how bad your actual human security is.

You know there's probably real people you could hire who could just grab them by the arm and throw them out of the mall – you don't need to electrocute them with fucking robots, you psychopath.

Oh, is it over already? Wow. Shortest horror flick ever...

Being an 80s movie, this is of course full of a bunch of teenagers who want to have sex – that's the entire cast of main characters. Do you need to know their names? I could just refer to them as 'amorphous blob of hormonally crazed 80s teens' and you'd get the gist well enough. Of course they all have names, but even so, is anyone going to remember them? I think not.

"My eyes are up here!" 

There's also the cliché guy and girl who are shy virgins and who need the guidance of these de facto Cupids to guide them to the sweet, sweet fields of bliss – for how could they ever do so on their own, as two-left-foot bumbling no-social-skills freaks as they are? They NEEDED the help of these generous philanthropists of love to steer them in the right direction. What modern day Saints these other kids are! Truly, they're the most generous people ever to walk the Earth.

Eh, actually it's probably a nice thing to do.

Meanwhile, the scientist guy charged with sitting alone in a lab all night by himself for God knows what reason looks at porn! And I guess that was the last straw for these killer robots, who I guess got imbued with Jason Voorhees DNA and now want to kill anyone that indulges in sexuality. What a cool trick. Anyway, they kill the scientist guy, which I'm sure was part of their protocol – once you're completed, kill your master. The cover-up is complete. No one will ever know! Bwahahaha!

If this guy was smart, he would have invented the internet to look at porn, instead of inventing killer robots that killed him while he looked at porn. What a doofus.

They also kill a second scientist who comes in and also gets killed immediately, and I'm honestly not sure why this was put in the movie. Was killing the one guy just not enough? Would the audience not GET IT if the robot didn't kill two scientists instead of just the one?

Then the robots are unleashed on the mall, where the teenagers have forgone having sex and are instead having meaningful philosophical conversations about the state of the world. Just kidding, they're actually having sex. Man, really had you going there for a second, huh?

Honestly, it goes about how you'd expect – right down to the nerdy guy and girl just sitting there watching old 50s monster movies while everyone else has sex. What a couple of fucking dorks.

Does this hit too close to home for me? Shut up.

The trouble starts when a sassy janitor is cleaning the floors, by dipping his mop in the dirty water he's already used – real good strategy there, bucko. But then a robot knocks over the chemicals all over the tile floor, making a huge mess. When the janitor gets mad, the robot responds by doing what I am sure it was programmed to do when those lowly janitors step out of line – it electrocutes the guy to death.

Yeaaaaahhhhh! Put that fucking janitor back in HIS PLACE!

Then it goes after a girl who just had sex and is walking around the mall alone – clearly, the prime target these robots were made for. It chases her through the dark mall a bit and then, right when her friends are watching from the window, it blows up her head in what I'm sure it thought was a beautiful, dazzling fireworks display, and was subsequently sad when the kids just screamed in horror and didn't appreciate it.

B+.

That's probably why the robots keep chasing them for the rest of the movie. They have feelings too, ya know.

Then the movie subsequently turns into a Rambo-style action movie with the kids grabbing a bunch of guns and fighting robots. They sell guns in the fucking mall? Now I am starting to see why they needed killer robots in there.

Also, I love how the guys tell the girls to just escape while they fight the robots, as if fighting robots is something drawn down by gender lines. Pfft! Women can do anything men can do! That's why the girls double back and join the guys fighting the robots and---

Oh. Well, never mind. I take it back – there IS a reason only the men were fighting.

Also, gotta love how no one stepped in to try and help that girl as she was burning alive. Couldn't have at least thrown a blanket on her and put the fire out, huh? Were they just thinking beauty was the only thing she was good for and now that her body would be covered in burn scars, she might as well just die? That's pretty cold.

And the robots didn't kill anyone else while she was burning or do anything except sit there and watch – how fucking considerate of them. That COULD HAVE been a great opportunity for the others to get the drop on them, but oh well, you live and learn.

The robots continue to chase the surviving kids through the mall, killing them one by one, and somehow they don't use the lasers they have at all when that could easily kill off all the kids in a few seconds. Instead they just sort of chase them and prolong things for no reason. I really expected better writing and logic from a movie called Chopping Mall, so this is hugely disappointing.

