Hey, I feel your pain but here's my perspective on it:

First off I'm easily one of the biggest TFormers fans on this site, at least as far as Generation 1 is concerned.  I don't know much, nor do I care about anything after that (movies aside) including Gen 2, Armada, Beast Wars, etc.  I mean, I've spent thousands of $ on Gen 1 reissues for collector's purposes, and have the entire Japanese Dream Wave and Encore lines (Not to mention all the toys I have from back in the '80s, destroyed as they may be).  And the animated Transformers: The Movie from the '80s is one of my favorite movies of all time, period.

That said, I really did enjoy the first of Michael Bay's transformers films.  So much in fact, that when Paramount decided to go exclusively with HD DVD instead of Blu-ray, I actually went out and bought an HD DVD player just for Transformers; I just had to have it in HD right away, even though I knew Blu-ray would win out and I'd have to buy it again.  Anyway, the first movie was by no means perfect, but was still a great movie with moments that were absolutely bad-ass (the base attack at the beginning) and parts that needed to go (such as Prime's "Sorry, my bad" line).  All in all it was very enjoyable and was a great set-up for what could have been a terrific sequel and overall trilogy.

But it's the second movie that didn't sit well with me at all, gorgeous CGI aside.  It's like they took all the little things that needed fixing from the first and expanded on them for the second.  The two hip-hop autobots sucked, Wheelie and Jetfire sucked, Sam's college roomate was probably the worst (next to Megan Fox's acting), and did we really need John Tuturro's character again (working in a deli with his mom... seriously?)?  Then there's the Devastator, who was admittedly very cool.. until they showed his huge wrecking ball testicles (again, really?).  It's like they focused way too much on making the movie funny for little kids and the whole family, same problem with the Star Wars prequels.  Now the big Optimus Prime fight scene, the Devastator's transformation and Tony Todd's massive voice were all fantastic, but there was way more I didn't like than what I did, completely opposite of the first movie.

That said, I'll definitely see the third movie because first, I'm a sucker for the transformations, and second, I have faith that it'll be better than the last one.

That's because you are setting your expectation outside of what is and was Transformers. I loved the cartoons and to me these are essentially the same with the only part I would like being changed is far more emphasis on the robots and less on the humans.

However, I would agree that in part 2 Megan Fox should have just been left out entirely. I hope his new girlfriend has a role that is actually important to the story.

I'm really not, I just want a movie that doesn't insult my intelligence. Plenty of comic books pull it off with premises just as ridiculous or more so than Transformers. I'm not giving Bay a pass for making a shit movie just because of the source material, especially when his "best" movies are barely passable as cinema. He's just a really, really bad director.

I can see you point in the 2nd movie and yes the twins were a little annoying and out of place. But, just as I love EP1 of SW jar-jar and all, I loved Transformers 2, twins and slapstick comedy within.

A part that you didn't mention which also should get some flack was how Megatron went from super badass in part one to essentially Starscreamin part 2. He didn't even do that in the face of Unicron in the original movie. That's one thing that I thought was messed up in the process of reimaging the character and even out of place of what was presented in part one.

Aside from all of that I still saw it twice in the theater and will definitely see part 3 and beyond if possible. btw, I've always considered buying all the G1 and 2 toys again.

But that's just it, a movie can be fun and entertaining without being intelligent. You just have to accept the world being presented by the movie as it is, without real world ... realism.

I didn't say it has to BE intelligent, I just want it to not INSULT my intelligence with bad acting, huge plot holes, shitty dialogue, and poorly executed attempts at humor. Big difference.

holy hell this could be big

...and with those arguable issues, it was still a fun and interesting movie and experience. I watch movies from the point of view of that universe being presented.

In Bay's universe for Transformers there were a few issues presented and Megan should have been removed in 2. Beyond that its not inconceivable to have robots like the twins or Jazz who was also more 'urban'.

Other acting was not that much of an issue to remove enjoyment from the fantasy.

A bigger presence of robots only would have been desired, but that's a Transformer fanboy speaking. Not the mass consumer who may not even know much about the toy line.

The weaker Megatron was annoying as I mentioned above.

Beyond that, what was such a plot hole that it could in anyway derail the enjoyment of a fictional story?

So this huge bad-ass robot is called unicron ? 

Like this unicron only with the R and the O switched ? 

LOL

''Cybertronian God of Darkness and Chaos, Chaos Bringer, Universal Dominator'' with his buddy called Dead End...