Saw the movie yesterday. Complaints about how the human characters are Grade A assholes who make the audience want to reach through the screen and strangle them, are valid, but ultimately the LEAST of problems with the movie.
IDW comics published after the
All Hail Megatron storyline, seem to have inspired the script, specifically borrowing the idea the US military will indiscriminately hunt Transformers after the Decepticons launched a devastating assault on an American city, such that the Transformers' presence on Earth can no longer be kept secret; and the idea the Autobots will remain on Earth to defend humans, despite the fact Transformers are not welcome on this planet, regardless of their factional alignment (see
For All Mankind). But why should the Autobots remain on Earth in this situation? They're alien robots who can travel through space unaided (in the movies)! They can just ring Earth with a thousand surveillance satellites to keep an eye on us, and then leave the planet- no need to endanger themselves in a pointless "peacekeeping mission."
Then there's the private company attempting to reverse-engineer Cybertron technology, with the goal of winning military contracts. Will the US government- hell, will ANY government on this planet, tolerate a non-government organization researching such technology, without direct government oversight? At the very least, the labs will literally overflow with surveillance and counter-surveillance systems, security guards and checkpoints and procedures, to deny the nation's enemies any and all useful information and technology- specifically, information and technology that can be used against the nation.
So this company builds a Transformer for the US military, which then uses it against a Cybertronian Transformer. The US military Transformer is damaged in battle, so the company wants to ship it to its research lab in China- wait, CHINA? Won't the US military- and by extension, the US government- object to a company transferring high-tech weapons technology to a major rival? If you say they won't, then you must explain why; at least include a throwaway line about a Chinese-American alliance against the Transformers.
Then there's the problem Chuck mentioned in his
'Transformers' review, namely, the film producers put so much shit into the story, all plot threads are starved of time in the limelight, and cannot be properly developed as a result; and they put so many characters into the story, no characters can be properly developed. At the very least, why are they wasting time on Crosshairs, whose only notable characteristics are a bad attitude and insubordination? Why not give more screen time to Grimlock, who adds "entertaining" and "easily identifiable" to the same characteristics? At least hire a voice actor for the Dinobot!