Those searching for poignant social commentary will have to dig deeper. They'll never find it on a movie screen where cars turn into robots.

Tainting the box-office success of "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" - the film took in nearly $300 million in its first couple of weeks - were accusations of racism. Many fans and a few critics were offended by two side characters, twin robots that argue continually in street slang.

One also sports a gold tooth, enough to convince some it's a thinly veiled stereotype of blacks. Some went as far as to say the portrayal of Skids and Mudflap evoked memories of minstrel shows.

Even in a computer-generated world, that comparison would be a stretch. Minstrel shows featured hate-filled whites ridiculing black residents, often by portraying them as hapless servants to their superior masters.

The special-effects robots in the "Transformers" sequel were designed to get laughs, too, but without the same spiteful intentions. One of the actors who performed the voices is black, and he had a large part in developing

the character.

Then there's the back story. Director Michael Bay said the robots learned those mannerisms from combing the Internet, which one could argue is actually a condemnation of the stereotype that popular culture has fed.

All of this signifies neither a thumbs-up or down on the film. Thumbs are irrelevant to this review.

What matters is, as a general rule, blockbuster movies do not exist to make salient points on pressing issues. Families shouldn't look to "Transformers" for lessons on race relations any more than they should use "Kill Bill" as a model for handling disputes.

Their value lies in the wads of cash at the box office, and in a few hours of escapist entertainment. Nothing more.

All these spats do is distract the nation from its real racial hurdles, like the incarceration rate of young black men or the achievement gap in school test scores between minority students and their white counterparts.

Those are battles where we can't enlist the help of Optimus Prime.