Badly paced, and confused about it's audience

Rating: 6/10 (8 July 2007)

When I was merely a boy, my folks took me out to see the animated Transformers movie. My mother will still tell you that it was "awkward" to kill off the hero in a movie that was obviously targeted for children.
The modern day live action remake seemed just as awkward to me. The theater ran "R" rated previews for this film, even though it was a PG-13 movie. One I would later learn was linked to this film for it's audience. The humor in the movie went from cornball cartoon references "there's definitely more to you - than meets the eye" - to masturbation humor - without skipping a beat. It seems that they just couldn't decide who to market this to, so they left it open to several audiences. Rather than having wide appeal, it proved awkward for kids and adults alike.
The drama and bad comedy was poorly edited to space out what everyone wanted to see - robot fighting. When the robots finally went on screen and started ripping each other up, the action was so fast that the crummy film running through the projector in the theater just wasn't fast enough to keep up. It seems I will have to rent the DVD in a couple of months to see what was really going on the whole time. All I remember is the occasional explosion, snarling, and emotive robot faces.
There was plenty of good talent here - and I can't say that it was wasted. Yet the character development was just lacking. You were expected to root for the soldier who wanted to get home to his young wife and daughter. But you weren't supposed to care when the loaner was ripped apart. He was obviously invented solely to play a victim. Did anyone care that the "hot love interest" of the lead character had a troubled past and a daddy that taught her how to hot-wire cars? The only black robot was ripped in half and nobody blinked. I thought Tyrese would be next - but splitting a human in half would have upset any kids that came to see this. Robot's are okay to kill off, because they don't have souls.
I could go on - but fan-boys will sink this like they do every honest review that gets written here. So let me roll off a few more things that bothered me.
* Stop putting Bernie Mack in everything. * Bumblebee was a Volkswagen Beetle. Not a lame ass Camero. * Do bad-ass robots really like teenagers to dry-hump on their hoods? * Why was Megatron only in the film for a couple minutes? Does he turn into a gun ... or anything? Or is he always a big stupid robot?
I would like to think that in a couple of years, we will see a Transformers 2 made with a new director. Sorry Michael Bay.