An OK movie..

Rating: 5/10 (1 July 2007)

I think I must've been watching a different movie to the one everyone else has reviewed here...
Sure, it doesn't have to be the same storyline as the original, but did it have to be so overly simplified? How could a kid's cartoon (and comic book series) actually have more depth than a movie (I know its Michael Bay, but still..)?? The whole point of the series was the character development of the Transformers (hence the name) with the human characters secondary. In this movie, the Transformers were secondary and not even introduced until half way through as actual characters. It had every cliché the writers thought they could put in there. You know, nerd boy has cool rebellious girl fall for him while saving the world.. actually, the movie seemed to place more emphasis on this plot device than the actual invasion. There have been many cliché movies, but at least they don't feel as corny. Which leads me to the human characters (in this case, the main characters). None of them were interesting and all felt very one dimensional. There were a lot of human characters (more than robots) and all seemed trivial. While the whole point of 'robots in disguise' or 'more than meets the eye' is that the Transformers are fighting their war whilst trying not to be noticed.. not attacking anyone they can, and having wars in the middle of the city ala Godzilla.
A point of major contention on the internet before the release of this movie seemed to be the designs of the Transformers. I decided to reserve my judgement until I saw the movie.. Unlike the story, the character designs in this movie were so overly complicated. Sure, the 80's designs can be updated, but not completely changed to the point of being unrecognisable and indistinguishable between each other. The original characters were easy to pick apart (simple and effective colour schemes and face designs) without having to hear their voices. Instead, all I saw was an ugly mash of grey wires and metal blending on the screen most of the time. The vehicles may have looked good, but not the robots. Actually, most of the faces reminded me of the robot from 'Short Circuit'.. They definitely didn't feel Japanese designed and again made the Transformers feel secondary.
And finally, the product placement got pretty annoying. Its bad enough to see the same brands over and over again, but even worse to hear constant references to products.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I didn't find this to be a great movie, or even a good summer blockbuster. Its an OK movie (that has an OK action sequence at the end) but little or no character development of the Transformers, boring human characters, boring designs and little in common with the original series aside from the names. Stick to the cartoon, or watch Die Hard if you want action..