CinemaSerf
May 21, 2023
5/10
So "Sam" (Shia LaBeouf) reckons after his first death-defying dose of mechanised shenanigans, that he is done with all things "Autobot" and so looks forward to settling down at college with "Mikaela" (Megan Fox). Nope, not to be. He keeps having dreams, and vivid, mysterious, dreams that feature mysterious writings? Just like with the first outing of this franchise, the story drags the young couple into a battle between the "Autobots" and their foes, the "Decepticons" only this time the rehash of the hidden power-cube story tries to immerse itself in ancient Egyptian mythology as a means of making the never ending assemble/disassemble/reassemble fight scenes emerge as something less repetitive and, frankly, dull. There isn't really a script to speak of, and at 2½ hours this really does feel like you could have actually built one of the pyramids in the time it takes to come to what is the inevitable tee for another sequel. John Turturro steals his scenes as the ultra-hammy agent "Simmons" and we have Josh Duhamel as the eye-candy in an uniform but as with the first film, Fox is as wooden as a skateboard. Although there is pretty much non-stop action throughout, I still couldn't tell who is fighting with whom nor is "Bumblebee" getting any better at the close protection game. One for die hard fans, I think - it certainly left me yawning.