They have a bit of downtime in this restaurant portion of the mall, where one of the kids – the boyfriend of that girl who got set on fire – is now super cynical and says he wants to die. The robots grant him that wish. See, they aren't that bad after all.

"Heh heh heh... I want to die."

In a truly epic battle, the nerdy guy faces off against one robot and shoots at it several times with a gun. When that doesn't work, he tries throwing the gun at the robot, I suppose thinking that throwing a gun would just be the thing's weakness and somehow cripple it. Or maybe that's just fucking dumb. The robot thinks so, too, and so it throws a trash can at him which hits him in the gut, knocking him off his feet. It's one of the funniest parts of the movie.

"I really wish I had the gun back now, even if only for the illusion of safety!"

I was really, honestly hoping he died from this – that would make it even funnier to my fucked up mind. But nope, he's back later and actually OK in the end. Damn it.

Meanwhile, though, the final surviving girl is chased into a pet store where snakes and spiders crawl all over her. She ends up killing the final robot by pouring paint on the floor so the robot gets stuck, and then throwing a road flare at it and exploding it in a blaze of fire. You know, the usual plan for killing robots.

I am almost positive the robot was trying to communicate with her the whole time that it was just trying to be her friend and that it meant no harm. Maybe its lasers were malfunctioning and it thought they were tools used to shake hands and hug. Maybe the robots were sentient and loving creatures trying to be our friends, and we ruined that opportunity forever.

But eh, probably not! Woohoo, we won! The humans have conquered that which is inhuman! The mall is safe again!

I assume after the movie ends, the final girl is arrested for destruction of property and breaking and entering into the mall after hours, and the guys who green-lit the robots are thrown into jail for the rest of their lives for making a bunch of killing machines. Then every year on the anniversary of the massacre, the country has a day of silence and mourns the victims by lighting candles and sending them down the river, bemoaning those young teens lost in the prime of their lives who were actually 27-year-olds miscast in an 80s movie.

But even so. They will live on in our memory.

Yeah, I think that's about accurate. This was Chopping Mall! See you next time.

Images copyright of their original owners; we own none of them.

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Starring: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor

Director: Steven Spielberg

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212720/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.I._Artificial_Intelligence

Well, I ended 2011 with a Steven Spielberg film, so I might as well begin 2012 with one as well. Regressive? Maybe. How about I review one that is a little different from "Warhorse"? How different you ask? Well...this one sucks.

First, a little back story. The film was originally going to be helmed by the great director Stanley Kubrick, but he sadly passed away before it could be adapted to the big screen. So Spielberg took on the project and cast Haley Joel Osment, still a big star after "The Sixth Sense," as the main lead. So what do you get? A mess...

This review will be a bit longer than what I usually post and there will be spoilers, so...be prepared.

Based on the short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss, it takes place in the future where the ice caps have melted, the cities have flooded, and people are being attacked by terrible-constructed CGI mega sharks and giant octopuses. Well, maybe not. Anyway, a scientist played by William Hurt (I can find out his character's name, but I just don't feel like it) wants to create a boy robot which will feel unconditional love, leading to the ethical question: can people love them back? Well, let's find out shall we?!

The first third of this film is almost like the plot of a sci-fi horror movie. One of the roboboys is "adopted" by two parents (Frances O'Connor and Sam Robards) whose own son is in a seemingly terminal coma. The boy is named David: he is nice, does what he is told and...is as creepy as hell! He follows his mom all over the place, including when she is using the toilet (hmm I was expecting the shower; touche, movie), all while wearing this blank expression on his face. There is also this really weird scene where he all the sudden burst out in forced laugher, causing the parents to laugh, before ending in awkward silence. Well...that's apparently enough for the mom to decide she is going to keep him! I personally would have had it sent right back to the factory, destroyed the little hell-spawn and made it into Bender from "Futurama," but to each their own!

"Hello, I'll be your pretentious, overly cute, child actor for this film."

