Bad bad movie.

Rating: 2/10 (30 October 2007)

Well I saw this movie recently. Granted it was on videotape so most likely the effect on me would not be nearly as profound as if I had viewed it on the big screen. Nonetheless, it was BAD (not the good kind of bad rather the BAD bad).
Here's why: 1) Weak, weak character development. It immediately starts off with a tense atmosphere no much buildup. The main character has the same tired cliché of "dork gets the hot girl from jock boyfriend". All the characters had corny lines and racial stereotyping to boot. Jazz anyone? The transformers had little to no personality whatsoever. Starscream barely was recognizable. One of the soldiers even had to point out that it's not a plane it's Starscream! He should've at least looked distinctive.
2) The movie focused waaaaayyyy to much on the human characters when it should've been on the transformers. We really don't get to know much about the transformers' personalities. They were more akin to props then anything. Of course the little Frenzy bot was especially annoying sounding like more like a crazed African pygmy than an highly advanced machine.
3) Misplaced humor. Now I appreciate humor sprinkled around here and there but this was almost constantly applied. The stupid masturbation inference..the urinating by Bumblebee on the government agent. The quote "I bet my ridiculously high government paycheck"..I mean way way out of line or "Criminals are hot"..stupid. Finally the sneaking around by the Autobots who were like bulls in a china shop. Such humor seemed so infantile and maybe the appeal was to children, I don't know.
4) Actions scenes. This is BY FAR the worst thing in this movie. Shaky camera (I guess that's the "in" thing to do). Transformers who looked too similar. Dizzying action sequences where everyone is racing at 100 mph an hour while firing weapons. It was most difficult to discern what was even going on and the Decepticons and Autobots were hard to tell apart in their battle sequences.
5) Length of movie. For god's sake it was almost two and a half hours! I was so bored in the extended city battle scenes. Continuous action for over half an hour or it felt like it. It was mind numbing and not in a good way.
So basically if you like CGI and super fast action scenes with little character development and meaningful dialog then this movie is for you.