If you’re going to see Transformers, make sure you leave any expectations of anything other than a mindless CG-fest at home. In fact, just leave your brain at home with a nice, thick book, along with your sense of decency and any ability to think critically about anything.

Just don’t leave your decorum at home, because you might end up acting like the herd of chubby bi-trendy freaks that sat in front of me last night.

With the exception of a few decidedly lower-quality moments that looked like someone filmed the action with my camera, it was quite lovely. It could’ve used a few dozen more explosions, at least two more instances of buildings being completely leveled [at least one of those by Starscream, maybe] a couple handfulls more random instances of transforming, flying through the air, and kicking ass, and way less bullet time, but, other than that, it was exactly what I expected.

For people who might be going back to see it ten or twelve more times, a few pointers to make the moviegoing experience more pleasant for the people who aren’t paying with mom and dad’s money:

• When watching the trailer for The Simpsons movie, if you don’t get the joke when it’s told, you should not repeat it when you finally do get it — a minute or so into the next trailer.
• The same goes for all trailers. If you absolutely must do this, there’s a cinema that runs fifty cent days and has special showings for ‘remedial viewers’ during the day, on the other side of town.
• Shouting, “Here it comes!” is not necessary. It’s a movie. We do not need a warning. We get that something’s going to happen — we all paid for this experience, too.
• The bullying wasn’t funny when it was happening to you a few months ago, was it? No, it wasn’t.
• There’s no need for outraged “No he dint“-ing at the father driving the kid through the Porche dealership and announcing that he was, indeed, kidding. There’s nothing offensive about that, except maybe the horrible obviousness of the plot device.
• Not everything Bumblebee does is cute. You don’t have to act amazed when he manages to act like an iPod and provides yet another ‘appropriate song’.
• Some of us are trying to read the subtitles. Please stop bouncing into our sight-line. I know it must be hard for some of you, because of all the sundaes, but sit still you overgrown fucking toddler.
• Stop acting surprised. Seriously. You’re not fooling anyone. There’s no way you could react this quickly if you were.

And, finally, because it’s so important it needs to be after the list:

Nothing — absolutely NOTHING — is that metal. I don’t care what’s going on, or how many fucking guitars are playing, or who’s fighting, or even if Prime and Megatron suddenly decided to reconcile their differences and decide that what they really need to do is record a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody, YOU DON’T NEED TO FUCKING HEADBANG THROUGH THE FILM YOU THROWBACK.

I know there’s nothing really metal about that, but it’d be stupid, and there’d still be no reason to fling your greasy head all over the place with your hands up in the air in that special, special way.

Oh, and when I said, “SIT DOWN IDIOTS!” I really did mean you. How can you stand up at the credits when you know what’s coming? Or didn’t you understand the great sequel-implying scene where Starscream was escaping our atmosphere?

I didn’t think so.