So... Was it any good?
Well, like the first, it's not perfect... but it's a significant improvement on the first, while maintaining its most significant flaw: for a film about TransFormers, it had too great a focus on the humans, Sam Witwicky in particular, and too little on the Robots in Disguise. If the first film was 'a story about a boy and his first car', then this one is 'a story about a boy leaving the family home and finding his place in the world' or, to describe it in more heavy-handed terms, 'a story about a boy finding his destiny'.
Strangely, the bit about The Fallen using a machine to generate Energon by destroying our sun, and a newly-reactivated Megatron effectively being Anakin to The Fallen's Darth Sidious is very nearly relegated to the status of sub-plot. It may be rather more 'in your face' than Sam's story, but the most significant dialogue comes from the humans.
I'd have to concur with the common gripe that the majority of the Decepticons are little more than cannon fodder for the combined Autobot/Human task force N.E.S.T., in particular Sideways is literally cut in half within a few minutes of first appearing on screen, and Demolishor's entire screen time is pretty much covered in the trailers. Shame, as they're both interesting looking robots, and it would have been cool to see them in a bit more detail.
There was barely any characterisation among the robots and, again, Optimus Prime's character wasn't quite what it should be (not as bad as the impatient, thuggish Optimus of the first film, but his tone was still a little off). The twins, Skids and Mudflap, were handled reasonably well but other newcomers were not. Sideswipe had only a couple of lines, Jolt had none and seemed to be in the movie for the sole purpose of electrifying something at a key moment... And Bumblebee was back to speaking through his radio. Even returning characters were not built upon for the most part although, thankfully, the relationship between Megatron and Starscream carried a bit more weight.
The most impressive Decepticon was easily Soundwave - orbiting Earth, scanning broadcasts, hacking networks and violating our communication satellites with his fibre-optic tentacles. After him Ravage would come next on purely technical grounds - his movement was flawless. Wheelie - a mini-bot even more foul-mouthed than Frenzy taking a similar sneak-spy role - probably had the most character (if not the most dialogue) of any of the robots.
Story-wise, it was rather patchy, and jumped around too much. I found it quite disconcerting that Megatron was delivering exposition during a woodland battle with Optimus Prime, and many of the scene-cuts seemed too abrupt.
It was interesting to see the role of Sam's parents was improved upon - yes, they were there for comic relief, but they also has some worthwhile scenes... though the 'significant' scene between Sam and his parents during the final battle was far too heavy-handed and obvious.
Considering Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci co-wrote the recent Star Trek reboot, it seems bizarre that the quality of this story is so far below that of Trek. Perhaps JJ Abrams made all the difference.
There were comments from Michael Bay quoted all over the web about how they were all rushing to finish the movie in time for its release date (not surprising, considering it kept getting pushed forward!), and I suspect the film may have benefitted by a little extra time - vehicle models were apparently reused between the constituent parts of Devastator and a separate bunch of Decepticons who, based on leaked materials, appeared to be equivalent to the G1 Constructicons. It was rather jarring to see the fully formed Devastator wrecking a pyramid, while Rampage, Mixmaster and a back-from-the-dead Bonecrusher were going head to head with N.E.S.T. alongside a host of 'Protoform' Decepticons... That must have been due either to a lack of time or money... possibly both. But, since the Decepticons were there to be mown down, it hardly mattered that many of them didn't even get to take on an Earth form.
All of this sounds rather negative but I honestly enjoyed the movie. After being disappointed by the first, I've kind of adjusted my expectations - this is a whole new continuity of TransFormers, and needs to be viewed as such. While The Fallen, Jetfire, the mysterious 'Alice' and the Matrix of Leadership were largely dealt short shrift, the movie in general was very enjoyable and kept the pace going all the way through. The action was constant and far clearer than in the original, and fewer of the comic relief moments felt tacked-on. I'll definitely be getting the DVD.
As far as the toys go, who knows? There weren't that many new Autobots (the team of 3 motorcycles are, frankly, a bit crappy-looking), and several of the Decepticons may or may not have been new characters with the same alternate modes as robots from the original, so there aren't gone to be that many new toys, other than videogame-only characters and those that are completely made up for the toyline. My bank balance may be safer than I thought...
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