I felt it was a bit long also. Thankfully the action kept me awake. Often times during the fights, the “camera” was too close and I couldn’t make out who was who, and what they were punching.

The biggest disappointment was the twins. I understand they needed the characters to take the story where it went. But the whole Jar Jar Binks business was plain insulting. All the urban reach to get a laugh turned stupid.

I myself didn’t dislike it as much as you. I would give it a C+.

It’s that kind of undiscriminating, blind consumerism that feeds the Michael Bays, Jerry Bruckheimers, & McGs (what kind of snot-nosed director can’t be bothered to use his whole name anyway?) of the world. I refuse to give my money to hacks who mine the lowest common-denominator with movies that feature only big tits, big explosions, and big eye-candy. I enjoy fun movies too, but I demand a bit more than the tripe that we’re mostly getting these days.

Michael Bay picks up exactly where Jerry Bruckheimer leaves off - mindless CG fluff and and an almost complete lack of substance. I like eye-candy as much - if not more - than most, but I’ve gotta have some actual storytelling along with it. And none of that faux-plot crap that George Lucas is dishing out these days, taking a page from the J.J. Abrams playbook to introduce hyper-complicated subplots to compensate for massive semi-truck-sized holes in the main story line. No sir, I need actual stories with characters I can really give a crap about (or truly despise, respectively).