Ground-breaking effects let down by paper thin plot, terrible script and bad direction

Rating: 2/10 (23 July 2007)

Let me start at the beginning. The opening dialogue will bring back many memories for us 20/30 somethings who remember when cartoons were full of action and the world was a very different place. This Michael Bay adaptation of Transformers starts off with extreme promise. From the booming opening lines setting the scene, and our first glimpse of bumblebee - the viewer is left with hope. I don't want to give away any real spoilers, so I'll give an overall view from here.
After the opening 10 minutes, the film rapidly declines into a cop-out cheese fest of the highest order - which if you read further, I will do my best to justify.
For the main characters, I'll give Bay his due, he couldn't have got it any worse. In Shia LeBeouf's case, it's not so much that he can't act, it's more the outright stupidity and daft sense of reality that his character is given to perform in. The guy can clearly act, but was he right for this part? I'll leave that up to you to decide. Moving onto Megan Fox. Well here we have a classic case of looks over talent, which the film makers crudely try to cover up by giving her a pathetic attempt at a interesting twist - she can mend cars. Yeah right. Those hands of hers have held no more spanners than I have held kryptonite - really it's laughable. And as for the jail back story - puuuhlease. Her character has about as much depth as the shallow end of a kids paddling pool.
Moving away from the characters (I'm purposefully avoiding the parents), there is the directing. I read somewhere about the amount of processing power it took to produce each frame of film where the transformers are on screen, being enormous. Taking that into consideration, it seems criminal to me that their appearance on screen (especially during the fight scenes) is so erratic and hard to follow. Honestly, THEY LOOK FANTASTIC(the only saving grace in this crud-pot of a film), which begs the question as to why they weren't given the respect on screen that they really deserved. Yes, Bay may have been trying to borrow the confused sense of battle from something like Gladiator, but it ruins the effect. People wanna see the Transformers in their full glory.
Next gripe - the sense of realism. Now before you shoot me down - yes, I realise that this is a film about alien robots landing on earth searching for an all powerful cube that can grant life yada yada yada. I'm not talking about that. Every kid in the modern world is brought up from an early age with computers. Taking this into consideration, why the hell hasn't Hollywood grasped that when an 'alien' is apparently 'uploading a virus' to the 'Defence Mainframe', that the computer screen wouldn't actually say 'Virus being uploaded' blah blah blah. Kids aren't stupid, they know the terminology better than Hollywood gives em credit for, so please next time someone opts for an 'Independance Day' moment - think carefully ;-). Unfortunately, they really didn't do their homework with this one which is reflected on-screen.
I know this movie is primarily aimed at kids, but I honestly feel it could have been so much more. Instead it's been watered down, purified, pasteurised, bottled and labelled into a modern franchise-wielding forget-a-thon. It makes me sad to think that what looked to be the most promising movie of the summer has instead been treated with about as much care as Ronald McDonald does with his burgers.
Yeah some of the kids love it, but how on earth it got 8 out of 10 on IMDb I will never know. Maybe when the kids grow up, they'll realise just how corny this film is.
Shame on you Michael Bay and Dreamworks, shame on you.
2/10 (2 being the effects alone).