It’s no secret that a lot of people were pretty unhappy with Transformers 2. Still, the movie has its defenders. Unfortunately, the film’s star isn’t one of them.

Talking to the AP in Cannes, Autobot buddy Shia LaBeouf had this to say about Transformers 2: “When I saw the second movie, I wasn't impressed with what we did. There were some really wild stunts in it, but the heart was gone.” According to Shia, “we got lost. We tried to get bigger. It's what happens to sequels. It's like, how do you top the first one? You've got to go bigger. Mike went so big that it became too big, and I think you lost the anchor of the movie. ... You lost a bit of the relationships. Unless you have those relationships, then the movie doesn't matter. Then it's just a bunch of robots fighting each other.”

Hopefully he’s not the only person involved with Transformers 3 who sees where they went wrong. If Michael Bay sees it too, maybe the franchise can get back to what worked in the first movie. Shia’s comments about what they’re planning for the third movie though, aren’t exactly heartening. After saying their mistake with the first movie was in trying to go too big, he immediately touts Transformers 3 as “It's going to be the craziest action movie ever made, or we failed.” And his answer to the missing character relationships in the second movie is to promise this for the third one: “There's going to be a lot of death, human death. This time, they're targeting humans.”

I’m not encouraged.