Yep, an entertaining popcorn flick. Everyone loves to bash flicks like Transformers and G.I. Joe as being "trash" for one reason or another.
Thing is- a $250 million flick needs to appeal to a LOT of people if it wants to succeed. As a screenwriter, it can be very hard to juggle all the necessary components and not end up with an incoherent mess. Think about all the things going on in that flick:
Big action for all the guys, a couple a lowbrow joking comic relief robots for the kids, old favorite robots from the cartoon appearing for the hard-core fans, Megan Fox's T&A for the adult guys, Tyrese and the other hunk-type guy for the adult ladies, the nerdy government guy for more adult comic relief, multinational locations to broaden overseas appeal, even a romance between the two leads for the girls . . .
PHEW! And there's TWO and A HALF hours of that. If someone said "Right me a script and jam all this into it, now!" it would be a daunting task. (I could do it, of course . . .
)
But my point is that's its not easy to write films like these. And no matter how well-done it is you will never be respected outside of Hollywood or even within it- publicly. That means no Oscars but it also means the next time there's a big-budget superhero/action extravaganza that needs a script fast- you'll be on the short list of people to call. And you'll get a very big paycheck.
Some people can bounce back and forth between big $$/no prestige pics like Transformers and smaller, indie, Oscar-material pics like Breaking the Waves.
Not many-