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I'm curious about the TRANSFORMERS feature films (the recent live action ones, not the animated feature from the 80's).

I remain a bit puzzled by the disdain many seem to have for the films. They made tons of money -or at least sold tons of tickets- (and thus referencing them in the preview for BATTLESHIP would seem a wise move for the studio), and are decent escapist entertainment. They're overlong. They're not QUO VADIS or anything, but to my knowledge they never tried to be anything of that caliber. The films aren't great or anything, but I recall them as being pretty good turn-off-your-brain-and-just-enjoy-the-ride affairs. What gives?
Rock

I noticed a phenomenon where there seems to be a belated backlash to films that make a lot of money.

What you have said about Transformers could also apply to Avatar or Pearl Harbor.

The tone these arguments take seem to verge on You-people-who-paid-lots-of-good-money-to-see-this-crap-were-dupes-and-I-will-show-you-the-error-of-your-ways.

It may have something to do with the check-your-brain-at-the-door mentality you outlined. When people re-engage their brains, they love to point to the flaws with friends afterward.

Movies that are cut from the same cloth and manage to thrive seem to have actors that can give the movie gravitas. For example, Big Trouble in Little China is an excellent example of tune-out-from-reality movie-making. But who's willing to bash Jack Burton or Egg Shen?

As for "turning off your brain", that involves the suspention of disbelief and too many film makers seem to DEMAND it. They have to make it worth our while! And Petoht is right about the "shakey cam", they are getting too cute with it; it makes it hard to get "into" the movie and pretend you're watching something that's actually happening.

By The Way, here's my problem with "Transformers:
FIRST MOVIE: Giant robots are fighting a world-wide battle!
SECOND MOVIE: Robots? what robots?

The "cover-up conspiracy" nonsense was (yet another) problem in the second Jurasic Park movie. The EEEVIL corporation wanted to exploit the dinosaurs by putting them on display, but at the same time they kept their existance a secret!

I remember Hitchcock's description of 'refridgerator movies'. Essentially, a movie succeeded if you didn't think about the flaws until afterwards, when you were getting a snack.

Jaws ia a classic example. One my favourite movies ever, but anyone with even a superficial knowledge of sharks can tell you that sharks simply do not act in any way similiar to that portrayed in the movie. For example, the idea that a great white would bite down on a SCUBA tank in the way shown is ridiculous. But the audience DOESN'T CARE because the movie is generally well-scripted, well-acted and well-directed.

By comparison, I remember watching Armageddon with my then-girlfriend, and driving her crazy with the number of times I pointed out ridiculous aspects of the movie.

With Transformers, I loved it in the 80s, and was mildly entertained by the first movie (partly because of Peter Cullen's callbacks to the cartoon series, such as "One shall stand. One shall fall."

Studios make their money by having a large number of people 'quite like' a movie, rather than a small number of people loving it. Appealling to a broad base is simply sound economics when your movie costs $150 million dollars to make + $50 million to market.

I've heard someone say that 'suspension of disbelief' is usually misused by Hollywood. Suspension of disbelieve only applies to the premise, not mechanics of the plot or universe.

For example, I can buy that vampires and werewolves exist. I can't believe that they both fall in love with the same vacant-eyed twit, have nature-based powers that break multiple laws of biology and physics, or would allow themselves to be lorded over by a group of effete cretins whom any group of 2 or more newborns could destroy at any time.

In Transformers, I can buy alien robots, but not them behaving like brutal racist caricatures. Thus the creator's admonition becomes 'turn of your brain', to which my reply is; "Hell no! It takes 3 cups of coffee to get the thing jump-started in the first place!"