Well, the roboboy now acts slightly more boy than robo, and this is where the movie begins what becomes its biggest problem. David's face goes from being a cold smile to a that of an open mouthed, scarred little boy who looks like he has no idea what he is doing. You know, Osment's normal look! He also stops being a creepy robot and starts to act more like a mildly creepy momma's boys who constantly needs attention. Yes, this is our main character folks. Have fun with him...

Oh yeah, one minor note I feel obligated to address. The family also owns a robotic teddy bear that possesses its own form of artificial intelligence. Okay, okay, okay, hold on, I swear it is not as quite as stupid as it sounds! Yes, at first it is rather disturbing in a movie that did not need to be anymore disturbing. In fact, I'm not really sure why they added it to begin with because it serves almost no purpose to the story. However, the bear, while lacking in personality, does try to be helpful at times, even to the point where he seems wiser than most of the main characters. Yes...the animatronic teddy bear is one of the more likable characters in the movie. That's...............ugh....

Guess which one is the better actor...

Well, the fun does not last for long, because (surprise) the parents real son Martin (Jake Thomas, the kid who played Matt on "Lizzy McGuire") wakes up from his coma. And guess what, he is an obnoxious little brat! He manipulates David to do to a bunch of bad stuff. Now to be fair, I do not have too much of a problem with this part. Sure the kid is a jerk but given that he suffers from "one child syndrome," it kind of makes sense in a brotherly manner that he would do this and it's nice to see a film where even if someone, a child no less, is sick for a long time does not make them a saint. Or maybe I just do not like David and therefore don't care what happens to him!

He used to see dead people. Now he doesn't really see much of anything...

Anyway, even though the parents realize what is going, the roboboy becomes too much of a hassle for them to deal with, so they prepare to send him back to the lab to be destroyed. Strangely, it's the father who forces the mother to get rid of David...even though it was his idea to get him in the first place. Kind of a flip flop, huh? And then, ugh, the mother pulls a "The Fox and the Hound" and sets the robokid loose in the woods. I believe her thinking was "I can't bear to have you destroyed, so I am going to set you free in an environment where you have no survival skills and filled with people who will catch you and destroy you in the most gruesome way possible! I'm truly the Mother of the Year!"

It is at this point where we are introduced to another character, Gigolo Joe, played by Jude Law. As his name implies, he is a sex robot who spends his time pleasuring the ladies. But he runs into trouble when he is framed for killing woman and eventually meets up with David. Joe is probably the only character who I genuinely like in this film (other than...the teddy bear). He is charismatic, he has good moves (no, I don't mean...no...), he is clever, and he has a healthy dose of cynicism but is still optimistic enough to look forward to the future. He is a really good character and Law plays him very well. So...WHY WASNT HE THE MAIN CHARACTER!!! Okay he didn't have to be the lead, but dear god, why have this cool sidekick attached to such any annoying lead! Its like the two don't even belong in the same movie! Rather frustrating, indeed!

Anyway, the two of them and the teddy bear (yes, he sticks around, just don't ask) meet up after they are captured by these anti-A.I. fanatics, headed by a guy played by Brendon Gleesen. They are then taken to this fair where robots are destroyed in front of a crowd of raging rednecks. There were some parts about these scenes that didn't really settle with me but not enough so I could really be to bothered to nitpick about them. I guess my biggest complaint that it is a virtually pointless aspect of the film. While it shows the tension between the battle over man and machine, there are other ways they could have done it. As it is, it really doesn't progress the story that much. They show it, David and Joe and the bear (....) escape, and that's it; the incident is almost never brought up again. Was filler really necessary in a 2 and a half hour film?!

Osment: "Gee, Mr. Law, we sure are going to have a great time making this movie!"

Law: "I wonder if it isn't too late for me to sign on to that 'Road to Perdition' script..."

So David sets out on a quest to get his mother to love him. How does he plan to do this? By finding the Blue Fairy from the Pinocchio story to turn him into a real boy. Wow, I don't know whether that's really stupid, sad, or both. For some reason, Joe goes along with it, and he leads them to Dr. Know, this annoying supercomputer that projects a 3-D version of Albert Einstein, voiced by Robin Williams (who incidentally was in his own subpar, futuristic robot flick, "Bicentennial Man"). It leads them to the now semi-submerged New York City, where they find themselves in the lab of Hurt's character. Hurt tells David how special he is because he is the first of his kind. But David wants to be the only one of his kind, throws a hissy fit, and then sets out to find the Blue Fairy on Coney Island [insert joke here]. Joe is captured by the police so that he can be transported to a better movie, Hurt is...never seen again for some reason, and David and the bear use a machine to go underwater. They find a model of the Blue Fairy, David keeps making wishes to become a real boy, they get trapped underneath a Ferris wheel, and are frozen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC8zz95rm8s

The End.

