These comic strip reviews are so short that it’s often hard for me to get into much detail. This first Transformers is one of Bay’s better movies (that I’ve seen), really; the basic outline of the plot is solid although the exact way it’s played out raises some nagging — if not really very important — questions (why Qatar? why Air Force One? why a pair of glasses?).

The tone is as balanced as any of the Bay films I’ve seen: the juvenile “comedy” isn’t quite as terrible as the worst moments in either Bad Boys movie — nor is it ever particularly funny, either. But the staging of so many moments betrays a lack of intelligence at some point in the creative pipeline. One particular good example of what I mean by this is a scene where Optimus Prime and Bumblebee have just saved Sam and Mikaela, and Bumblebee gets harpooned by two choppers.

Rather than save Bumblebee, Optimus just completely vanishes from the movie for three minutes, only to reappear after Bumblebee (and Sam and Mikaela) have gotten re-captured and explain that they couldn’t save Bumblebee “without hurting the humans.”

An hour later, though, Prime whips out a giant fucking sword from his arm while fighting… the tank Decepticon, I think? Who the fuck knows. And those of us with attention spans immediately think: “Where the fuck was that when Optimus Prime was ten feet away from Bumblebee getting roped by those humans?”

It could also have come from dodgy editing or a bit of post-production rejiggering of the scene; I wouldn’t know. But the end result is just one of far too many incredibly contrived, stupid moments that could very easily have worked.

Anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow with another regular update — the last of Jason and Kurt’s conversation here.