Transformers: all flash, all noise, null substance.

Just got back from watching Transformers today, and uh, well, to put this bluntly: it sucks. Let's get to the pros first: I love watching the stuffs get blown up. True, the child in me jumped in delight whenever there were explosions and buildings obliterated. I love seeing gigantic robots smackdown, blew up, and pretty much went to extreme overkill trying to reduce each other to a pile of scrap. That's why I love the destruction-happy Terminator 3. But seriously, the actions happened so fast in Transformers I literally only saw blurs in the screen and was left wondering, "what the hell's going on now?" The adult in me felt like he badly wanted to grab one of those colossal robots by the legs and throw them at the screen. There's no need to use your brain when watching this, folks. This is typical American movie at one of its loudest and worst (I guess that pretty much explains it all). The story is absolutely ridiculous, devoid of any class, substance, or heart. Some of the scenes and characters were completely pointless. One scene shows a guy (an army guy) sliding underneath one of the evil bots shooting grenades at it. Oh! The bravado! Americans are cool! What is this, a military ad? The acting, script and writing were atrocious. Plot holes the size of robot fists riddled the whole story. Shameless marketing placements abound. Nokia. eBay. Panasonic. Apple. The Army. Hummer. Pontiac. Cars. Cars. Cars!! The characters (oh my God...) were incredibly nauseating, so cliched and stereotyped. In fact, they were so annoying that I left the movie disappointed because pretty much all of them survived in the end. I kept praying that one of them would get blown up by a stray missile, sliced in half or crushed to death underneath one of the robots' feet, but unfortunately, they never happened. In fact, no one really dies on screen (which goes to show the movie's attempt in reaching out its mechanical arms to kids and toddlers audience). The only saving grace is really the main guy, Sam Witwicky (hold on. Sam who??) played by Shia Lebouf. And oh, Bernie Mac (the car seller guy) was pretty entertaining for the 5 minutes screen time he was given, eventhough I had a hard time understanding what he said. By these "characters", I was referring to the human, flesh-and-blood characters. The robots are another story. Not surprisingly, my heart went out entirely to the evil bots (called the Decepticons) because they're absolutely badasses compared to the good bots. And because (surprise!) they didn't talk and spew as much irritating pop references as the good bots do. Some of the good bots (okay, okay. Autobots!) acted like 14-year old punks rather than coming across as tough, noble giants. At one scene, the evil head honcho recovered from a rubble in a fight with some wounded men lying near his arm. He scoffed, "Disgusting," then flicked his finger at the nearest guy, sending him flying across the street. My thoughts exactly.

Despite the bad overweighting the goods, I will still buy the DVD when it come out, though. The adult in me might have walked away in disgust, but the brainless child in me is cherishing all the mayhem he had witnessed. What he could make out of it, at least.