Or at least that's what I would like to have had happen, but they still have the rest of the third act to drag out.

So 2,000 years go by. Humans are extinct, New York is completely frozen over, and aliens are digging up the remains of the area. They find and defrost David and the bear, and since the roboboy is one of the last links to the human race, you guessed it, they treat him like he is very special! They also tell him that they will be able to bring back his mother, but only for one day. So the mom is brought back, David gets her all to himself like he always wanted being the little attention whore that he is, she goes to sleep, he goes to sleep (even though he said earlier that he technically can't), and then he either goes into a coma or dies, I don't know, something about dreams and such, the teddy bear sits on the bed wondering what the hell it's supposed to do, and the movie, finally, finally, FINALLY ENDS!!!

Wow, he gets to sleep in bed with his mommy. It makes me wonder who he would be like if he really was a real boy and grew up to be a real man...

Yeah, this looks about right.

Oh boy, that was a doozy. So how to sum it up...?

This is the kind of movie that has some things that work and other things that really, really, really don't work at all. It has an interesting plot and at least two decent characters, even if one of them is a teddy bear. But everything else is a problem. The main character is a selfish little whiner and too creepy for his own good, the rest of the characters are mostly forgettable and the story seems to feel the need to drag itself out for no reason.

Even the moral seems to be off. We are told point blank that it is whether humans can learn to love a non-living being. So what is the answer. Well...it's unclear. The mom cares enough about David so that she secretly lets him loose, even though this almost seems crueler than destroying him. But there never appears to be a point where it seems she loves him. When she is "brought back to life" she seems more like a spirit than an actual person. So even though this version says she loves David it does not appear that this is really her talking; just a figment of Davids mental capacity (I wont even be surprised if the aliens manipulated her so she acted this way on purpose). I think the story actual is about whether robots can love, but that answer seems a little more definitive: no. And that leads to a problem for this movie...

If I had to say my biggest problem: I just didn't care about what happened. While I admit that story keeps intrigued enough to get you through to the end, you still don't really care about what happens to the main character. I make fun of Haley Joel Osment's acting, but to be fair, I am not sure how well any actor would have done because the part is written so badly. David is unlikeable due everything I already mentioned, but also because he is programed to be that way. It is not like in other films where there are some technical glitches or some other abstract interference that makes it so that the character wants to achieve a certain goal. He does it because that is what he is supposed to do. When he is stuck at the bottom of the ocean, making his wishes, it's not a sad child wishing against the odds in the name of love; it's more like watching a wind up toy that hits a wall and can't move around it. He never really becomes a real boy in either a physical or an emotional sense. So why bother?

So that is the film. Despite the efforts of two of cinema's greatest filmmakers, it's a wreck. I can't honestly say that I hated it because it was at least trying to be a great movie, but there are just so many things that go wrong with it that final product is just annoying and unpleasant. Therefore, I do not recommend it.

These images and links are copyrighted by their respective owners and are being used here for entertainment purposes only. Please don't sue me. [end with anti-SOPA comment]

RoboCop 3 (1993)

Starring Robert John Burke, Nancy Allen, Rip Torn

Directed by Fred Dekker

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107978/

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_3

Remember "RoboCop"? That was a fun movie. In a city gone awry, you could always depend on this cyborg policeman to come in and save the day in order to 1) serve the public trust, 2) protect the innocent and 3) uphold the law (we'll just ignore that pesky little fourth one). It had surprisingly intense action scenes, brought about questions over corporate power and human life, and gave us some comedy to enjoy in between all that. It may not be the best action movie ever made, but it is still a very well-made one that is great to watch even today. The second film of the trilogy was not as good as the first, but it had its moments. The third one on the other hand, well...

