Three years ago a co-worker told me that a Transformers movie had been green lit. I remember thinking wow, that's cool...wait..what. I couldn't imaging that there would be much of an audience for the film. I mean my generation loved these things growing up, but would millions of twenty somethings still be interested? Then the bad news came. Michael Bay was attached to direct. Now, it is so very easy for me to rip on Bay. He reigns along side with Ratner and Schumacher as Hollywood's biggest hacks, but I thought that maybe this film would be different. I mean it's a story about robots blowing crap up, and who could show that better than Mr. Bay. I was invited to attend a free screening on the Paramount lot. It seemed like the perfect way for me to see this film. I went in to the theater genuinely hoping that I would like the movie. I would love to leave the theater happy, and for the first time give Bay a high rating. The lights go down, and I begin to feel a genuine excitement starting to build deep inside of me. That excitement that was started 20 years ago was very quickly vanquished. Within minuets. It was clear exactly what kid of film this was going to be. A military base is under attack by a Deceptacon. All the explosions I had expected to see were delivered, but like in all of his films, Bay goes way over the line. We then go to Los Angeles where we are introduced to Sam, played by Shia LaBeouf. LaBeouf is one of the only things that I enjoyed about this film. He is a high school student about to get his first car ever, and guess what...he buys a Transformer. The film then turn into Herbie for the next few scenes as Bumble Bee (LaBeouf's car) takes control while Sam is trying to be cool, embarrassing him to no end in front of the girl he likes. The rest of the film is spent jumping between over the top action and over the top stupid and poorly written humor. Kids are brought in and discover what it is exactly that is taking over the countries intelligence. Robots go around town finding the newest models of cars to transform into, and President Bush asks an Air force One stewardess for a ding-dong treat. It goes on like this for about two and a half hours. I was absolutely lost during most of the action scenes, not being able to tell what was going on. It's fast, it's loud, it's messy, and as much as I was hoping I wouldn't say this, it's Michael Bay.