So I got out to my local theater to see the second TransFormers movie.

Let me start off by saying that I have had TransFormers toys in one form or another since I can remember.  When the animated movie came out in 1986 I got my dad to take me, I watched every episode of the TV series (that and G.I. Joe, another summer blockbuster I look forward to were my favorite series next to Voltron).  I had many of the old-school toys and have collected a number of the modern variants - the one physical bridge to my childhood, aside from my comic book collection, that I have in my life.

All that being said, I wasn't expecting a lot from either the 2007 movie or its recent sequal.  It's a movie based on toys.  Granted, they are perhaps one of the most inventive toys ever created, but when the movie is based on toys, all I expect out of it are explosions and fighting robots that stand 40 feet tall.

Needless to say, I was not disappointed.

There is no depth to the human characters (although they get about 60% more screen time than the robots), neither do we get to learn much about the robots as characters.  We do learn a bit about Cybertron's past and a couple of other points of Autobot history, and there is an interesting depth to the mythology of the species as it is presented in the film.

Things like Autobot Primes - those who could be very good protectors of the human race - sacrificing themselves to hide a maguffin (the Matrix of Leadership) that could destroy earth instead of simply sending it off-planet or keeping it in their possession and sticking around to fight off the evil Decepticons.

There are numerous plot points like this.  For instance, our young hero Sam Witwicky has a shard of the cube from the previous film which he used to kill Megatron.  A shard from this same cube (not the same one Sam has) is used to revive Megatron somehow.  Now Sam, instead of using the shard he has to revive Optimus Prime, who had fallen in battle earlier in the film, uses the shard to revive another Autobot, Jetstream so that he can learn that he needs to find the above-mentioned Matrix of Leadership which has a pretty good chance of reviving Optimus Prim.

Lots of revivin' going on here, whoo!

Anyway, annoying plot points aside, the film was a fun roller coaster ride, if nonsensical.  I wouldn't turn my finely developed sense of analysis on this movie - that would probably make my brain hurt.  Instead I will just enjoy it for what it is:  A summer blockbuster popcorn movie with lots of explosions and giant alien robots fighting each other.

No need to analyze it any further than that.