(Warning: there will be spoilers. Not that you care)

It starts out in Detroit where the OCP corporation, now under the control of a Japanese company, is tearing down parts of the city using a paramilitary force known as the Urban Rehabilitators, or Rehabs, to make room for the new Delta City. As a result, many people are forced out of their homes and relocated, causing a group of rebels to take up arms to stop the threat to their livelihoods. Okay...I know that this is supposed to take place in the dystopian future, but this is really getting over the top. Sure, Detroit has never been known for having great local politics (in the series or in real life), but the filmmakers are starting to treat it like it is a third world country! Is this the only American city that this is happening to?! Is this even legal?! Shouldn't the National Guard or the rest of the U.S. military be doing something about this?! But it is pointless for me to be talking about all this, because we aren't going to be discussing any of this in the film, right? I thought so. Ugh...

So where is RoboCop in all this? Well, we don't come see him for the first 17 minutes of the movie, which is kind of dumb. When we does show up, you may notice that he is played by actor Robert John Burke, as oppose to the last few films where he was played by Peter Weller. What effect does this have on the film? None. Seriously, I didn't even know about this casting change until I started writing this review. Guess that is what happens when the character you play has a mechanical voice and a Silly Putty face that is mostly covered by a helmet the majority of the time. Oh well.

Anyway, he saves a bunch of cops from an ambush, including his partner Officer Anne Lewis (played once again by Nancy Allen), but in the process violates a direct order from his superior, Sgt. Warren Reed (played once again by Robert DoQui, in all of his overacting glory). After this event, there is a big debate over the extent of his human functions....just like there was in the second movie. Um, guys, I thought we had settled this already. We are literally having the same conversation about whether he is human or not! And once again, his humanity is being defended by a sympathetic female scientist (Jill Hennessy) and his robotic-ness is being defended by some corporate douchebag (Bradley Whitford, who must have taken this part to prepare to for his more far more sinister role as the corporate douchebag in "Billy Madison" ). Talk about lazy writing. And where will this plot line lead us? Nowhere. They make a big deal for a little bit, then almost completely drop it. Pointless!

RoboCop, conflicted over his role in the whole Delta City situation, finds the hideout of the rebels, with Lewis tagging along. However, they are ambushed by the Rehabs, and Lewis is killed by their leader, Commander Paul McDagget (John Castle). Really? Now you're going to kill off the main female character of the series? Nice job, movie, nice job!

After escaping, RoboCop goes underground with the rebels, but he is badly damaged from the fight and needs to be fixed up, so they bring in Dr. Marie Lazarus, the scientist from earlier who had defended his humanity. During this time, he develops a bond with a named girl Nikko (Remy Ryan) who was adopted by the rebels and is a computer whizkid.

Ok, this is mildly creepy. Let's just look at a photo of what Remey Ryan looks like now.
That's better.

So after he is fixed, he goes looking for McDagget. When he gets there, he finds out that the rebels are being sold down the drain by one of their own, Coontz, played by Stephen Root, who also played Milton in "Office Space". So what did they give him in exchange for turning against them?

Damn it, we should have known!

So the rebels are ambushed again, and they are either killed, captured or forced to flee. RoboCop doesn't return to the base for a really long time...for some reason...and by the time he gets back, he is confronted with the worst type of evil: NINJA ROBOT!!! That's right, the Japanese company has developed a robot called an Otomo (Bruce Locke) that is far more dangerous and agile than its cyborg predecessor.

And you thought this film series didn't have enough problems distancing itself from that other franchise.

Well, copycat issues aside, this would have been a cool addition to the film except...the Otomo kind of sucks. Sure, it has some good moves and a cool sword that can cut through metal, but it does not utilizes them well. It easily could have gone up to RoboCop and sliced his head off, finishing the job in about ten seconds tops. But nooooo! It has to show off its cool fighting moves, giving RoboCop plenty of time to blow its head off with a gun! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

While this is going on, the rebels and the regular police have formed an alliance and are in the mist of a battle with the Rehabs, who are being aided by paid off criminals. Using untrained street thugs as part of your private army; don't think anything will go wrong with that scenario, do you, McDagget? Meanwhile Marie and Lazarus infiltrate OCP headquarters. Before this, Lazarus gives a television broadcast saying that OCP only cares about its own profits and not the well being of Detroit. Gee, took the public a while to figure that one out, didn't they?! After saving the rebels and the other police officers by defeating the Rehabs, RoboCop goes to OCP, where he is confronted by McDagget and two Otomo, one of which is damaged and now looks like this:

"Take me seriously!"

