An entertaining movie

Rating: 8/10 (26 April 2009)

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I am not a comic book fan so I can't comment on whether the film kept true to the Transformers comics/cartoons. Although in some incarnation I seem to recall they were re-born from Hasbros/Marvel's GI Joe (but could be wrong) in the 1990s. The film is a typical Michael Bay full of action, some witty one-liners,yes some cringe-worthy parts, and his trademark 360 degree pans to emphasise the drama. I love the first hour of the film, in the way it builds up the threat from the Decepticons: including the attack on the USAF base in Qatar, Captain Lennox Team's/USAF's battle in the desert and the fight on 'Air Force One'. The special effects are superb, particularly I love the way that ILM captured Optimus Prime's own reflection on his armour. That is what I call attention to detail. The climatic scenes are sensational and are also "Bayesque" ie. a lot of action sequences all at once. My favourite parts of the movie are the scenes with the Witwicky family. Kevin Dunn and Julie White are very funny eg, the Porsche Garage scene, and Sam's "Happy Time". Anthony Anderson is also a very funny man. The film is very much glued together by Shia LaBeouf's performance who is very talented actor but does like to say "No, No, No" for some reason. I can only think he is related to Jim Trott from the Vicar of Dibley. All the cast put in good solid performances eg, Las Vegas's Josh Duhamel, the iconic Jon Voight, John Turturro, the Late Great Bernie Mac and an accomplished performance by Megan Fox. We even get to see Cloverfield's Odette Yustman with a bit part, for some reason being attacked by an SUV! (I know the All Spark thing did it). One comment on the climax, I must admit to be puzzled why the military would think it would be a good idea to hide the "All Spark" cube in the middle of a city, putting thousands of people in danger of being killed by giant alien robots,as opposed to finding a remote place eg, a desert, to bomb the heck out of the evil robots!?(The special effects wouldn't be that good I suppose?) That aside, the film is a good way to spend a couple of hours away from the Credit Crunch, the recession, etc and is very low maintenance on the mind. A very entertaining movie.