If you owe an adolescent male a trip to the movies or have not yet recognized that director Michael Bay (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor) possesses the aesthetic sensibilities of an adolescent male, take in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. If neither circumstance applies yet you insist on encouraging said film, I may hold you culpable in my injuries. I haven’t felt this assaulted by epic juvenilia since I took my goddaughter to see Princess Diaries 2. Consider Transformers to be the yang to that yin. It yanged all over me, in fact. (I could write an entire piece on the film as militaristic propaganda but I’ll leave that to others.)

The movie is produced "in association with Hasbro," the toy company, and adolescents will be happy that the film wastes no time unloading the toys. An opening sequence proves that giant, evil robots (Decepticons) stomped on humans circa 17,000 B.C. Much more stomping ensues throughout, so that college campuses, cities, even the pyramids and monuments of Egypt take a beating under the wheels of humongous car/robot hybrids. (That mysterious look on the Sphinx’s face now resembles pained embarrassment.)

It’s been two years, the press release tells me, since Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and the goodly Autobots rescued modern-day Earth from the invading Decepticons. It feels like two years before this movie resolves young Mr. Witwicky’s current challenges, which begin when Optimus Prime, the Grand Poobah of the Autobots, looks solemnly down upon the college freshman and says, "I’m sorry, Sam, but the last fragment of the Allspark has been stolen." Damn.

Everybody wants that Allspark, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. Before you can say National Treasure, Sam, his ably lip-glossed girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) and various robots—including a couple of sidekicks who make the jive crows in Dumbo seem delicate ethnic renderings—are following ornate messages ("When the dawn alights the dagger’s tip the three kings will reveal the door") in an attempt to stop the revenge of a big, bad robot who never got in enough stomping.

LeBoeuf still acts like a smug punk pretending to be a sensitive tough while Fox always appears ready for action—though not the kind of action involving intergalactic battle (when first we see her she’s in micro-shorts straddling a sedentary motorcycle as though it’s just promised her a juicy role as Angelina Jolie’s nympho sister).

Look, I’ve got nothing against dumb, noisy fun—and I know my nephew will thrill to the endless explosions—but Revenge of the Fallen is insulting noise and not much fun. It only bothers to dimly imagine the perimeters of its own world (we’re supposed to believe that most of the populace has yet to note the existence of these building-sized, motorized beasts). Even before the mass destruction, the cities on screen look empty of all human life—just like the movie. Aside from the shattering revelation that Sam loves Mikaela and vice versa, the film’s emotional turning point hinges on one computer generated special effect telling other computer generated special effect to fulfill its destiny.

We should, I suppose, be thrilled at the two-hour-and-fifteen minute mark when ol’ Optimus Prime regains his strength. I had no feeling for Optimus because by that point I had lost all feeling in my gluteus maximus.