Bob: And look at that crowd. Hello, I’m Bob Costas, together with my long time college, Ahmad Rashad. We’re here at the Paramount booth of Dreamworks Stadium today, and ready for what is sure to be an exceptionally exciting filmatic match up.

Ahmad: Absolutely right, Bob. What we have here today is a historic match. Any time you have the forces of good and evil locking horns in this manner there’ll always be a high level of excitement in the air. All of Cybertron and Earth’s finest have turned out today to watch these two implacable rivals going head to head in their first battle on the live action silver screen. This has got to be a tense day for both parties, Bob.

Bob: Yes, indeed, Ahmad. And let’s pause to take a closer look at these teams. First of all, we have the heavily favored Autobots, self-described “autonomous, robotic organisms” and native to the planet of Cybertron. Created millions of years ago by a mysterious, energistic being they know only as Primus, and firm believers in the inalienable right of all sentient life forms to autonomy, self-expression and self-direction, the Autobots face stiff competition today.

Ahmad: You better believe it, Bob. They’ll be facing off today against the Evil Forces of the Decepitcons, their perennial rivals for control of Cybertron, as well as the vast energy resources of the planet Earth. And while I can never figure out what makes either group believe human race will just voluntarily hand those resources over, the Decepticons at least appear to have come to terms with this, Bob. They prefer to take what they need from wherever they need it, firmly believing in the philosophy of Might Makes Right, they wont hesitate to overwhelm any, comparatively primitive, human efforts to oppose them.

Bob: That willingness to do whatever it takes and use whatever means necessary may give the Decepticons an advantage in today’s match up. This is the first time these two teams have met each other on the big screen since the 1980s and the Decepticons are certainly looking for some payback. I sure you remember, Ahmad, the Decepitcons’ rousing defeat at the Autobots hands in 1986.

Ahmad: Who could forget, Bob? While the Decepticons led the Autobots going into the third quarter a quick turnaround occurred when future-Rookie of the Year Hot Rot used the Autobot Matrix of Leadership to destroy Unicron, the ancient, teraphageous counterpart to the Autobot’s benevolent progenitor, Primus. Though not technically a Decepticon, having preceded them by several infinities of millennia, Unicron nevertheless implicitly sided with the Evil Forces by bargaining with Decepticon leader, Megatron. Reconstruction him as Galvitron in exchange for fealty, Unicron granted the Decepticon leader a slate of incredible superpowers, including the voice of Leonard Nemoy…but we won’t go into that.

Bob: No, we certainly won’t. Unicron’s defeat at the hands of Hot Rot not only secured the young Autobot a place as back-up quarterback but ensured the Autobot’s eventual reoccupation of Cybertron. You know the Decepticons have got to be looking for revenge on that one. We’ll see how coach Michael Bay maneuvers them toward their eventual goal of victory and the ultimate, unquestioned domination of the universe. Though I don’t mind tell you, Ahmad, that the fans are overwhelmingly cheering for the Autobot’s today. They definitely seem to have the home court advantage.

Ahmad: No doubt about that, Bob. We’ll be checking in periodically throughout, but for now we take you down to the floor, for in-depth analysis by Cybertronian expert Dr. Psy Chosis, sure to be very interesting, wouldn’t you say, Bob?

Bob: I sure would, Ahmad. Now to Dr. Chosis on the ground floor of the Great War.

Thanks, Bob. Ahmad. Nice to hear from you.

As far as I’m concerned, Transformers first aired at 5:30 in the morning on my local Fox affiliate. This was back in the halcyon days when the Fox Network bought syndicated series like bulk food and slapped them anywhere a hole in the programming schedule presented itself. Many a school day began with me dragging myself out of bed, the better to catch the theme song and learn the title of this latest episode in the seemingly-never-ending “battle to destroy the Evil Forces of the Decepticons.”

