Extremely high level of robot detail + shaky camera work = what the heck was that?

Rating: 6/10 (2 July 2007)

I went into 'Transformers' expecting something that would be good on many levels. I was expecting a well-paced movie with a good story, a good plot, good character development, and of course good special effects. Alas, the only thing this movie really really accomplishes well are special effects. And let me tell you, these effects are totally completely mind-blowingly amazing. To put it bluntly it takes it to a whole other level. This movie sets a benchmark. It will win academy awards for breaking all kinds of special effects barriers.
But this unfortunately is the film's one and only ace. I went into this movie expecting an all around good movie. I don't know why I had such high expectations though. One look at who was directing it should have made me know better. Michael Bay. What do you expect? The man doesn't know how to make anything other than big, explosive, shiny, dumb movies that usually do really well at the box office. People like his kind of movies, I guess. But to me, it just seems that they are all rather poorly planned. 'Transformers' isn't well balanced at all. Granted, its a movie about robots, and thats clearly where most of the effort was put. But like others have said, if just a little bit was taken away from the extremely hard-to-follow action scenes and put into a better story with a more intelligent script with more attention to suspense and drama this movie would be much better.
Its high point is the incredible special effects, but even the effects are hampered by extremely shaky camera work, unnecessary zooming, panning, rotating, and twisting to make the shot look more "interesting" (I suppose). There were times during some of the massive (and I mean MASSIVE) battle scenes were you literally didn't know what the hell was going on. Some battles were really well done - and ironically those were the one's you could actually follow! But most were very shaky, poorly shot, and too close-up to really take in everything that was happening. The robots were of such a high level of detail (which is normally a really good thing) its incredibly hard to see what's what as they swing their arms and legs and jump and fly and run all over each other at a very rapid pace. Was that Megatron or Starscream attacking Optimus Prime? You don't know because everything is moving so fast, the detail level on the robots is so ridiculously fine its hard to really differentiate between them, and the camera is shaking so much. Bumblebee was easy to point out in the battle scenes because he is yellow. So just look for the yellow blurs and flashes and you know you're looking at Bumblebee. The weird part about all of this is that the special effects crew no doubt did an awesome job in animating and detailing the robots. They all look so real and finely detailed -- thats when the camera is steady enough to actually see what they are. But once the fighting begins, its Headache City trying to follow the action. Maybe I'm just getting too old for this. Maybe the kiddies can follow whats going on.
Overall, I rate this movie a 6/10. The special effects are totally awesome and I suppose that was the major aim of the movie, which it accomplishes with flying colors. But many scenes were unfortunately degraded by bad camera work. Better directing could have made many of the scenes more suspenseful. And the comedy brings an unwelcome light-hearted feeling that doesn't compliment the huge, violent, and spectacular action pieces.
BTW, I don't understand why some people are calling this militaristic propaganda". I suspect these people are the kind that label everything as "propaganda" in knee-jerk fashion, as in "its all a pro-American military fascist brainwash" or some BS. Just go home and shut up. This is basically a war movie that takes place in the U.S.A. So, yes, the military will tend to play a large role in war movies -- morons. Get over it.