Transformers 2 - How Good Would This Be If It Were An 18...?

First things first - any film in which giant robots relentlessly beat each other up while just about everything explodes in the background can't possibly be bad.

However, no film – no film – should ever leave any self-respecting All Action No Plotter musing halfway through that it's gone on rather a long time. And this, regrettably, is why Transformers 2 will never be granted access into the pantheon of all-time All-Action-No-Plot celluloid greats.

Transformers 2 is an entertaining action film, no mistake. As mentioned, giant robot fights; lots of crash, bang and walloping, some inspired comedy moments and eye-candy a-plenty. The film begins with the likeable, if bafflingly-named, Shia LeBoeuf heading off to college to lead a normal life. This plan lasts about 30 seconds, before a robot war spanning numerous millennia and across several planets kicks off.

Thus, before you know it, LeBoeuf is being chased through forests, buildings and ancient Egyptian ruins, by humongous robots, who would be the ultimate killing machines were it not for the fact that their aim and ruthlessness mysteriously desert them whenever their target is within touching distance.

(Actually, that's a lie – they do occasionally pop a good-guy, but this is no impediment to the film's producers, who merrily resurrect them with minimal explanation whenever the plot needs them back.)

The action sequences are undeniably enjoyable, old-school carnage presented so well you rather forget that it's all CGI. The men are macho and heroic; the women suitably drop-dead gorgeous and gratuitously filmed, with Megan Fox joined by delectable blonde Isabel Lucas. Romance is kept to a level most men should be able to follow and stomach, and the plot is not particularly relevant - some gubbins about destroying the sun.

Mildlly irritating then, that for a film with such minimal plot there was so much meandering midway through. The heroes went on the run from the police, then broke into a museum, then were magically whisked away (I kid ye not) to Egypt, then traipsed through a desert and into some old building and back out into the desert and through more ruins... None of which was really necessary, and all of which contributed to that rarest of beasts, a film well over two hours in length.

Would it have been a better film had it been given a higher rating than 12A? By jiminy it would have (but then, what wouldn't?). As with the original, the attempts to make the film child-friendly rather detracted from the spectacle, and left me wanting to make small children cry. Someone somewhere ought to be sacked for the introduction of two excruciatingly annoying slapstick autobots, in the Jar-Jar Binks mould.

More bloody deaths, and general sex, drugs and rock'n'roll would have benefited Transformers 2 enormously – but I'm possibly digressing at this point into the mystical, celestial world of The Best All Action No Plot Films Ever.

It's not a must-see, and the novelty of the original is understandably lacking, but for mindless big-screen action Transformers 2 does tick that all-important box labelled All Action No Plot.