Michael Bay = explosions. Big, big ass explosions. What can you say? That’s just how The Bay likes to roll. Here’s a behind-the-scenes shot of a scene from “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen” (I’m still not crazy about that title; sounds like a toyline instead of a big-time Hollywood movie — or another lame George Lucas “Star Wars” prequel), showing off some massive explosions on a highway. Yup, looks like The Bay’s in fine form.

Here’s a theory: maybe director Mathieu Kassovitz knew his movie sucked (with or without FOX’s interference, as many reviews, even those based on his longer, UNinterfered with cut (which, according to Kassovitz himself, only runs about 15 minutes longer) seems to remark the same thing — that is, this thing is bad), which prompted him to go out and blast the movie in public, blaming it all on FOX. Really? The fact that your movie only has a .07% freshness rating at RottenTomatoes, as of this writing, is because FOX edited down your movie for pacing, Mathieu? I don’t know about that. In any case, here’s a round-up of reviews for the sci-fi actioner, which I am sad to report, I’m not going to pay money to see. This thing just sounds Godawful.

I’m a fan of Ricky Schroder. Yup, all the way back from Silver Spoons on up to his tour of duty on the oh-so-adult NYPD Blue. Then Ricky got into directing, and I dug his boxing movie “Black Cloud”. Really, if you’ve never seen it, I recommend giving it a shot. There are some really good visuals there, especially coming from a first-time director with a limited budget. He was also good in last yera’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth”. Now, after a stint fighting terrorists on TV’s 24, Ricky Schroder is now back behind the camera, and is set to direct a fantasy movie called “Hellhounds” for the Sci Fi Channel.

Now you may be asking yourself, “What? Who wants 177 minutes of ‘Waterworld’? The 136 minutes version is more than enough for me, thank you very much!” Well if you said that, then you’re probably not a fan of the movie. Fortunately for both of us, I am. Yes, I liked “Waterworld”. I don’t care what anyone says, but I thought the Kevin Costner movie had its moments. At least, until they got kind of nuts with all the jet ski stunts and what have you. But for the most part, I dug the film’s world, and liked how they shot the entire thing on water. It was a movie with a pretty good idea, but somewhere along the way, it sort of got corny and kind of cartoonish. Thanks, Dennis Hopper!

Max Makowski. What? Who? Who the hell is Max Makowski? He’s the guy who is going to be directing the “Voltron” live-action big-screen movie, that’s who. At least, according to the guys over at Latino Review, who have been right on this Voltron stuff all along, so I’m definitely not saying they might even be wrong here. Okay, so Max Makowski is going to direct the “Voltron” movie, which is already moving forward, with the studio planning to shoot it ala Zack Snyder’s “300″ — i.e. tons and tons of green screen work. Which is fine with me. I don’t think they could have possibly made this thing on practical effects, not with the sheer amount of effects they would need for all the giant robot lions and especially when they form the big robot guy.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that “Jumper 2″ is coming sooner rather than later. Writer/director Doug Liman has already made it very clear that he wrote the first one with intentions of spinning it off into a trilogy, which may or may not explain why many people complained that the film seemed incomplete or muddled. That, apparently, was done on purpose, as Liman always intended to do more than one more on the subject, and, one presumes, he would explain more in the sequels. Or anyways, that’s the word.

From Heroes to Astro Boy? It would seem to, as news from SuperheroHype is that Kristen Bell (you may know her as Elle Bishop on Heroes, or Veronica Mars on the show, well, Veronica Mars) has landed the leading female role in the movie “Astro Boy”. Well, she’ll be landing her voice, anyway, as “Astro Boy” is a CGI animated movie. And not just any movie, either, a pretty big one, if the cast already assembled is any indication. They include Nicolas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Bill Nighy, Nathan Lane, Eugene Levy and Freddie Highmore as Astro Boy himself. Now that’s a cast!

Well I certainly had high hopes for Vin Diesel’s “Babylon A.D.”, mostly because it’s been a while since we got a good ol fashion post-apocalyptic action adventure. That was before I read this interview with the film’s director, Mathieu Kassovitz, who calls the final cut of the film “pure violence and stupidity”. Ouch. He goes on, too! And no, the Fox studio isn’t going to be too happy with their French director. If this isn’t the last time the two work together, I’ll eat my hat, which will be kind of hard, as I don’t even wear a hat.

Looking back at Vin Diesel and David Twohy’s 2004 sci-fi epic “The Chronicles of Riddick”, I think most people don’t realize how complex and ambitious the movie was. And maybe that was the problem. It was just so massive, and on such a huge compass, with so many things it wanted to tell, that it sort of had audiences running for the hills instead of trying to digest it all. But I loved it, even though I thought its one big failure was just that — it was just too darn complex and expansive for an average movie crowd. So what about a sequel? Well it’s been 4 years, and we haven’t gotten one yet.

I know what you’re thinking, “Holy shit, is Michael Bay trying to kill Shia Labeouf or what”? Of course it’s just burnt make-up that is covering the young actor. These shots are from the set of “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen”, which shows a badly “burned” Shia LaBeouf walking around the set with his shirt off. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have a beer gut, huh? I guess Sam Witwicky’s in for a pretty hard time in the sequel. But hey, at least he has Megan Fox to help him out. Lucky bastard.