By Laurence Washington

I think I’ve seen “Transformers Revenge of The Fallen” before. It was called “Transformers (07).”  Now I’m sure that filmmaker Michael Bay was shooting for a new and improved movie. However, all he managed to conjure up was a louder, longer, and more smashed into bits type of movie.

All the explosions, crashing machinery and slow motion running through flying sand, wasn’t enough to keep the movie from becoming tedious at times. Basically it’s the same shtick: shape-shifting bad robots (the Decepticons) are battling the good robots (the Autobots). Except this time around, instead of battling for Earth, the whole universe is at stake.

It’s two years since the Decepticons and Autobots last conflict. Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is off to college. His girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) stops by to visit Sam when the war between the robots begins again. It isn’t long before the pair and Sam’s roommate are off on an international hunt for a missing matrix artifact hidden inside a pyramid that will resurrect Optimus Prime, the Autobot’s leader who gets killed helping the U.S military fight the evil Decepticons.

Tyrese Gibson and Josh Duhamel return as U.S. soldiers helping the Autobots, and Sam’s dimwitted parents (Kevin Dunn, Julie White) also get involved in the fighting while on holiday in Europe. The story’s Indiana Jones-style ending takes place in the Egyptian desert where man battles the nasty metallic monsters.

It should be mentioned that several film critics have been put off by the jive-talking twin Autobots, Skids and Mudflap -- accusing the characters of fostering negative stereotypes in the tradition of Jar Jar Binks or Minstrel characters, but films such as “Transformers” are critic proof and will probably yield millions.