Bayus ex machina

Rating: 1/10 (6 July 2011)

I say that because the Transformers are less the focus of the movie and more of a plot device. I have felt since the beginning of the series that Shia LaBoeuf had too much screen time in what should be a clash of the titans robot melee. The problem has gotten worse with each installment. In this one, they cram so many characters in there (Turturro, Mcdormand, Malkovich, Tudyk, Gibson, Duhamel) and try to give them all equal screen time. Somewhere in between all of their quips, they try to fit in this robot apocalypse that is happening around them. The Deceptacons show up and destroy some things, then the Autobots fight back and the entire cast must relocate to resume their quirky banter. There are scenes showing the special ops teams in action for extended periods of time that really seemed unnecessary (Is this Transformers of G.I. Joe?). I was really annoyed that Optimus Prime is tangled up for more than a half hour of the movie while the humans are trying to save the day, but then Megatron had an even smaller part. At times it resembled Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, but with the Autobots showing up from time to time to bail out the military when things got too tough. The actual Transformer battles were exciting and looked great. I wish they could have focused more on that instead of all the other junk in this 2 1/2 hour advertisement for Mercedes, Lenovo, the Army, etc.