1st time seeing Transformers in action

Rating: 4/10 (16 July 2007)

I went into the film not knowing most of the characters or even seeing the previous show nor movie. I grew up in the time that they were on TV, but I wasn't allowed to watch violent cartoons, so there you go. The Michael Bay version is interesting; a lot of new special FX that are more common in shorter doses (like car commercials) were displayed for the eye candy. The humor was a great touch (Bernie Mac especially)for such an odd movie (robots from space land on earth to search out a relic from an Antarctica expedition so that they can regain control of some energy cube before more evil-doing robots get there first). The movie, I was thinking, was aimed at kids, which it is but in a more mature fashion. And where there were Transformers, there's always a hidden agenda, it seems...
More than a slightly shadowed message about alien races (like, say, immigrants and recent national policies here in America about such), I had a giant problem with the fact that the producers of the film must've said to themselves, "Here's a movie about a cartoon that was made popular because a lot of kids bought their toys. But kids haven't heard about Transformers in ages. What they have heard and seen lately are sports-cars, mobile phones, and XBOX 360s. Let's incorporate products in the movie as much as possible." And they went crazy with it all. Brand names everywhere. I understand that movies cost money to make, but if a soul hasn't heard about eBay on the internet by now, do we need to hear the name "eBay" spouted at least 3 times in the film? How about Pontiac, a Saleen Mustang, or a new Camaro? How about Nokia phones? No one's heard of those? How about spending that money for some decent shots of space, where these robots originated and fought most of the time? How about offering advice to the cameraman in charge of placing the CGI screen so close to the robots fighting that you can't tell what they're doing? The camera was so wobbly, it made Michael Bay look like a drunk behind the shot concepts.
The concept behind Transformers is mind-boggling enough (who makes these things? what responsibility do the "good" guys have over the things they destroy on alien planets, like ours?) that a crazy director was all they needed. But you have to call this movie what it is, which is a car-commercial aimed at big kids with Transformer-size wallets who want to see how Army men handle getting blown up by giant outer space robots. It's a fluff piece aimed at kids with loud CGI in-your-face action without purpose. It was pretty fun while it lasted, but it made the storyline behind the series look pathetically boring. But they kept the same crappy music in the film like the original movie (I have since seen the cartoon movie) like Linkin Park.
My advice to people like me who never really got into the series, go watch the original cartoon movie. Watch a few episodes, then see the live-action-meets-CGI version. Its something for the legacy of Hasbro to deal with, but what warranted this movie to be released other than new products to talk about and new issues in the news. Skip it.