I love the Fourth of July. We celebrate America by eating animals and blowing stuff up -- two things liberals oppose. Why do liberals hate America?

(NSFW)

Well, OK, I've seen it. Sorry, it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting. The gangsta bots were not on screen every second, and you could edit them out without disrupting the plot too much. The "metal balls" scene was, what, 5 seconds? Otherwise, it was nice eye candy, if occasionally too blurry to know what the hell was going on. Indeed, IMO, the only time it really got lame was when they STOPPED being goofy and tried to be Dramatic. Then it fell flat, utterly.

Should there have been more plot and explanation? Yes, easily. The Pretender should have been explained. There were plenty of pointlessly jumpy bits. But overall, it was perfect summer brain-dead fun.

The opening few minutes -- an elite military force paired with Autobots, hunting Decepticons on Earth... there was a great idea for a movie, or a comic book, or a game, all in itself. Bay seemed to take the military stuff seriously without being campy and melodramatic; if he stuck entirely to that, I think he would have made a genuinely good movie, as opposed to one which was entertaining but ultimately forgettable.

Megatron as obsequious knee-bender? No. Nuh-uh. NO. My nerdrage know no limit!

Is a cranky robot using a cane to walk stupid? Hell yeah. Was it entertaining enough so that you didn't think about how stupid it was until you were out of the theatre? Also yeah. (Besides, Transformers with metal beards to show they're old are canonical!) (And, what, no one at the Air & Space museum noticed the Decepticon logo before???)

Alas, poor Ravage.

I actually liked this one better than the first -- more robots, more robots TALKING, less stupid fleshlings. Maybe the third one will have no humans at all.