All product placement, all the time.

Rating: 3/10 (16 July 2007)

I didn't watch Transformers as a kid but I was familiar with them and was looking forward to seeing this as a feature length film. Unfortunately I was disappointed.
The good: The look of and way they handled the Transformers transforming was pretty impressive. (However it usually happened too fast to appreciate how it worked.) And the plot was OK, I could suspend disbelief enough to follow and enjoy the plot.
However the rest of the movie was disappointing: It seemed written by and for a 14 year old boy. Geeky selfish, spoiled upper-middle class Caucasian boy gets his dad to buy him a car so he can ditch his friend to go after a "hot" girl (who he doesn't even know anything about other than that she is attractive), and then of course ends up saving the world/getting the girl. The script was pathetic - trying to be hip in places it didn't work. Editing was done poorly -- too hard to follow the fights and the bouncing between plot points was not handled well.
I counted at least 10 separate product placements and would love to know just how much of the budget GMC paid to get their name and their logo not only on the Transformers but the showing of dealerships and other GMC cars. (Plus Ebay, BurgerKing, XBox, DeloitTouche, etc. etc.) I could have forgiven the rest of the flaws since it's just a fluffy action flick but paying $10 to see one big ad really really upsets me!