Yes. Not Michael Bay - explosions are fine, making half the movie into explosions is not. Especially when the robots are barely in the movie.

[He may have wasted too much time picking apart Transformers shut up.]

But Lucas makes it work, and del Toro is... well, his stuff is fascinating, even if there's some obvious Catholic influence. I'm willing to ignore it for the sheer brilliance of his movies, though.

... And there's Kubrick's special effects as well, but that pretty much goes without saying.