Transformers!

"I've seen this movie, the black dude dies first." (Harry Block, "Evolution")

I saw Transformers today.

And despite the fact that it was mostly two hours of giant robots stomping around smashing stuff in their attempts to maim each other, THE ROBOT-THAT-SOUNDED-LIKE-AN-AFRICAN-AMERICAN STILL GOT KILLED FIRST.

That's right- the smooth-talking Autobot who got a grand total of two lines in the film ended up snuffing it first in the final battle.

Because he was BLACK. Or at least, he sounded black.

In the traditional of all big blockbusters, the black guy in the ensemble cast always gets killed off first. Sort of the sacrifice that gets the ball rolling. And Jazz was the uber-cool homey-ass Autobot with a ghetto accent.

Suffice to say, I was extremely upset when Megatron snapped Jazz in half like a toothpick. They said it was because Jazz was much smaller (but so much blacker and thus cooler) than the other robots, so Megatron bisecting him was more plausible, but they could have whacked off Ratchet and I wouldn't have felt so upset.

(Sniff).

We saw Transformers at Imax, and on the huge screen, it was spectacular. It was a Michael Bay film (think Pearl Harbor)- and like Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Day After Tomorrow) Bay likes explosions. Big explosions. And lots of scenes showing the big bad Americans leaping into their F22s to defend the homeland. The special effects were absolutely stunning, especially when they started transforming- I got a special thrill from seeing an Xbox 360 sprout legs and burst out of the box on a murderous spree.

As for plot, there was none. There seriously was no plot. At all.

There was some vague backstory about a Cube and all, except we sneaked in ten minutes late and so thus missed a bit of that- and the rest of the film was total, glorious, destructive mayhem.

And you know what? The main female lead survived a giant explosion and a huge battle on the streets between two groups of warring robots- she was covered in dirt and grime, yet her lipstick was still absolutely perfect. Coral pink with not even a hint of a smudge.

And what kind of hacker wears that kind of shimmery lip-gloss for a job that involves sitting in front of a data screen all day? (I suppose the answer is the 'blonde, leggy and gorgeous' type of hacker).

Anyhow, it was a great film to kick off the mid-term break- no thinking required. Just sit back, and watch the Decepticons and Autobots smash it out for the future of the planet.