For a time, the Transformers headed up a genuine, unofficial, mid-80s Hour of Power, their show followed up by that realest of Real American Heroes, G.I. Joe. I often dreamed of an epic crossover event between these two favorite marketing tie-ins. I imagined Cobra Commander shitting himself in fear at the sight of an Autobot assault force rolling over the horizon. I imagined G.I. Joe’s hanging from every open window and flat surface their new their allies could provide, lasers ineffectually blazing at Cobra’s positions. I imagined the unholy alliance between Serpentor and Megatron…not that Megatron would ever lower himself to an equal partnership with so puny a creature. I imagined the whole thing would end with Optimus Prime shaking Duke’s hand as bald eagles soared through sparkling fields of fire works. At sunset. Ironhide and Sgt. Slaughter would arm wrestling in the background next to a stand of American flags that waved safely in the breeze, secure for another day from all things Evil and uncommercialized.

Both shows grew up onto the silver screen. Both spawned quickly forgotten spin-offs that no one seemed to like very much…except for me. (“Doc Psy: Maximize!”) And now, my dream safely dead, I find that it’s come true. In a horribly twisted way, to be sure…though in retrospect it seems depressingly inevitable. Not just that the finished product would be crap (I was sure it would be from the moment I heard of the project)…but that it would be such blandly predictable crap, so pedestrian in its offenses.

I blame Michael Bay, of course. I could take the hard way out and blame something abstract, like the American psyche of this so-called post-September Eleventh World…but I’d rather blame Michael Bay for this bastardization of my childhood escapism. All the cool critics are doing it and it’s not as if I’ve never stooped to that level myself. My review of Armageddon may be a screeching anachronism but its sentiments still stand. California lawmakers should impose an immediate restraining order on Mr. Bay, keeping him to a minimum of five hundred feet from any movie making equipment at all times. No more iBooks or MassiveAttack for you, Mike. No more multi-million dollar budgets. No more invitations to dine with Will Smith and no more opportunity to sneak a peak down his wife’s dress. You’ve officially abused the privilege, Mike (and I know everyone says this), but this time, Mr. Bay, it really is personal. These are my happy childhood memories your fucking with, son.

“Before time began,” an unknown voice intones (though no fan worth the name will fail to recognize Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime) “there was—the Cube. We know not where it comes from, only that it holds the power to create worlds…and fill them with life. That is how our race began.”

Followed in the footsteps of their forebears, the (as yet uncredited) writers of this piece felt no need to choose from the multiplicity of extant Cybertronian creation myths and have carved one out from scratch with this. I find the idea of sentient machines worshiping a geometric shape somehow fits. It lacks any hint of authentic creativity, but c’mon. This is a Hollywood Blockbuster™ that begins with an Opening Voice Over Prologue. “But like all great power,” Optimus continues, “some wanted [the Cube] for good, others wanted it for evil. And so began the War. A War that ravaged our planet until it was consumed by Death and Cube was lost to the far reaches of space.” You should beware movies that begin with such Opening Voiceover Prologues. They are clues to the movie’s opinion of its audience, and thus the moviemaker’s opinion of his audience. Either were too stupid to figure all this out form the movie itself, or the movie makers were too stupid to figure out another way to tell us all this.

But nevermind that for now. “And just when all hope was lost,” Optimus concludes, “message of a new discover drew us to an unknown planet called ‘Earth’…but we were already too late.” With that ominous groundwork freshly laid we switch to Qatar which the Buzzing Action Movie Title Crawl its ignorant American audience) is in the Middle East. Thank you, Buzzing Action Movie Title Crawl. Where would we be without you?

Why are we in Qatar? Because the United States of American has maintained a military base there for years. Owned and operated by the government of Qatar, Al Udeid Air Base has steadily grown since we declared our War on “Tearah”. Though its existence was classified until Vice President Cheney’s official pre-Iraq Invasion visit of 2002, it now houses at least fifty airplanes and a rotating contingent of U.S. troops. Let’s meet some of them, shall we? They will be our G.I. Joes for the remainder of the film.

