No, I haven’t watched the second one and I have no plans to give Michael Bay any of my money. However, I can’t ignore the huge media phenenomenon it’s become so my wife and I decided to rewatch the first film over the weekend. Another reason was that she had fallen asleep while trying to watch it when it first came out. As it turned out, she fell asleep this time too, so we started watching it on Saturday night and finished it on Sunday morning.

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t like it the second time around either. In fact, seeing it again just put me in a position to run a constant commentary on how stupid the things in it are. Did Michael Bay really think it would be funny to have giant robots trying to hide in a backyard? How is it supposed to be a good action movie if we can’t tell who’s fighting who most of the time? Why would that generic U.S. soldier who misses home and family help out Sam when they don’t know each other? Does it make sense that the U.S. military’s best plan to hide the cube is in the middle of a metropolis with its millions of civilians?  And, as That Movie Blogger Fella put it, why are they trying to have Sam escape on a helicopter when Megatron transforms into a plane?

Okay,  so everyone has different tastes and it so happens that, judging by how successful the franchise is, my tastes in this matter are out of whack with the majority of people. But does that mean it is impossible to say that one film is objectively better or worse than another? Ironically, I must sheepishly admit that I once had an extended argument with my wife over this very matter. At that time, my position was that opinions on all works of arts are inherently subjective. I’ve since come around to the realization that it’s possible to differentiate between acknowledging that something is qualitatively good and actually liking it. This means that it’s possible for me to know that a film is good even if I don’t particularly enjoy it, just as it is possible for me to enjoy a film and want to watch it over and over again, even while realizing that it’s not really that good.

This is also why it gave me particular pleasure to read Roger Ebert’s spirited defense against his critics who sincerely thought that Transformers 2 was the best film of the year and included one person who wrote that it was even better than “that boring old movie Casablanca“. His comments about how anti-intellectual it is to claim that Transformers is a good film really struck a chord with me. He’s particularly outspoken and eloquent in this passage:

Those who think “Transformers” is a great or even a good film are, may I tactfully suggest, not sufficiently evolved. Film by film, I hope they climb a personal ladder into the realm of better films, until their standards improve. Those people contain multitudes. They deserve films that refresh the parts others do not reach. They don’t need to spend a lifetime with the water only up to their toes.

The worst part of the whole phenomenon is that Michael Bay apparently does think that he’s making good films, as evidenced for example by his rejection of Megan Fox’s statements that his films aren’t exactly deep or demanding. Still, it appears that he’s currently working on something that he says will be genuinely artistic, so we’ll see if his confidence in himself is warranted.

For those still inclined to defend the film, it’s worth remembering that it is indeed possible to make action adventure films that are commercial successes and yet are not retardedly stupid. Someone on QT3 recently posted examples that include The Matrix, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back and The Dark Knight. This is why Transformers is an abomination that deserves all the scorn we can pour on it.