“Transformers” review-at-a-glance

Shit blowed up real good for two-and-a-half hours.

Computer-generated alien robots from outer space threatened humanity and other alien outer space robots defended us. Pretty young actors jumped over things and delivered their lines on cue while crusty old character actors did their best to steal scenes from their special-effects adversaries. Michael Bay edited the results into his trademark incomprehensible onscreen mayhem and everybody went home happy.

Actually, one thing didn’t set right with me...

The film opens with a sequence featuring American soldiers stationed in some far-flung desert hellhole that looked suspiciously like Iraq. The bad robots show up and begin wholesale killing of the American troops. Lots of explosions and uniformed bodies being flung everywhere; it took me out of the movie and into the nightly news, and that wasn’t what I braved the 105-degree Christmas Island heat to go see. It would have been like releasing “The Towering Inferno” directly in the wake of 9/11.

Fortunately the film moves on quickly enough that my initial discomfort was pummeled into submission by the carefully choreographed, carelessly edited chaos that followed.

Overall, it was 2.5 hours very nicely wasted. I’d give it a solid 2.5 stars.