Why the Autobot leader Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen) forms words with his mechanical mouth when he has no air to manipulate while passing through the opening, I really don't know. And why the little ADHD robot that transforms from a CD player apparently gets off on downloading information, I really would rather avoid getting into. Speaking of disturbing moments, I also could have done without director Bay wanking his ego when a teenage kid yells out, "This is easily a hundred times cooler than Armageddon." I feel dirty just relating those two moments to you. Bay, of course, is all over the place on this one. His camera moving and shaking so much you cannot tell what's happening. To compensate, he saves the slow-motion sequences for times when nothing is happening (people getting out of a helicopter, a robot jumping out of the sand and not doing anything). The special effects have an unnatural glow and don't interact with the environment quite right.

If you like the idea of giant robots fighting, look elsewhere. Bay and the script unbelievably decide to cut away from giant-robot brawls on three separate occasions. Bumblebee's first fight is not on screen, and neither of the climatic confrontations between Optimus Prime and the evil leader Megatron (voice of… Hugo Weaving?) is worth watching too long apparently. Instead, the screenplay shows the humans and how they help out. Megatron can't be too much of a threat to humanity when the 50-foot tall robot can't even catch a scrawny kid. If you like the idea of robots participating in a comedy of errors involving Sam trying to keep the robots in the backyard hidden from his parents, well, you'll be happy to know there's an extended sequence involving that, and it's just as lame as it sounds. Any part of the script not directly involving the robots is a generic plot machination, whether it's Sam trying to win over the girl or the massive government conspiracy to cover up the robots' existence. In a similar vein, about 85 percent of the dialogue is comprised of generic lines like, "This is not good," "Did you see that," "Shoot," or "This is not going well."

The humor isn't really humor; it's just people saying phrases of disbelief after something extraordinary happens. Optimus Prime gets more philosophical than he did in the opening narration, and it's just as funny. There's an inordinate amount of useless flashbacks. Transformers, basically, is material inherently aimed at and hence written for kids that's made and not adapted for teenagers and adults. "Cool, mom," cheers a little kid as Optimus and Megatron fight. No, not really kid. Not even close.