Alien vs. Predator also got terrible reviews when it premiered. So I avoided it, only to rent it a year later on DVD, when I found myself saying, hey, this film is some damn good fun–wish I’d seen it with a big, dumb audience in a theatre. If you like monster fights, if you like robot fights, if you like big dumb special effects, you’re going to enjoy these movies.

The sold out audience at the Transformers 2 screening applauded at the end. Friends have told me the audience applauded when they saw it too. That’s gotta tell you something.

TF2 matched the marketing inertia of Dark Knight, but will probably drop precipitously given bad reviews, word-of-mouth. If it does, that seems like a validation of the effect of critical response on the portion of the audience who actually cares about critical response.

I don’t think many people who line up for an event picture are too concerned if the movie is good. It’s a visceral thing, to let yourself be immersed in the pervasive branding - toys, games, energy drinks. There’s an excitement to that which is wholly different from the experience of watching a good movie.

However, I have only seen giant robots that can transform realistically into a car once, and that was in 2007. And that was really cool.

And since no other movie has been able to do that except the sequel. I watched that too. And did it deliver? Sure, because I got to see even more robats that can transform duking it out.

In that sense, the transformers series visually is pretty unique as an action series. Its got no competition! Which other action movie can give me giant transforming robots other than transformers?

I realize that, and I plan on buying another ticket to TF2. Thanks for reminding me!

I think that with all the assumptions being made that critics are whiny, pretentious and out-of touch, there are also many assumptions being made of audiences. Chiefly, that they are too stupid to know the difference between a good film and a bad. I guess I’d just like to wait and see how it fares next weekend.

I’ve heard a lot of word of mouth from friends of mine (friends that don’t spend all day reading film blogs or listening to podcasts or that really critcally think of film at all) that TF2 was pretty bad. It seems to me that when a film like this comes along, it’s an event. Watching it is viewed almost as an obligation. That doesn’t mean, however, that it will continue to perform as well.

It seems that critics are so passionate about this because TF2 makes a grand point. While ‘The Dark Knight’ showed us that a truly remarkable film can do great box office, TF2 shows us the exact opposite. The fears that TF2 will make bank are founded ones. The general moviegoing populace doesn’t realize that their ticket sales are votes, and if the studios get enough votes, they will keep churning out filth and bile. The general moviegoing populace just knows that they need to go see the new ‘Transformers’ movie because that’s what everyone else is doing.

My generalizations stop there, though. I think that people (sort of) know crap when they see it. Otherwise, ‘Wolverine’ wouldn’t have dropped off a financial cliff after word of mouth got around. I just hope I’m right. Otherwise, the studio execs will see dollar signs in the baffling plot and humping jokes of TF2.

For my part, I feel guilty for having seen it. I haven’t seen ‘The Brothers Bloom’ yet but I spent my money on this - and Terminator, and Wolverine. Because that’s what all my friends were doing. I know that I’m part of the problem.

People liked Transformers 1. They got sweet robots, explosions, Megan Fox, and a whole lot of fun, with some humor sprinkled in.

Transformers 2 uses the exact same formula but since it has a much bigger budget there are more sweet robots and explosions.

It doesn’t take a genius to see how worthless the critics are when it comes to something like this. I remember the positive reaction to Transformers 1, which pretty much went like this:

“I expected it to be dumb, but I didn’t expect it to be such fun.”

I saw it on iMax and I will see it again on regular theater. I wanted it to be a bigger budget version of Transformers 1, and I got exactly what I wanted.

Journalists and critics all over keep giving a blockbuster with an eight-figure publicity budget even MORE free publicity on their site or in their publication. And then you all sit there wondering how a terrible film did such great business.