Like the Joes (and, for that matter, the Transformers) every character receives their one defining personality trait, the constants of the film. There’s Fig (Amaury Nolasco), the Token Spanish Speaker (Token Cuban, if his skin tone and taste in food are any indication); Tech Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson), the Token Black Dude; The Token White Dude in glasses, a sort of Private Joker figure, except doomed to die; and Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel), who’s supposed to tug at our heartstrings in a very Steven Spielberg kind of way, since he “just want[s] to hold [his] baby daughter for the first time.” Awww…

Shortly the Captain’s transport lands and we meet this baby daughter…along with the hot wife who bore her. Other soldiers can wish they’d married television anchorwomen but Captain Lennox already has a lock on that market. Too bad his conversation is cut so short. Outside, F-18’s have escorted a rogue Black Hawk helicopter to the tarmac. It came willingly enough, though its pilot made no attempt to talk or identify himself. Spooky. Soon after touch down the Black Hawk jams base communications. Spookier still. Its engines stop, its rotors retract, and (in a brilliantly conceived, “holy shit” moment) the Black Hawk stands up—reformed into a towering, vaguely humanoid shape that proceeds to make merry sport of the U.S. military. This is the most brilliant piece of the film. Special effects, cinematography and atmosphere—even Michael Bay’s Directing for the Attention Deficient—combine to create a wonderfully awful two and a half minutes of cinematic carnage. For a jade giant monster movie fan like myself, its almost too much to ask for.

So forget about it all. We take you now to a real war zone: an American High School. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) (who, with a name like that, cannot be anything other than Our Hero) is here to make his genealogy report. You can tell it’s an American high school because Sam’s “report” is nothing more than a lame, big kid version of show n’ tell. Sam will be our Token Human for the remainder of the show. You can tell since he commands the Power of Flashbacks.

Unlike those Real American Heroes mentioned above (all top of the line Action Movie Clichés), the Token Human is an import from mainline Transformers mythos. The cartoon Autobots never rolled far without their human “friends” in tow: the improbably named mechanic-and-son team of Sparkplug and Spike. While other independent contractors were off working for a living, Sparkplug and Spike somehow always found the time to fall into some damn trap or another and require Autobot Rescuing Service to pull their fleshy hides out of the fire. (Hell, Sparkplug even got brainwashed by a mad scientist once.) Think of them as a Binary Lois Lane.

And Sam Witwicky is certainly neither of them…though he does turn out to be something of a Lois Lane, now that I think about it. He’ll be the key mover and shaker of this plot (so much so it might as well be his name on the title) and at one point he’ll even fall of a tall building forcing the real hero of the picture to come swooping in and save him. Thankfully, they’ll be no kiss afterwards. You can go rent Superman Returns for that. (Though, really, why?)

We first meet Sam as he tries to pawn off his great-great-grandfather’s Arctic Explorer memorabilia on his unsuspecting classmates. Seems Captain Archibald Witwicky was quite the Gentleman Adventurer of 1897. He led men to the Arctic Circle (“Which is a big deal,” Sam tells us) and came back a raving lunatic who spend the rest of his life babbling about some gigantic Ice Man he’d supposedly discovered.

Whatever. There are more important things going on in Sam’s life. He’s a middling student, but with visions of his first car dangling before him he’s managed to pull together three As and two thousand bucks. So it’s off to Bernie Mac’s Used POS Emporium (no, seriously) to kick off the plot. When Bernie Mac calls across the lot to his “mammy” she speaks for me (and everyone viewing this film) with her one fingered salute to him, Sam, and Sam’s dad (Kevin Dunn).

Bernie Mac, in turn, speaks for the makers of this film when he admits to us, “If I had a rock I’d bust your head.” None of the characters notice the hamhanded way that yellow, 1970s Camero maneuvers itself into Sam’s hands…or Sam into its. There’s something vaguely creepy about the notion of “robots in disguise,” particularly given the way our society worships technology so slavishly. They really could move among us unseen and we’d never know until the fatal blow came.

Which is just another reason attacking Al Udeid makes no tactical sense. At least the Decepticons were smart enough to leave no survivors…apart from our intrepid Joes. But we’ll table the Decepticon issue for now and focus on Sam’s problems. “I’ve got the car, now I need the girl,” he says. “I need money to take out the girl.” No one on Ebay seems that interested in a 19th century pair of glasses. Oh, and his parents are mad Stepford People. He’s shared a school with the girl of his dreams since first grade and she doesn’t even know his name. Ah, the lost pleasures of childhood; insecurity, paranoia, fear, perpetual letdowns...not at all like life now. No.

