Two things: the note sending... and I recently saw Transformers.

First of, I love you all for considering me in your crusade to save everyone from this supposed 'virus', BUT STOP SENDING ME THOSE. It gives me false hopes that a human is actually contacting me for something that is relevant to my life. Not sending my secretly disguised spam chain letters as virus warnings. I already got this thing 26 times last year and the year before that and the time before that when it first started going around. I love you, but STOP.

Secondly, Transformers. I'll try to avoid spoilers, but you really shouldn't read this until you've seen it just to be safe.

But the movie? Honestly? JUST. WOA.

Okay. So before the movie was released, I really wasn't expecting much. The second movie, like the first was, would probably be a movie I would enjoy. It wouldn't be something I would go to for plot, or well designed giant walking talking robots. I went just because I watched it when I was a kid, and I secretly enjoyed the idea that all the cars in my front yard could secretly transform, battle each other, and were saving the world all the while trying to figure out ways to keep me safe from the cars on the other side of the street. Well... that and the previews of giant robots blowing anything and everything to smitherines with giant canons and thermal sabers made me all happy inside my heart.

When the sequel to Transformers came out, a wide range of reviews came out calling it either the abomination of the century... or positively fantastic. I knew not to change my opinion until after I saw it, so I dutifully waited a week until after the movie came out (because I refused to see it RIGHT at release. Seeing it then would guarantee crowded theaters and talkative morons dedicated to the desecration of your first viewing of any highly anticipated movies).

Having seen it myself, I have to lay down a couple of things.

First the bad stuff: I can see why people would call this an abomination. The cinematography, while it has improved from the first film, is still shaky and sometimes it's difficult to determine what the heck is going on. The robots are also designed in a way where sometimes they look too much like each other. A well designed character or robot will often work in silhouette, meaning if you colored in their pictures entirely in black, the audience could still identify who was who by their visual shapes and identifying structure. For some of the antagonists, their only saving grace was their colors and the dramatic music that screamed, "THIS ROBOT YOU SEE IS MEGATRON. THIS IS A BAD GUY."

Visually, there's so much going on that the eye darts all over the place rather than on certain points of focus, the ideal way a character looks like. The audience doesn't realize it, but the brain prefers to have levels of simplicity and complexity. It doesn't like everything being a complicated visual mess with all the moving parts etc.

The movie makes certain characters take a back seat, and rarely see much screen time other than to say "Hello! I'm still here!" We don't even get closure about what happens to some characters in the ending like the Twins or Arcee (the girls).

But... despite all that. OH GOD I WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN.

Personally, I enjoyed the film at a level that I haven't experienced in such a long time. It isn't a film that's designed to go down through the ages and revolutionize the way you tell stories. That's what Star Wars and Lord of the Rings is for. Transformers is a movie designed to do one thing and one thing only: ENTERTAIN. Many of the official critics have standards by which they base the movie, and they judge it specifically in a way that they forget the purpose of it! To freaking enjoy it! The rest of us unprofessional peons just want a damn good movie to sit and hunker down to and enjoy. Some critics are right on, and many opinions waver, but my brother told me earlier the afternoon he compared the critics ratings to the personal ratings on facebook, forums and friends... the critics called it crap, and the regular people generally loved it to death. I don't know how much of it is true or where he looked, but in general I trust his opinion.

Transformers is s one of those films whose aim is to give the audience what they want: Certain characters to become important, more battles, resolution and drama and suspense at certain specific points of the journey. They're not trying to catch you by surprise, they're trying to get into your head, pull out those "Holy #$%$^ if this happened and this happened, could THIS happen!?" questions and try and answer them.

Like I said, the cinematography has really improved! They've mastered the art of widening the shot so I can see the WHOLE ROBOT and it really gives you a better sense of how massive they are compared to the rest of the surroundings. The special effects have always been top notch. Sitting in the seat, I was two explosions short of getting up, yelling at the screen and cackling at the sheer awesome of it all. I mean come on. They remodelled one of the seven wonders of the world! Demolished parts of China!

The new autobots had all new designs that had designated functions and distinct personalities that cracked me up and really plucked the heart strings. The human characters totally have character development too! Sam, Mikaela, and a whole bunch of other humans are moving on with their lives and I love the interaction that Sam and Bumblebee have with each other as a result of it. GArggh, I'm such a girl, I got all mushy EVER. SINGLE. TIME. They interacted.

OH! And the humans are touching the robots now! They actually physically interact! In the first movie, it was like a 'no touching rule' because it would make the visual effects department pull out their hair. Here, it's like they're in the same world.

Transformers is one of the few movies that I saw, and thought when the credits rolled, "AGAIN! AGAIN!" The first movie gave me a thrill. This movie took me on a journey, and it's blown the #^&$@# out of anything competing to be my favorite movie.

On a side note, "Shy-a laboof" reportedly got into a car accident during the filming and they wrote his injury into the film (note at one point after he lands, Mikaela bandages his hand. The injury is real). Also, "Laboof" got injured crashing/bumping/hitting a prop, but got up two hours later and started filming. Trooper.

And before I leave, here's just a few parting notes:
1. Sam can scream at a higher pitch than I can.
2. I love bumblebee to the point that my friends will have to physically subdue me from purchasing any and all of his toys if I see them.
3. OHGODITWENTINHISNOSE EUUGHARGGHHBLURGH GETITOUTGETITOUT
4. The big guys giving Sam that certain special something reminded me of Lord of the Rings. Maybe it's because they both have Sams?
6. "Aw, don't cry, bee. Look at me, come on, look at me." "I'd understand if you hate me, Bee." God, I'm such a GIRL for getting all mushy. Get it together, Ake!
7. The Audi R8 that's so sexy- wait a minute, NonoNONO! DON'T DESTROY THE-ARGH! WHhyyyy!?
8. Toilet paper. Always refill.
9. Decepticon in a box. I want one.
10. 7 times before you can't have kids, I think.
11. Tomorrow I'm going to see it in Imax. *cackles*