Plenty of action and funny jokes, but...

Rating: 6/10 (8 July 2007)

Keep in mind that this is a Transformers movie, not some random sci-fi robot action flick. The movie itself is quite enjoyable. It has plenty of action, comedy, and pretty girls. The story is not half-bad either. However, as a Transformers movie, it falls short in a number of places.
First of all, it seems to me that neither Spielberg nor Bay intended to make this into a true big-budget summer blockbuster. Transformers, being one of the cultural icons of the 80's, deserved to be treated more seriously and this movie should have been on the same scale as that of Star Wars, Superman, or Independence Day. I was not expecting a war drama, but I just wanted an action movie with more grandeur.
*Spoilers* Secondly, plot holes do exist. For example, how did the Autobots find out that the Cube was at Hoover Dam? All they had was the pair of glasses engraved with a map that indicated the ORIGINAL location of the Cube at the time that Megatron crash landed on Earth. This is perhaps a minor detail, but it shows that the script was not rigorously reviewed for consistency. Moreover, after escaping with the Cube, knowing that the Decepticons are chasing after them, why would the good guys take shelter in a heavily populated city, risking the lives of thousands of people? Yes, maybe they thought that a dense urban environment would be a nice place to hide the Cube, but apparently they also believed that the Decepticons were just going to play hide-and-seek with them instead of blowing up the city. The Cube itself bugged me as well. Why did every robot it made shot lasers and rockets? It was supposed to build civilizations of machine lives, not just armies of killer robots. Of course, feel free to correct me if I missed something in these observations.
Character development of the transformers was also limited. Optimus and Megatron didn't do much as leaders of their respective factions. Autobot Jazz was portrayed like some token minority funny guy in many movies that always got killed first. Most of the Decepticons looked like they were practically just weapons, not sentient beings. Instead of putting in so many random caricatural human characters, the time could have been better spent on the robots. If there is going to be a sequel, I hope to see the transformers as main characters and humans as supporting casts.
Last but not least I want to comment on the transformers' design. I'm not a fanatic who wants everything to look exactly like the originals, and I don't dislike the designs in the movie. At times, however, it was hard to figure out which body part was which and basically they looked like piles of junk metals when the actions were fast and camera was shaky. I think the robot forms can look neater without losing the realism.
In summary, this is a good action movie and nothing more. I am disappointed that it was not better, and I hope that there will be a sequel with more focus on the Transformers themselves. Also if I may be so bold to give a piece of advice to the writers: Having transforming robots doesn't make it a Transformers movie. It is OK to be creative and explore new ideas, but it is more important to understand and respect the original "stuff" that made Transformers so memorable.