Short version: …why wasn’t this movie successful?
Slightly longer version: no, seriously, why wasn’t TRANSFORMERS ONE successful? It’s a heck of a lot better than the Michael Bay Transformer series, both visually and in terms of the plot. I liked it. It felt like the Transformers of my childhood without being slavish to it. It gave the cartoons as much gravitas as the cartoons could support. It even sneered at the Go-Bots. What more did audiences want? An egg in their beer?
I would recommend seeing this one in theaters. I would also recommend hurrying up, because the clock’s probably ticking.