dismal storytelling and direction. So-so spectacle.

Rating: 6/10 (15 August 2007)

The film - what you'd expect from Michael Bay. Big, brash, dumb, peppered with irritating plot holes. Thin clichéd characterisation, fetishising military hardware, fetishising ridiculous bloated SUV vehicles. Incoherent and confusing action with diminishing returns (by the third hour, we are really getting sick of watching giant robots punching each other). All that regular stuff. Oh yeah - and at least half the movie takes place at magic hour. It's like sucking on a giant chrome exhaust pipe, while someone hits you over the head, while shining an orange lamp in your face.
My point is a small one - but why is that American film makers (and audiences?) find it so hard to accept that other countries in the world have high technology? OK, in the movie we get a crack about the robot probably being Japanese, and about Nokia phones coming from Finland - but what the heck is the point of having a character describe the failed Mars lander "Beagle 2" as "NASA/JPL", when in fact it was a British craft, carried on a European Space Agency mission! Yes, America, sorry if it upsets you, but Europe (and Japan, and India, and China etc etc) all have space programs!!!!!