Ever since Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opened last week, there’s been something of an Internet flame war raging over how good the movie actually is. It’s gone a little something like this:

Critics: Transformers 2 is one of the worst movies of the year.

Fanboys: Critics suck! They want everything to be Oscar-worthy and independent and foreign and don’t like action movies!

Critics: That argument makes no sense at all, and you’re whining.  We weren’t expecting Revolutionary Road.  We just thought it sucked.

Fanboys: Of course it’s bad!  It doesn’t have to be good!  It just has to include hot chicks and giant fighting robots!  And it totally delivered on both counts!

Whose side are you on?  Well, you’re on a site called Transformers Movie Buzz, so I have a guess.  But still, I would recommend you read Roger Ebert’s intentionally-baiting blog post called “I’m a Proud Braniac“, if only to make you angry.  The highlights:

Another common line of attack was disturbing. It came from people who said I was out of touch with the tastes of the audience. That the movie’s detractors (lumped together as “the critics”) like only obscure movies that nobody else does–art films, documentaries, foreign films, indies, movies made 50 years ago–even, God forbid, “classics.” One poster argued that “Transformers” was better than that boring old movie “Casablanca.”

I was informed I didn’t “get” Michael Bay. I was too old, “of the wrong generation,” [...] am I out of touch? It’s not a critic’s job to reflect box office taste. The job is to describe my reaction to a film, to account for it, and evoke it for others. The job of the reader is not to find his opinion applauded or seconded, but to evaluate another opinion against his own. But you know that. We’ve been over that ground many times. What disturbs me is when I’m specifically told that I know too much about movies, have “studied” them, go into them “too deep,” am always looking for things the average person doesn’t care about, am always mentioning things like editing or cinematography, and am forever comparing films to other films. [...]

It’s true that many Americans have an active suspicion and dislike of the “educated.” They ask, “what makes you an expert?” when they’re really asking, “what gives you the right to disagree with me?”

Those who think “Transformers” is a great or even a good film are, may I tactfully suggest, not sufficiently evolved. Film by film, I hope they climb a personal ladder into the realm of better films, until their standards improve. [...]

The opening grosses are a tribute to a marketing campaign, not to a movie no one had seen. If two studios spend a ton of money on a film, scare away the competition, and open in 4,234 theaters before the Fourth of July, of course they do blockbuster business.

What do you think of Ebert’s comments?  Or has the memory of Revenge of the Fallen already completely faded from your mind, save for that one lone shot of Megan Fox straddling the motorcycle?