Good commentary, if a little drunker than usual.

I was too old for the cartoon show or the toys, so the movie was of no interest. I found it to be kind of fun, but Teague got it when he said that the movie's main problem is that the stakes are not well defined. Without a good understanding of who wants what and why, the movie really is just a circus, as Trey said.

However, I'm guessing hardly anyone involved imagined that they could make a genuinely interesting story out of cartoon toy car robots. I think people forget how Batman started in 1940; it was way closer to the TV show than to The Dark Knight.

I think it takes a long time and a couple of really creative, genre-loving story-tellers (like Frank Miller) to demonstrate how a silly genre character actually has something interesting to reveal about the human condition. Once someone has done that (and maybe the kids who first embraced the character have grown up to make movies), then you can have your Dark Knight.

And if you try to skip the step of having it embraced by kids who grow up to appreciate a more mature version, I think you get Underworld and Blade, hollow and overly serious story-telling.