Machines have feelings too.

In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the follow-up to the lucrative original, which grossed nearly $800 million worldwide, director Michael Bay gives us the soft side of those delicate Autobots, the giant heaps of bolts who came to Earth only to have their rear-ends kicked and sent back to their home planet Cybertron in shame and tears.

Paramount Pictures

Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf make a run for it in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

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They are so misunderstood. And who knew they were so sensitive?

Bay goes awkwardly inward with this sequel to the 2007 mega-hit, giving us machines that talk to one another. In the process, Bay shows he has no concept of communication, whether between humans or between clunky robots. Whenever the director even tinkers with anything subtle, it ends up a disaster (as seen in Pearl Harbor) or in any scene in any of his films where there are no explosions.

As a result, Transformers: Revenge lays out a series of scenes in which the evil Decepticons rip up whatever confronts them, whether it be armies, famous landmarks or simple infrastructures. The special-effects team again turns out dazzling displays of giant robots turning into 18-wheelers, or Camaros, or airplanes, and then back again.

Most of the same principals, both in front of and behind the camera, return. Shia LaBeouf again plays Sam Witwicky, the naive teen who now wants to go away to college and be a normal student. But, like Michael Corleone, he keeps being dragged back in.

Both sets of robots have returned in various forms, but it seems it is the Decepticons that want something Sam possesses, making Autobot Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen) protective of his human wards, which eventually includes obligatory eye-candy Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox). Those crazy knuckle-head kids run for it, even dragging Agent Simmons (John Turturro) out of retirement.

Meanwhile, Bay seems to be having loads of fun blowing up stuff, choreographing frantic chase scenes and ripping through whatever might create the most noise.

When resting solely on the action, few directors succeed like Bay. And those viewers seeking nothing but action will be satiated. But when Bay or any of his writers tries to capture human emotion — or even robot emotion — the wheels come off.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

**

Rated PG-13, 150 minutes.

Now playing.