After a struggle that destroys those things, he saves Lazarus and Nikko, McDagget gets blown up, along with the rest of the building, and the day is saved. The head of the Japanese company (Mako) arrives at the scene and bows respectfully to RoboCop. Ok, sorry, I'm calling bull on this one. Earlier in the film, you told McDagget to keep it cool, but you looked the other way by saying you didn't want to know about his tactics in concerns to dealing with the resistance. Now you are trying to play innocent saying RoboCop is a stand up guy. Screw you, buddy! But once again, it doesn't matter, because the film then comes to an end. Pathetic.

It is hard to say if there is one thing that sums up what is wrong with this film; it's mostly just a bunch of little things that just add up after a while. To start off with, the action is kind of dull, the plot is inconsistent, and there does not really seem to be any progression from the last two films. It is as if the writers were trying to create a jumping off point but could not quite take the dive. Apparently some of the blame goes to Frank Miller. Yes, that Frank Miller. He had written the screenplay for "RoboCop 2" but the final product was far different from his original vision. He was then brought on to write for this movie and many of his ideas from his previous script were used for the plot, hence the possible reason for the repetitiveness in this sequel (though they were still drastically altered from what he had wanted). That being said, it looked like director Fred Dekker had final control over everything, so I'm going to go ahead and place most of the blame on him.

This is a bit ironic, because they were things that were missing from this sequel that could have been added. One of the things I was disappointment about the second film was that it did not focus more on RoboCop's family; they hinted at it in the beginning but instead took it in a different direction. So even though my expectations were low for this one, I was hoping that it would at least try to address that issue, but it didn't; it just kind of skimmed it over with some flashbacks.

Another aspect that got thrown to the side, and I can't believe I am upset by this but I am, were the commercials! Those fake commercials that they used to show during the newscasts in the first two films! When I saw them in the original film, I thought they were distracting at first, but they grew on me, and by the second one, they had become a trademarked form of comic relief for the series. In this one, however, there are only two of them, both of which are pretty lame. No fair, I was kind of looking forward to them! What a rip off!

So that's that. I think this film serves as an example of when a series simply runs out of ideas (justly or unjustly) and probably should have either had more effort put into it or have just stopped while it had the chance. I admit that this was not quite as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it is still a waste of time nonetheless. I do not recommend it.

I do not own any of these images. They are being used for entertainment purposes only. Please don't sue me.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Starring: Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro

Director: Michael Bay

IMDb:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1055369/

Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers:_Revenge_of_the_Fallen

Oh God...

I am only human with human flaws, and on occasion, I want to see a train wreck. I was curious about why this movie got blasted as hard as it did. Well...I found out. And it deserves every criticism it got.

For the record, I do not say this as a Michael Bay-hater. I actually liked the first "Transformers" movie; it had epic battles between good robots, bad robots, and the military, and had a lot of humor in between. Sure, it had some stupid parts in it, but generally speaking it was entertaining. This on the other hand...there is no defense for this. I do not usually like doing "summery reviews," but I think that this time it is necessary to explain its true awfulness (I will skim over a bit so that I can get to the "important parts"). There will be spoilers, but trust me, you will not care.

It starts off with Optimus Prime talking about how the Decepticons and their real leader, named the Fallen, came to Earth long ago to get energy and a bunch of other stuff that will be explained later on and does not really need to be mention at the moment. It then shows the Autobots and the military chasing after leftover Decepitcons through the streets of Shanghai. The new national security advisor is an asshole (surprised?) and wants to disband the group and sending the Autobots packing, but Optimus warns that this is unwise that there is going to be big problems ahead, indicating...THE REVENGE OF THE FALLEN!!! Or he could have been talking about the plot, which I think ends up doing more damage to mankind than the Fallen ever does.

