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To which I can't help but wonder, if that is true, why does there need to be a plot in a film like ROTF? Is it necessary? Could Kurtzman, Orci, Bay and others collaborate on something that is clearly, insistently, spectacle and nothing more? (There are a couple of moments in ROTF that approach this train of thought.) I think the answer is no and the studios and the public at large need something to hold on to, even if the plot is simply a placeholder of miniscule motivation to fill the transition from action scene to action scene. If it was gone, it would be missed and what would result might be a $200 million avant-garde piece of free-form eye candy. Of course, me being me, I find that notion very appealing.

Observation 2: ROTF as recruitment for ROTC/allegory for any and all wars we might currently be involved in?

To be truthful, I honestly don't know how to resolve my thoughts on this. But allow me to run a stream-of-consciousness: Middle-class average (by Hollywood standards) Americans are caught up in a battle without boundaries between warring factions whose enmity is beyond global and who are parts of an ancient race that is both exotic and foreign to us. World monuments are destroyed, the final battle takes place in a desert environment in the "third world" and the military must step up and kick out both the shifty bureaucrats who want to dictate rules of war. The bureaucrat in question seems like a mash-up of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, while Obama (name-checked) goes running for safe hiding once things get ugly. Meanwhile, ethnic slurs abound and racial stereotypes are solidly reinforced. I am not sure if this is supposed to make me feel patriotic or not, but it does stir some feelings of queasiness in my gut.

Observation 3: Relief? Relief from what?

The structure of ROTF (and a lot of Bay's films) is spectacle alternated with scenes of comic relief, which strikes me as absurd because the idea of "comic relief" originates in bringing humor into otherwise unbearably tense situations or stories. In ROTF, scenes of dogs humping dogs and supporting characters being repeatedly tasered provide the counterpoint to massive destruction and unacknowledged scores of people being annihilated. As Ryan O'Neill pointed out in the October 26th Win/Lose column, there is a heartfelt scene between Kevin Dunn and Shia LaBeouf in the midst of the climatic carnage but as the one moment in a film whose archetypal image (I would argue) is that of a horny Chihuahua banging another dog, Dunn's tears seems as ridiculous an example of real human emotion as Ben Affleck playing animal cracker games with Liv Tyler's navel.

Observation 4: The eyes have it (or maybe they don't). AKA: How to make Megan Fox appear less robotic and mechanical and more human by comparison.

In a lot of the ads for ROTF, as well as the film itself, my biggest problem with ever hoping to care about the robot characters is that you are all but unable to see the eyes. "The eyes are the window to the soul" is the hoariest cliché I know and I believe in it 100%. You may be the sweetest, kindest, awesomest person (or giant robot) in the world but if you are saddled with dead eyes, vacant eyes, glassy eyes, overly intense eyes, or beady suspicious eyes, you are screwed. Giant whirls of CGI skirmishing accompanied by Steve Jablonsky's metallic score (which at times reminded me of the intro notes to a Traci Lords techno song scratched and skipping on a CD player) made it hard for me to get emotionally involved with any of it, least of all that the fate of our planet hung in the balance. Bumblebee's gimmick/status as a living, breathing all-media "sampler" is cool but outside of him, Autobots and Decepticons alike fail to make much of an impact or impression on me.

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