The girl (or Chick, since that’s what she is) Sam knows as Mikaela (Megan Fox). Think of her as a Negative Spike. For while Sparkplug was a fine, upstanding specimen of humanity (when he wasn’t under Megatron’s thrall) we find out later that Mikaela’s father was a bottom feeding, GTA-ing criminal, currently touring California’s finer correctional institutions. He’s Nicholas Cage from Gone in 60 Seconds. Such is her back story. Pay attention, we’re supposed to care.

And we’re definitely meant to fawn over Captain What’s-His-Name and his merry band of military folk, all but lost in the deserts of Qatar, last survivors of their base. Thanks to the Token Local Boy (probably a shepherd—if he were Japanese, he’d be a Kenny) they reach some outpost of civilization, pursued all the while by a beautifully rendered mechanical scorpion.

I won’t stoop to call that thing “Scorpinok.” Scorpinok was Megatron’s loyal and imbecilic Second-in-Command during the Beast Wars of prehistoric Earth. This thing exists merely to show off the brave BSU skills of the U.S. Armed Forces. After all we’re at war, and we should all support the troops with slow motion photography and sweeping pans over sunlit desert landscapes. As “Scorpinock” ambushes our plucky military heroes on the outskirts of some local Adobeville, the film puts aside its masks and reveals its true intentions. It stands naked like the crass, Pentagon-approved commercial that it is. Parents, take heed: as far as our government is concerned, this is a film made to inform your children that being a soldier is KOOL: you get to save the world and blow shit up all at the same time. What could be more American than that, I ask you?

And it is the Americans who triumph, needless to say (we’re less than half an hour into things as it is). All the standard Action Movie Troupes are in full regalia here. Men stand tall, shunning all pretenses of ducking for cover scant meters from furious explosions. Their guns shoot forever straight, never jam and never misfire. They can all, miraculously, hear each other over the cacophony of battle. Radio links are for pussies. And because this is a movie, Captain What’s-His-Name has to borrow a cell phone from Arabic Kenny’s Dad and a credit card from the Token Black Dude. All this to call down some A-10 Tank Killers on their Decepticon pursuit and pad the film out to feature length.

Meanwhile, stateside, things go from bad to worse. Decepticons infiltrate Air Force One, learning things we won’t be told for another ten minutes. They seem particularly interested in a bubble-headed boy named Sam who’s trying to unload some of his grandfather’s stuff on Ebay. A moment of high-speed cross indexing later and they’ve got Sam’s location locked down.

Not that he needs the attention. Apart from being totally inept at this whole “getting the girl” thing (bringing an awkwardness to the role that is almost believable, though he never once asks Makeala, “So, tell me about yourself.”) Sam’s caught a spot of car trouble. His car is alive and fond of taking itself out for nightly drives to deserted parking garages, blatantly plagiarizing ET in the process.

There’s no need for concern, of course. We already know what Sam will soon learn: his bitchin’ Camaro is a robot in disguise who’s name (through some arcane linguistic alchemy) translates into English as “Bumblebee.” Bumblebee is an Autobot, assigned to guard Same from the Evil Forces of the Decepticons, who are already rolling on their way, looking for Sam’s grandfather’s glasses.

Why? According to Optimus Prime (and if you can’t trust Optimus who can you trust?), century’s ago, Megatron, leader of the Decepticons, crash landed on Earth while searching for that Cube Optimus was going on about before the titles rolled. Sam’s granddad unearthed the sleeping Ice Man on his ill-fated Arctic exploration. Before going inert for the next hundred years, Megatron sent out a signal, “imprinting” the Cube’s location on Captain Archibald Whitwicky’s glasses.

