Robots: 2, audience: 0

Movie theaters across the country have reported that during its mid-week opening, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” accomplished exactly what it meant to: standing-room only crowds. Theaters have also reported that many audience fragments, sometimes even half, walked out before the 150-minute runtime had concluded. That’s ok, they paid at the door.

This accomplished point one on the studios’ and filmmakers’ agendas when they set out to make a sequel to their 2007 summer blockbuster. Point two was that Director Michael Bay would make the movie the way he wanted: loud, long and dumb.

That’s not always a bad thing. Big, flashy movies strictly there as cheap entertainment can be some of the most fun experiences one can get into on a hot summer day and can even leave us with fond memories of a good time at the theater with friends. Of course, the movie’s stupidity or campiness must be fun. We’re not talking about great art here, just something to can smile and laugh about. Bay’s robotic romp decided even that would be too highbrow for an audience. As a result, the movie perturbs you for sitting through it, or it makes you too dumb to feel anything.

Bay wanted this movie to cater to the lowest common denominator, and boy oh boy, did he succeed.

“Transformers” is a mess. That’s not to be cute or snide, it is genuinely messy. Almost nothing in there fit together or made sense. The plot is so convoluted yet nonexistent at the same time. There’s a basic story in there about the evil robots destroying the world, seemingly just because that’s what evil robots are supposed to do. Things get way too confusing between who’s doing what and why. Plot points are introduced and destroyed simultaneously. It’s like the writers wanted to keep pushing the plot into further factors and the director kept telling them, “Who cares? More noise!” You can almost hear them arguing about it.

Speaking of writers, it was disappointing to see this sequel’s addition of the talented Ehren Kruger to the screenwriting roster didn’t help things. He’s shown real skill with holding an audience’s attention with scripts like “The Ring” and “Arlington Road.”

All of the original characters are back: Sam, Mikaela, Maj. Lennox and even Agent Simmons. The same Autobots and Decepticons return, but now there’s a whole lot more of them, which would be fantastic since a problem with the first “Transformers” was the lack of a deeper look at the actual Transformers. But we don’t look at the characters of any of the new guys either. There are dozens more, and they’re only role is to impress us by showing us how cool they look when fighting. Sometimes they transform just to walk a few feet before changing back. All humans and robots are also morons who talk like rich white kids pretending to be street rappers.

When most filmmakers take on an established project like this, it’s because they have a genuine love for the material. Bay seems to not care about it so much. His main priority was to film big action and sexy young girls then try to work the Transformers and some form of continuity in around that. It doesn’t work.

Bay also has no sense of timing for sexual content, which is terrible when he banks so much of the film’s laugh factor on it. First there are the women, but girls would be a more accurate word. Every woman who shows up onscreen who isn’t Sam’s mother is an indiscriminate, scantily-clad, party girl who thinks of 25 as middle-age. Even Decepticons are now transforming into these coeds. The heroine strips outdoors unnecessarily, and at least she stops there. Since Bay couldn’t include more than this among the human actors, he looked for any excuse to throw in some humping, whether it be with two dogs or a miniature robot and a hot babe’s leg. The problem is that there were no buildups to these shots; they just happen. In the name of lewdness, editing had to take one for the team.

Scenes like these are too messy to be funny. Let’s face it, when two people are thrown through the air by a massive explosion just a few feet away and their only physical results are to end up laying (perfectly fine, no scratches) with her face in his crotch, even the most juvenile dudes will be saying, “OK, already!”.

Overall, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” has more robots, more fights, more fire, more effects and more sex, yet none of the appeal one might associate with these things in a summer popcorn flick. It’s true that people want more bang for the buck, but they don’t want just the bang, not even the people that are the actual age bay assumes we all are. Somewhere around “Transformer’s” 4,000th boom, the child in the seat next to me was nodding off. I envied him.