Transformers
Directed by: Michael Bay
Written by:Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, John Rogers
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Bernie Mac, John Turturro, Jon Voight, Anthony Anderson

Let me start by saying that I am one of the many children of the 80’s who grew up on the Transformers, and of course I never thought I’d see the day that they’d actually make a big budget Hollywood feature film based on this silly little cartoon. And yet here it is, all these years later up on the big screen, larger than life — indeed it has somehow snowballed into one of the most highly anticipated and heavily promoted movies of the year. Apparently Hollywood knows my demographic all too well. But as an adult, how is one to judge a movie that is based on childhood memories? Well, not to worry friends, because Michael Bay has solved that little dilemma for us. There is absolutely no nostalgia at work in this new reincarnation of the Transformers. The cartoon we thought we knew has been completely obliterated and replaced with something equally as infantile and ridiculous — something rather… alien, as it were.

Make no mistake, this is a movie about toys; not action figures per se, but toys for slightly older boys: real life Hot Wheels. Mix in some guns, loud music, and hot chicks, and you’ve got yourself the perfect movie aimed at a 16 year old male. The problem is, the kids that grew up with the Transformers are now in their late 20’s to early 30’s. Is it any surprise that this movie misses the mark with the majority of its target audience?

I have to be honest, the movie wasn’t a complete disaster for me. The first half was relatively fun, and carried with it a genuine sense of wonder and awe, not to mention a sense of humour. I think this is the thing I was most impressed with. Amidst the dead serious Michael Bay military action, there was a real Spielberg touch within the light-hearted adventures of Sam Witwicky and his encounters with Bumblebee.

Although I still can’t completely buy Shia LaBeouf as the uncool misfit, he does have an undeniable charisma and great comedic sensibilities. His quest to win the heart of Megan Fox was cute and relatable, and his dealings with his parents endearing. More importantly, I was glad they didn’t get too melodramatic with this movie, and at least acknowledged some of the humour inherent in the whole concept. I didn’t even mind the scene with the Autobots hiding outside of Sam’s house trying to avoid being seen by his parents. I’m sure this may have crossed the line for the moviegoers who came looking only for “giant fucking robots”, but it was okay in my books.

Unfortunately, they even went a little overboard with the humour at times, adding stupid jokes that drained suspense from the action (ie. needing a credit card to dial the Pentagon), or just going into self-parody territory (ie. John Turturro’s character and the other Sector Seven agents). This comes into play a little over halfway into the movie, and marks the start of an extremely long and mostly mind-numbing conclusion to the film.

From here on in, Michael Bay’s directorial style takes center stage, and he’s like a kid trying desperately to impress his parents with all the cool tricks he can do. His style of shooting action scenes is chaotic, confusing and somewhat frustrating to watch; when combined with the random junk heap designs of a lot of the Transformers, it was nearly impossible to tell what was happening to whom and when. I didn’t even realize that a character had been mortally wounded until after the dust had settled… you’d think a director might want to accentuate something like this a little more. For the most part, Bay relies on hackneyed lens flares, slow motion shots, and magic hour skies to convey the rest of his key moments, trying to hammer home some inkling of emotional attachment to these characters. But I think Transformers only confirms that Michael Bay makes great trailers rather than great movies.

The special effects in this movie cannot be understated, and I will say that this is one area where the movie lives up to its billing as the must see movie of the summer. There are a few “wow” moments (the Bumblebee/Barricade chase comes to mind) and impressive CGI that you just don’t want to miss out on here. That said, these moments are overshadowed by moments of clumsiness and excess, and by the time the credits roll, this 140 minute car commercial has long since lost its appeal.

I don’t really have any gripes about choices of characters, storylines or designs of the Transformers themselves. I like to think I went in with an open mind. I could care less if Optimus Prime had lips, Bumblebee spoke using the radio, or if Megatron didn’t transform into a gun. In the end this was all minor stuff, and had little bearing on the final product. The only character-related decision that I think weakened the movie a bit more was the idea of having Megatron frozen in ice for the majority of the film. There was no way to paint him as being any more evil or threatening than the rest of the Decepticons, and the climactic final battle suffered as a result.

Maybe if Michael Bay wasn’t at the helm, there could have been a worthwhile movie here. I would have preferred to have the entire military subplot axed since it was full of every action movie cliche in the book, one-dimensional characters and useless tough guy posturing. It’s actually kind of ironic, because when Spielberg first described this movie as being a simple story about “a boy and his car”, I thought he was crazy. Now I realize that he had the right idea. Too bad it turned out to be a movie about a boy, his car, his great grandfather’s glasses, E-Bay, a hot girl who hotwires cars, the secretary of defense, a unit of soldiers in the Middle East, a computer hacker who plays Dance Dance Revolution, the Hoover Dam, the Tooth Fairy, and a whole bunch of Tomahawk helicopters instead. — Sean

SCORE:

Recommended If You Like: The Rock, Pearl Harbor, Jurassic Park, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles