And sitting three rows from the swirling camera action on-screen, I quickly thought I was going to be seasick. Not a propitious beginning.

But although Fallen starts as it continues with explosions and amazingly complicated CGI megarobots duelling it out in a whirl of camera angles and fast pace, director Michael Bay has smartly spliced smash-em-ups with domestic dramas: "Will hero Sam (Shia LaBeouf) bring himself to say the L Word to girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox)?" seems as an important question as "Will the beleaguered Autobots be destroyed by the evil Decepticons?"

Now if the last question means nothing to you, don't worry, it won't spoil your enjoyment of the film. Despite being the epitome of a 15-year-old boy's wet dream of a movie (lots of hits-to-the-groin-region jokes, gratuitous shots of hotties Fox and our own Isabel Lucas, etc.), there's enough flippancy and pace and a generous serving of Josh Duhamel as Captain Lennox (Why should the boys get all the eye candy?) to make it a fun date night flick.

Small quibbles: it would be great if one of the Decepticons could take some time out from decimating the world's population to shear 20 minutes or so off the movie's lengthy climax (Yet another explosion, really?) and if the good guy robots could be more clearly identified from the bad guy robots for us ignorant female novices (My partner got quite annoyed with yet another "Who's winning?" poke to his ribs.)

And don't sit too close to the front. But otherwise a totally awesome dumb night out.

By Deb Grunfeld