I got the chance to sneak out and catch a movie with my friend Ronnie a few weekends ago.  We thought we better catch Transformers on the big screen while it was at theatres.  It's not too often lately where either of us have had time to spend a few hours at a movie so we were pretty stoked that our wives would watch the kids and let us go.

I walked in high expectations after reading some fairly good reviews in Wired magazine and online.  I walked out of the movie with my eyes hurting from rolling them so much.  I should've waited until it came out on video.  I think my exact words walking out were, "I feel bad, I would've preferred watching my kids play in a pool than sit through that."

I'll give the movie props for it's visuals as the special effects were top notch and almost to the point of overload.  But all the eye candy didn't make up for the dissappointment I felt regarding the storytelling.  They only spent about 3 minutes discussing the great back story of how the Autobots soceity disintegrated and their civil war started.  They should have taken a page from the original Superman that showed us specifically the circumstances that led to packing Superman up and shipping him to earth.

I walked out of the movie knowing more about Sam (Shia LaBeouf), his parents (and the fact that his dad was a nut about his landscaping), and that his love interest's (Mikaela) dad was a convicted felon and that they use to steal cars together than I did about any of the Autobots and why they were on earth.  Granted, having watched the original Transformers cartoons and movies of old, I already knew what was going on but why not retouch on these important concepts and spend quality screen time telling that story than worrying about the school bullie's love of his Hummer.

One other aspect that got very little coverage was the story of Megatron.  They got us all caught up on that storyline in about 3 sentences.   All the flashbacks focused on the Shackleton-esque escapades of Sam's great grandfather "stumbling" across the cube and Megatron.  If you're going to utilize a flashback then I personally would have preferred to see Megatron coming to earth and "somehow" getting stuck here and taken into custody and reversed engineered. 

Everything that I disliked about Armegeddon was in full effect in the Transformers.  I love going on an emotional rollercoaster during a movie, but it's best when it's not shoved down your throat to the sounds of  a Top 10 soundtrack and GMC ad.

Maybe my disappointment comes from how great this movie could have been.  All the elements were there to make it one of the best movies I've ever seen and that seriously bummed me out.  Now I'll have to wait until the sequel comes out on DVD before I get to see what happens next.  I was at a party this weekend and told a few friends that I saw it and they asked if they should see it.. my response was, "Did you like Armegeddon?"