I’m wondering if this film isn’t the revenge of the fallen director on a hapless audience just out for a little harmless summertime action. How could this film be a collaboration of once great director Michael Bay, plus producers such as Lorenzo di Bonaventura, and, most shamefully of all, Steven Spielberg (okay, he was an executive producer, but still). What did we do to upset them, and why are they trying to bludgeon us with this painful excuse for a film?

The second Transformers movie is simply too much. Too long: it clocks in at two-and-a-half freakin’ hours! Too silly: Minor characters like the idiotic mother played by Julie White and manic Latino roommate Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) keep popping up in the most unlikely of places, uttering the most ridiculous gibberish. Too serious: smarmy, dramatic music swells under The Voice of God every time Optimus Prime appears. If his race is supposed to be so evolved, do you think he could have come up with some dialogue that wasn’t so hackneyed and cliché? Too slick: How does Megan Fox manage to keep her lip gloss perfectly shiny and her false eyelashes in flawless place when she’s being chased through the dessert by maniacal alien robots? Too confusing: It’s really hard to tell a Decepticon from an Autobot when they all have sharp metal appendages and they’re pounding, smashing and leaping on each other. Even the lovely and talented Josh Duhamel, who manages to make his camo fatigues look like jimmies, can’t save this train wreck.

The plot, what there is of it, revolves around our hero from the first film, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), embarking on his first year at college, but he doesn’t even last a day before evil decepticons rise again and attempt to take over the earth. Only Sam, Optimus Prime, Bumble Bee and a small army of offensively stereotypical autobots can save the earth from destruction. Priceless ancient Egyptian artifacts and treasures, along with countless military troops are sacrificed for the cause. Megan Fox, as Sam’s girlfriend Mikaela, flails around with a dog-like robot in a tote, stilettos and plenty of nubile young cleavage. At one point, where LaBeouf and Fox are yet again running toward camera in slow motion with flaming explosions and gun fire ablaze behind them, I caught a vision of audiences fleeing from the theater in the same manner, myself in the lead.

Rated PG-13

–Lisa Johnson Mandell