The best summer blockbuster in years

Rating: 9/10 (28 June 2007)

I just came back from the premier where I live, and this is, quite frankly, the most amazing blockbuster ever in years.
To get this out of the way first, the bad points of the film were that the two human protagonists, don't seem to act all that surprised when discovering the first transformer. I feel that the film could have done without the love plot line; its too clichéd in blockbuster films these days.
Also, the story is told entirely from Sam Witwicky and the Autobot's point of view, which means the decepticons are almost never seen interacting with one another. The rivalry between Starscream and Megatron exists only in one spoken line.
Its a pity, considering how the original cartoons divided equal time between the autobots and decepticons, but I guess that is what the sequels are for.
If you are fine with that, then this movie is an absolute blast. The action scenes are lengthy and breathtaking. While the decepticons aren't given much speaking lines, there are a lot of scenes showing them wreaking havoc on anything other than themselves.
The action scenes are unbelievable. I'm a pretty harsh critic when it comes to action scenes in movies, and I have to say nothing tops the climax of this film. I won't say anything more, except to suggest that you try not to blink. You don't want to miss one millisecond of the climax, trust me.
The plot is simple, and structured well. Don't expect a deep, thoughtful storyline that is bulletproof from scrutiny, but expect something that is entertaining and follows the original cartoons in spirit. There was maybe one scene which dragged on longer than it should have, but thats about it. The whole show is quite long at 2 1/2 hours, though a movie on this scale deserves to be 3 hours long.
Overall if you can overlook the above mentioned flaws, this is the summer blockbuster to compensate for the disappointments of Spider Man, Pirates and Shrek 3. If you have to see one summer blockbuster, make it this one.