That's 2 and a Half Hours I'll Never Get Back

For some inexplicable reason I rented Transformers from Netflix about a month ago, and I finally forced myself to watch it last night. I honestly don't know why I had the urge to check it out, other than the fact that I think Shia LaBeouf has turned into quite the handsome and somewhat talented young man. That doesn't completely explain it though, because it generally takes more than a crush to get me to watch something (case in point: Stephen Colbert had a role in the Bewitched remake, and to paraphrase Meatloaf, I would do anything for love, but I won't watch that.) So, why?

-I don't attach any kind of nostalgic signifigance to the Transformers; I never had any of the toys and I never watched the cartoon, so that wasn't a factor.

-The movie was directed by Michael Bay and as far as I'm concerned, the world would be a much better place if he never stepped behind a camera ever again, so lord knows I wasn't expecting some stellar film viewing experience.

-The rest of the cast was kind bleh, so that ain't it either (in all fairness, I did not know before watching the movie that Hugo Weaving was the voice of Megatron, so that was a nice bonus. And the Buffy nerd in me is always pleased to see Tom Lenk-aka Andrew-in anything, and that helped dull the pain a little as well.) But Jon Voight? Josh Duhammel? Megan Fox, who just may be the shittiest actress alive? No, no and NO.

I'll never know why I rented it, and I'll never know why I forced myself to sit through the WHOLE THING. 2 hours and 33 minutes I devoted to this movie, and that's not counting the days I actually had it in the house before watching it. 2 hours and 33 minutes of Michael Bay fellating the military industrial complex and slobbering over Megan Fox's stomach. 2 hours and 33 minutes of lame jokes (a dog pees on one of the Autobots-TEH FUNNY! No one in the movie can pronounce Shia's character's last name, Witwicky, correctly-OW! My sides!) and overdone explosions. 2 hours and 33 minutes of "Optimus Prime is kinda cool and Shia IS cute, but Jesus Harold Christ, this movie is STUPID!"

Oy.