It then cuts to Sam (Shia LaBeouf) who is getting ready for college. He is still dating Mikaela, played once again by Megan Fox. Has her acting improved since the first movie? Nope. Is she still hot? Yes. Well, that's all that really matters, so let's just move on. Anyway, Sam finds a piece of the All-Spark that was destroyed in the first film and it fills his mind with a bunch of symbols and releases a bunch of really weird looking robots that briefly cause havoc around the house. How exactly did this last part happen? It's not really explained. Get used to it.

Despite this issue, Sam gets to college and meets his new roommate Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), who talks about how the governments of the world are hiding the existence of the robots. This is when the movie really starts to raise eyebrows. How exactly is the U.S. government and its counterparts expecting to have 50 foot robots running around, firing guns at one another, in huge metropolitan cities like Shanghai AND BELIEVE THAT NO ONE WILL NOTICE! This was mentioned at the end of the first Transformers movie, but I did not think anyone really took it seriously. Well, apparently Michael Bay and other people who made the film did! Jesus.... So, how are we expected to ignore this huge plot hole. By laughing at Sam's mom (Julie White), who accidently eats "special brownies" and gets really loopy! Are we also expected to buy this fact even though she apparently bought it from stereotypical looking stoners and that a woman in her late 40s does not know what a marijuana leaf looks like (the symbol is clearly labelled on the bag). I guess there is nothing we can do about these plot holes, is there?

So Sam continues to adjust to life at college, which is filled with hot girls as far as the eye can seen, some of whom walk around only wearing towels, and a number of them have the hots for a strange professor, played by Rainn Wilson. Yeah, because when I think of sexy college professors, I think of Dwight from "The Office". But Sam cannot really focus on this because he is having weird visions and displaying odd behavior as a result of it. He is also being stalked by a psycho chick who is trying to seduce him. Little does he know that another part of the All-Spark was stolen by Decepticons, who use it to revive Megatron and others. Megatron then meets with the Fallen on his base in outer-space, the Nemesis, to discuss plans for global destruction.

It is eventually revealed that the psycho chick is actually a Decepticon that was seeking to eliminate him and steal his All-Spark piece. Wait...what? Hold on, hold on! They are able to make almost perfect replicas of human beings. Since when?! Are they using the Skynet program from the "Terminator" films to help them out? Well, guess what? She gets destroyed shortly afterward and so we never get an exclamation for this new type of technology they posses and it is never mentioned or seen again. Great. It turns out that Sam isn't the only one with problems: Mikaela has to deal with a very annoying Decepticon named Wheelie who sounds like a PG-13 version of Joe Pesci. She eventually "trains" him and turns him into a pet that fits in her purse. Its like Megan Fox is Paris Hilton and Wheelie is her robotic Tinkerbell. That's super! But believe me, it gets worse than this guy.

After being captured by the Decepticons, they are recused by Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. The enemy attacks and while Optimus fights bravely, he is killed in the assault. Bumblebee then escorts Sam and the others to safety, while the other Autobots come in to defend them. Where were they beforehand? Probably could have helped Optimus out a bit, couldn't they? Not that it will do him much good now. The humans go into hiding and are guarded by Bumblebee and twin robots named Mudflap and Skids and oh my god those are the most racist robots I have ever seen! I mean, I am not usually the sort of person that goes after random bits of pop culture and accuses them of being discriminatory, but even I have my limit. The guys speak in Jive, they are depicted as unintelligent, they don't like to read, have no character depth, and...come on, one of them even has a gold tooth:

"But Sam! I don't know nothing about birthing no Autobabies!"

Despite the fact that he is wanted by the government so he can be handed over to the Decepticons as part of a bargain to leave Earth (and so Mudflap and Skids can get handed over to the NAACP), Sam still wants to help save the world and Leo makes his only real contribution to the movie by contacting a guy who he thinks can help them. As it turns out, the guy is Simmons, the government douche-bag from the first movie. He is played once again by John Turturro, because I guess the Coen brothers and Adam Sandler are no longer taking his calls anymore. He helps Sam decipher the codes in his head, and their quest eventually leads them to National Air and Space Museum where they run come across a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird with a Decepticon symbol on it. Not sure how that got by both the Air Force AND the museum's curators!

