The UK release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was last week, and before that there was a press conference with Michael Bay, Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox and John Turturro for not only the British press but, seemingly, a number of continental Europeans also. I was there, but this time I was not sitting amongst the press pack, waiting to shoot my hand up, but stood behind my camera, getting us some exclusive video. That video - about five minutes, representing the material really worth bothering with in the forty five minute conference - comes after the break.

This video is probably going to have to stand as my final piece of coverage on the Transformers film, though I will tell you that I really didn’t like the film at all. John Turturro did make me laugh but… actually, he made me laugh more during the press conference than the movie. I found the film to be not only incredibly hollow and badly conceived but also quite dreadfully put together. Aside from the high production value in the cinematography, score and ILM FX, there’s not much craftsmanship to praise - and trust me, that’s being charitable to the cinematography and score.

Because I was going to be trapped behind the camera I took along a glamorous assistant to represent me on the floor. You will see Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool in the audience, asking a question that I had proposed. The idea was to get Bay talking about the characterisation of the Transformers, and also perhaps to see what side of the animation/motion capture debate he came down on. Judge for yourself how much of a boring puff his answer actually was. Megan Fox and John Turturro tended to give interesting answers, even to dull questions whereas Michael Bay and Shia LaBeouf seemed to have nothing fresh, interesting or really felt to say no matter what they were asked. Jet lag? Actually, they were probably just doing what they thought was expected of them.

One clip in the video focuses on the face of Megan Fox while she’s being asked a question. Her reaction is very interesting, I hope you’ll agree. I feel rather bad for her, and the way she’s presented in the film. The reduction of the the female roles in the film, particularly the two key younger female roles, is quite disgusting and off putting. Indeed, the film is casually sexist and casually racist. The Twins characters have already been discussed as offensive stereotypes, so I don’t want to get too far into that other than to say, Yep, I agree. There’s a lot of nasty, nasty stuff bubbling away just under the surface here.

Here’s the video:

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If I was to write a full review of the film, which I’m not, there’d be just one joke I’d really want to get into it. Here’s that joke now, in lieu of anything more involved:

So, one of the Transformers has bollocks, one of them says bollocks, but all of them are bollocks.

And, actually, I think you can pretty much boil it down to that. A throwaway comment for an utterly disposable film.