Later, I saw the big 3D event movie of the season, which balanced its time between being in your face with 3D actiony combat (not ever over the top, though …well, I mean, the 3D wasn’t; the action very explicitly was, over and over again) and feeling very naturalistic, enough that I had to pause and think about whether there was a 3D image in front of me. Not unlike real life, you understand. So that’s probably good, right? Or I’m jaded, like I said earlier. Definitely one of those.

Immortals pits Theseus against rampaging conqueror Mickey Rourke, in the hopes that he can stop Mickey from unleashing the titans who would then destroy humanity and the gods alike. (They are grumpy for having been trapped all this time, you know?) Normally, the gods would just smack Mickey down like they used to do, but apparently somewhere along the way hubris became more socially acceptable or else the gods learned about the Prime Directive. So it’s up to Theseus and his plucky peasant know-how and his tragic, revenge-inducing backstory to save the day. Of course he’ll be assisted by a number of rapidly dying allies and Sexina the Oracle, because this is after all a Greek mythological quest movie, and that is how they roll. To preserve an air of mystery, I will not spoil the presence or absence of a minotaur somewhere along the way.

But seriously, everything is pretty (though perhaps a little monochromatic) and lushly over the top, like a peach that’s just gone overripe and this is more bad than good, except without the sexual connotations of that particular metaphor. If you like things that are Greek or things that make limbs roll or things that make heads explode, either watch this one, or travel 18 months along the timeline and watch the next / previous one, because really, this is the kind of movie that comes along once in a lifetime. If you are a betta.

Giant robots? Explosions? Random people yelling “Optimus!” at regular intervals? Yep, it’s a valid live-action Transformers movie. I don’t want to say a lot about it, partly because we both know there’s not a lot to say, and partly because it doesn’t seem right to accidentally give away what threadbare moments of plot exist. But I was definitely impressed by the extent as well as the quality of the extended cast, I dug the new girlfriend (though I wish she’d had more to do besides look pretty and be in danger, but, y’know, Michael Bay), and I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of racist, moronic robots as “comedy relief”.

I can’t decide if it’s worth mentioning that the plot had a massive, glaring flaw or not. (‘Cause, again, Michael Bay. Right?) And despite how (glaring plot flaw aside) it was a largely good popcorn flick, I still don’t think I’ll ever get over the first impression I had, when I was watching an incredible sci-fi movie preview about how the moon landing was a cover-up for our exploration of a crashed alien spacecraft, and I really wanted to see what would happen next. And then what happened next was Transformers 3 instead of something new, gorgeous, and possibly amazing. Dark of the Moon was funny, cool, and chock full of exploding robots, and, okay, it was gorgeous; but it was by no means amazing, much less new.