Worth seeing

Rating: 7/10 (12 October 2007)

Ah, Transformers, a true trip to nostalgia for all us children of the 80's. So, I expected the movie to be largely a movie to appeal to the nostalgia of the children of the 80's. I was surprised when the movie actually came out decent!
The plot is explained in an opening monologue by the ever-impressive Optimus Prime, which I felt was actually unnecessary, because it detracted from the slow immersion into the fantastic that occurred later. Still, once that bit of fluff was forgotten, we are treated to a surprisingly grounded, well-acted and intelligent story about alien automotons that have been engaged in a civil war for thousands of years over what amounts to a godlike power contained in a cube called "The All-spark" that has the ability to give life to otherwise inert machines. (And, apparently, the ability to transform, which I found just a bit silly.)
The visual effects were spectacular. Though the complexity of the transformations were a little overdone, I felt, the overall effect of watching these machines move and fight is like watching a ballet of animation. The CGI is seamless, especially in the climactic scene where Sam Witwicky takes on Megatron with the Allspark. I am a very skeptical movie viewer, but I bought that scene wholesale.
The only real problem I had with this movie was the dialogue. The transformers often came off as just a little too corny to maintain the illusion. For one thing, Jazz irritated me. Just because he's the token black Transformer (Which is kinda funny since the original robot was white) doesn't mean he has to be the token black transformer NOW. He especially doesn't need to be calling Megatron a punk and talking about "kickin it." And whoever decided the token black transformer had to die at the end of the movie, and all Optimus has to say is that he was a good soldier and comrade, should be beaten with a switch. It was just a touch on the racist side for me.
Despite Shia LeBouf's irritating, almost Woody Allen like performance, the movie carried off fairly well. I didn't like Optimus's monologue, though. I found it cliché' and unnecessary. In fact, a lot of the dialogue, as I mentioned, was pretty unnecessary. "I am Megatron!" for instance, upon the thawing out of the big baddie, wasn't just unnecessary, it was downright stupid. Just one decent dialogue editor would have scored this movie another star in my mind. Obviously, the movie's not perfect, but it is fun. It's an adult take on a kid's cartoon that actually turned out better than I expected. Despite the flaws, it's worth going to see.