Making Movie Critics Shut Up Is The Right Of All Sentient Beings

Let me begin by addressing the buhmillion movie critics out there who are sucking it right now: We don't need you anymore. We're tired of you trying to tell us what constitutes a "great" or "prefect" movie. They can't all be like the one you saw in film school, journalism class or your first month on the job. Comedies, horror flicks, action/adventure pictures and dramas are no all cut from the same cloth and can't all be held to the same standard. We're happy movies like Return of the King and The Dark Knight won awards, because it tells us that stories we like can be made into movies both the fans and the casual watcher will appreciate. But you're no longer the gatekeeper. Transformers is a story of two factions of robots from another planet fight each other over resources; that implies a movie with explosions, warfare and (hopefully) awesome fighting scenes. It does not imply a ton of scenes with humans, and you're going to have to deal with that. And on a personal note: I've endured "Pokeformers," dumb human sidekicks, a Teen Titan infection and "Dinobots: UNITE!;" some snobby reviews will never deter me.

Bottom Line: when I go to the theaters, I'm looking for the cinematic version of this:


In all it's CGI glory.

Now for the movie.

If you've never played a video game after 1995, you'll probably get dizzy with the scene changes. The special effects rock; you haven't lived until you've seen Decepticons and Autobots fight in a forest using giant trees like 2-by-4s. The best character in the movie is Judy Witwicky (Julie White), who, between her emotions over her son leaving college, her (first?) experience with "special brownies" and being kidnapped, handles herself just as you would expect a mother would. Shia LaBeouf's Sam has grown up a bit and after admitting she mailed it in during the last movie Megan Fox has decided to channel Liv Tyler's performance from Armageddon. Josh Duhamel's and Tyrese Gibson's characters, while admirable here, would have been better off staring in that other Hasbro movie thats deal with the military.

The Plot: Sam Witwicky, preparing for college, stumbles upon a piece of the AllSpark that he didn't ram into Megatron's chest in the 1st movie. After being zapped with billions of bits of data, he becomes the target for the Deceptions (including a resurrected Megatron) who needs what he knows in order to complete a new, even more world-ending scheme than last time. The Autobots fight to protect him; the human characters come along for the ride.

My Scale: as far as a regular flick goes, 2 & half stars; they could have given some lines for some of the minor Transformers to other characters (I really though Arcee would get more time, but she was cool in the scenes she was in), and the human character Leo Spitz could have been left out entirely. As far as a summer movie: I give it an 7.5/10: lots of action, some funny moments (not as much from the Autobots as they do more fighting/government schmoozing now, surprisingly the Deceptions pick up the slack) and one genuine sensitive moment (see: Julie White; I tell ya, if she isn't lined up for a TV show now she will be soon).

If you're a fan or Transformers, you've probably already seen it, but if not it's worth the admission. If you're a summer movie goer looking for his/her action quota, it should fit the bill.