A great adaptation of a popular cartoon

Rating: 8/10 (4 July 2007)

Let me state the obvious and why I scored this pretty high even with my problems in this film: this will go down as one of the best adaptations of a popular cartoon to date. And how refreshing it was to see robots that looked like robots and not men in silly rubber suits. The special effects was top notch and this will be the film to beat in that area come Academy Award time.
And let me say this: this is a guy's film. And that isn't a bad thing, it's rather good except for the blatancy of it being a "guys" film with an element of Spielberg magic mixed in - the child with the "My Little Pony" stuffed toy (was that Hasbro too? Great joke if so!) and the Decepticon that reminded me a lot of *batteries not included.
For example, I loved the military guys - but their characters were not flushed out enough for me. I think it was because they wanted to get the teen element going. And that is one of the problems I had with the film.
This film spent too much attention on the teen element: Shia LeBouf (or whatever his name was) was adequate. The female teen was as cardboard as most women in Micheal Bay movies (He REALLY needs to work on that). Nothing to write home to mom about.
Speaking out what I think is one of Micheal Bay's biggest problems is that in many of his films, the women are lost in characterizations and they just seem to be there to keep the attention of the guys when the cars weren't screeching, transforming or metal was clanking itself together. Yeah, they tried to give them a story ... but as usually it was rushed and falls flat as a pancake. Be honest - take a minute to think of these women (two ...and the momma) ...and now take them out of the film. Miss them? No. And the tow truck driving at the end? Any male character could have done it. Would have LOVED to see some testosterone there to keep the action going like the military man who grabbed the motorcycle and kicked royal butt! She was no big whoop...except for the reasons I stated above.
I would have given this film a ten if they got RID of the teen(s) and his first car element. If the story focused on the military men - that would have been fine. But the question of who would have gotten the Camaro needed to be solved. With better writing in that area, it could have been without the ho-hum teens and annoying parents.
The other thing that bothered me was the camera work. I was never a fan of the shaky hand held MTV-type camera work and they should have left it alone here. There was some amazing special effects going on that was drowned in parts by this shaky-amateur camera work. Maybe its because Micheal Bay doesn't like Downtown Los Angeles. Everything seems to come to a head down there for him, and speaking as a bi-coastal Los Angeleno - it is a shaky place....
Bottom line: I was hyped up and totally satisfied with Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, Jazz and all the rest of the Transformers and transform they did. Wonderful! Amazing! And as many reviewers before me have pointed out - the humans in this film were ...very second tier compared to them. And because of Optimus Prine, Megatron, Bumblebee, Jazz and all the rest of the Autobots and Decepticons is why this film got very high marks from me.
This special effects work of making one of my favorite cartoons come 'alive' was outstanding, well worth the time even over my nit-picky objections and the hope that Transformers 2 (Oh come on - you KNOW there will be one!) story will be more worthy of them, the women inserted will actually be integral to the plot and we'll see some of those "other" Transfomers we know will have us screaming in our seats now that we see them in all their glory in live action.