Meh....Not Bad but not Great Either

Rating: 6/10 (11 July 2007)

You get the impression that the word "cool" was uttered many times during the making of Michael Bay's port of the TRANSFORMERS TV cartoon to the silver screen. After seeing the trailer a few times before other features and reading some reviews, I'd have to say my expectations were met. I saw it with Code Monkey (ex-work) and Ken (work) at Hoyts Melbourne Central. We grabbed some pints of beer at the Lion beforehand, during which Code Monkey revealed the Transformers T-shirt lurking beneath his office attire. That was a funny moment  in a good way or bad way, Ken and I aren't so sure yet.
On to the movie itself, well, there is a lot of CGI animation that is too fast and busy for its own good. Often I couldn't figure out what was going on because the action was just too fast and choppy, thus defeating the purpose you'd think. Code Monkey explained his theory on this syndrome to me on the train coming home and it seemed plausible enough: audiences are not given enough time to analyse the action and perhaps see flaws, so they just assume it kinda makes sense. Whatever the deal is, you know by now it's a pet hate of mine. It is a pity, because in many sequences the animation and special effects really are convincing, even beautiful. The story and characters are more problematic. For starters, TRANSFORMERS takes a long time to get going. Related to that point, we don't hear the Transformers themselves talk until the half way point or later. From then on the narrative flows better, since the machines take on actual personalities, albeit totally one dimensional, but at least we get some motivation and basic exposition. Then again, the interactions between the humans and the robots suddenly becomes awkward, plus you have ridiculous moments where massive hulking killer robots can't snatch a little box off a wussy teenager who is more than likely still a virgin, fer chrissakes.
As with most of Michael Bay's movies, some of the supporting characters (human and non-human) are amusing. And once again for Bay, his military types are for the most part cardboard cutouts: either steroidal Neandertals, humourless top brass, or lovable rouges. Also, this is yet another action picture that depicts violent scenes but avoids any bloodshed or one-screen deaths  any nastiness is rapidly blurred from sight by something computer generated flying past. So there it is. Heavy on spectacle, light on logic, with a few chuckles, and some female eye candy to enjoy for the blokes. A bit more restraint (or less caffeine, speed, cocaine, steroids) on Michael Bay's part could have turned this into a great blockbuster. Oh well. Bring on DIE HARD 4.0, which was apparently censored before release. Why bother at all if it's not going out with a US R, like the previous three DH movies? Don't get me started.