Step back with me a second. Let’s take a moment to marvel at the cognitive gymnastics our screenwriters (Former Xena and Hercules scribes Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman) had to go through in order to justify Sam’s presence in this plot. And make no mistake, that cognitive whiplash your feeling is entirely Sam’s fault. Whatever else he and Makela do, they’re charged with being our point of view characters. They have to be, because focus groups show the filmmakers (or their Japanese masters) that we, the audience, are just too stupid to empathize with the Autobots. According to the logic which gave Sam birth, we need these Pretty White Kids and their Problems. Without them, we won’t watch the film.

To which I say, No. We (meaning I) won’t watch this film because it’s inane, insulting, and imbecilic. By the time the climactic battle (a running showdown which magically teleports our characters from the Hoover Dam to downtown LA—wouldn’t Las Vegas have made a more scenic battle ground? Or is the “Mission City” Captain What’s-His-Name mentions supposed to be Mission City, Florida?) grinds to its slow finish I’m too numbed to care. The mind wanders, entertaining itself with questions. How much did Ebay have to fork over before Optimus Prime gave them their on-screen advertisement? How much did Chevy pay to make Bumblebee what he is today?

Why objectify the All-Spark to begin with? I’ve always understood it as a pseudo-spiritual idea, a kind of Transformer Nirvana, where departed sparks rejoin the universal whole of which they are all but fragments, usually upon death or the culmination of some digital enlightenment. Why turn that into a cube and set our character’s chasing after it? Why create a new maguffin at all. when the energy resources of planet Earth have served almost thirty years worth of Transformers stories? (If it ain’t broke don’t try and fix it, you jackals.)

This movie is the height of American cinima, where even its failing are trite and predictable. How is it one Decepticon can wipe a whole air base off the map but it takes five of them to wrest one Cube from the hands of teenage boy? By my count, at least two of them escape the climactic festivities alive, if not entirely forgotten (I smell deleted scene—or a special effects department that didn’t put in enough overtime). Then there’s the Heroes Battle Death Exemption that sees Captain What’s-His-Name keep his squad alive against the longest odds on earth…and allows him to run a speeding motorcycle through a Decepticon’s legs for the express purpose of shooing an RPG into its crotch. The ultimate football-to-the-groin. This is the kind of thing Michael Bay considers A Good Idea…in so much as the word “idea” has any meaning for him.

And why on our green and energy-rich earth would Makela end up glad that she “got in the car” with Sam? If she’d stayed home, she could’ve lived the week out in perfect ignorance of the minor alien incursion that almost conquered the planet. She’d be free to get on with what the Men in Black would call her “happy little life” and not have to swap spit with…Sam Witwickey…ug. Gag me with your sister’s toothbrush

Or (here’s a good one) why call it Transformers at all? Why not just call your movie Humans and be honest with yourselves? To say nothing of your audience? We came looking for a Transformers movie and found only vapid drivel in its place, filling us with spite.

Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. Especially when the present is so devoid of meaningful originality. You can only go oooh and ahhhh special effects for so long before you yearn for something more. Something missing from these slick excuses for movies, these commercials in disguise. The old G1 cartoons were little more than that, but that little went a long way. If it hadn’t, this movie wouldn’t exist. Those old cartoons managed to step above their origins in the climate-controlled boardroom of a Japanese toy company. They dared to be stupid (as Weird Al might say) and they dared to be something that was at least marginally unique in itself. This wasn’t a show about humans from Eternia, or Dimentia, or Avalon or even Earth. Earthlings may have guest starred (and helped occasionally…more than they hurt), but this was not their stage to play. There were never any girls to get (until RC) or babies to hold for the first time. There were bigger things going on—robots in disguise, battling for control of Earth’s resources, and thus the universe. Robots who seemed more human than their fleshy costars, what with all the bickering (friendly or otherwise), the backbiting…and whatever was went on between Megatron and Starscream. (Looking back now I’m pretty sure they were ex-lovers, still working together because…well, its not like the Decepticons have any kind of outsourcing program. Starscream probably got sick of coming in second to the total domination of the universe, deciding it would be better to destroy Megatron instead…and obviously failing, the way Starscream fails at everything.)

All of which is to say, at least they tried. They tried to be more than the sum of their parts, more than a merchandising children’s cartoon. Their failure remains more entertaining than this movie’s success.

Now, back to you, Bob and Ahmad, in the studio.