It turns out to be Jetfire, an ancient robot who has switched sides to the Autobots. I think I hate Jetfire more than anything else in this movie. He is not the most annoying or the most racist character in the film, but he pretty much represents almost everything that makes it so dumb: he yells and screams a lot, he fumbles around on a walking stick (I don't care if he is old; why does A ROBOT need a walking stick?), and when he farts (yes, he farts too) a parachute comes out of his ass...or what is supposed to be his ass. Its kind of embarrassing to watch and it destroys what very little dignity this film already had left. Why...just...why?

Anyway, Jetfire transports them to Egypt, tells them about how there is a machine there that is to be used to give the Decepticons energy and destroy the Earth and only a Prime can stop the Fallen. They devise a really elaborate plan to find a magical object called the Matrix-

Sorry Keanu, Megan Fox is already in this film, but the next time we want a big name star who can't act their way out of a paper bag, we'll give you a call.

-and use it to revive Optimus Prime. They eventually find the Matrix, but it crumples to dust upon touching it. Sam still insists on using it to revive Optimus. Eventually there is a big battle between the Autobots, the Decepticons and the military like in the first film, except the Autobots are rarely shown. Seriously, why were they even in this movie? Oh, I forgot, there is also a part where Simmons find out that one of the Decepticons has a scrotum. That is not as disgusting as it sounds, but it would be best if we not look to much into this.

Well,Sam's annoying parents (White and Kevin Dunn) are transported to Egypt and used as leverage against him, but they are freed after at most five minutes, making this plot point completely pointless. At another point, Sam is seemingly killed by a blast. Wow, the main human character in the second installment of a multi-million dollar movie franchise might be dead; there is no way he is going to come back to life! Well, as you can imagine, it doesn't quite work out that way. He has an out of body experience in which the deceased Primes congratulate him on his courage. He is revived and the Matrix is reconstructed. Umm...quick question. What would have happened if Sam did not get hit by the blast, could not reconstruct the Matrix, and was unable to revive Optimus? Wouldn't the Decepticons have won and the Earth would be destroyed? I mean, for the sake of ending this movie series, that would have been great, but from a storytelling perspective, that seems to be a bit of a flaw in the Prime's design plan, isn't it? Oh forget it, the movie is almost over anyway.

Okay, let's wrap this up. Optimus is back, but is not at full power. Jetfire, realizing that the only thing he has done in his life is hog screen time for a sequel that never should have been made, sacrifices himself so that Optimus can meet the challenge. The Prime then kills the Fallen, leaving Megatron and Starscream to retreat to the Nemesis to prepare for an even crappy sequel for the summer of 2011. Don't you love a two and a half hour movie that ends with a cliffhanger even though the movie you just finished watching wasn't worth sitting through? Optimus gives a stupid speech about unity and all that crap, and the movie finally, FINALLY, ends, with scenes showing Sam returning to college during the closing credits, which serve no purpose what so ever. REALLY LIKE TO END THE WAY YOU STARTED, DON'T YOU, MOVIE?!

This...was...terrible. I expected this film to be bad when I saw it, but I was not prepared for just how bad. I've seen stupid movies before, but with this film, I really thought my intelligence was being purposely insulted. And as far as sequels to recent blockbusters go, this was by far the worst that I have seen. This was worse than the third "Spiderman" movie. This was worse than the last two "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. This was even worse than the "Matrix" sequels. It was way too long, it had so much stuff that did not make sense, it was filled with uninteresting, annoying, pointless, and/or racists characters, and above all, it just really came off as a film that set out to prove that people will see anything with big robots, sexy women, and mindless special effects. Sadly, they were proven right, as this film made more money at the box office than any other film in 2009 except for the all-time box office champion, "Avatar," despite the fact that it won the Razzie Award for Worst Picture (among other dubious honors). Now, to be completely fair, Shia LaBeouf and even Michael Bay himself have both gone on the record to say that the film was not one that they were particularly proud of. Either way, it was released as it was, and those involved will have to suffer the consequences of their actions. If the upcoming third "Transformers" ends up being a flop, they will know why.

And that is it. I strongly DO NOT recommend this film. Unless are an idiot like me and you want to see a train wreck, that is. A really, really, big train wreck.