I agree fully with this, aside from the Quintesson stuff. I think complaining about them "surviving" is veering well into the realm of nitpicking. Acting like those are the only beings on an entire planet is kind of weird. I've always said that the plot and story of the movie are absolute trash and he nails all the reasons why.
But, an important thing to note, is those aren't the only elements to judge a movie by. The story is bad, but the writing produced some all-time classic lines, brought to life by an genuinely great cast of series alumni and surprising performances from the newcomers. (Even Orson Welles' Unicron is quite good despite his poor health at the time, a testament to the sound engineer. The mix of Welles' wheezy voice and the effects put onto it made something unique. I have never heard another character that sounds anything like that in 40 years). The animation, for the most part, is pretty good and sometimes is absolutely fantastic, while the mix of 80's metal and synth has, IMO, never been topped as a better soundtrack for Transformers.
And while it was done for the more crass reasons, there's no denying the first twenty to twenty-five minutes of the movie is kinetic, exciting and has actual consequences for a change. And we will never, EVER see anything like it again, I don't think. No kids franchise is going to decide to have a movie that takes a series where characters never really get killed, and then just start mercing dudes left and right, including some of the most popular ones. That juxtaposition just will not happen again.
It's a bad movie, but it's also a classic, and an incredibly unique point in entertainment history.
Art be complicated, yo.
