A few personal technical issues, but completely enjoyable

Rating: 10/10 (29 June 2007)

Coming out of the movie theaters, I get the sense that at any moment a car is going to start ripping apart and jump over me to fight another robot. This movie has that kind of lasting impact. Although this review will not be entirely glowing and bandwagon, my basic sense is that tonight a select few hundred people bore witness to the birth ( or re-birth ) of the next major blockbuster movie franchise. Kudos to GM for securing their part in the event. Im a Ford guy, and even I wanted to drive that Camaro. Certainly if there are any brains in the management of local Toys-R-Us stores, they should stay open late tomorrow night and hand out maps describing how to get from your theater seat to the Transformer aisle of their store. If there isn't such a marketing tie-in already in play, then they really missed the boat - ( ARK sized boat ).
Starting with the casting of Shia LaBeouf, who has elevated himself through the ranks of young Hollywood babyfaces with well calculated moves such as IRobot and now Transformers, along with longshot risks such as Project Greenlight's "Battle of Shaker Heights". Shia's agent should be thanked every day by said actor for helping to insure that he and a certain bright yellow 2008 Camaro will be raking in box office gold for at least the next ten years, if the Hollywood establishment doesn't stick their deft hands into yet another action hero franchise. This possibility is much less likely under the helm of SKG, aka Dreamworks, aka some of the most anti-establishment creative forces yet to descent upon the landscape of American cinema.
Now, on to the main course.
If there is something to be said for a film being TOO beautiful, it is the downfall of the cinema format that you sometimes cross a threshold of visual comprehension and much of the film makers artwork is lost because your eyes just cannot keep up. This is certainly the case in many sequences in this movie. The other technical challenge that contributes to this vertigo is the fact that a tremendously, excruciatingly high percentage of the action is framed in tight closeups. This experience is difficult to explain.
Perhaps I was just sitting too close to the screen, and I am sure that others can either agree or disagree with this technical point - I really wished through a lot of the movie that the POV ( point of view ) was pulled out just a LITTLE BIT to capture more of the Autobots and the action. There are a few sequences towards the end of the movie where this does happen, and the sense of scale and size is far more dramatic ( in my opinion ) than seeing tight close ups of the faces and gears and intertwined robots rolling around in an indistinguishable heap. More than a few times the visual information being presented was just "out of context" without visual references to keep the sequence grounded. The freeway cloverleaf sequence, by contrast, gives a far more impressive display of the amazing power of the things you are watching.
I know this sounds like I'm nit picking, but if there is anything about the movie I truly found to be a negative at all, it was the framing of many of the action shots. The only other thing about the movie was this inexplicable gap in the action ( and the comedy ) right in the middle of the flick. The only reason it's so noticeable is that up to that point the pacing of the action, the reveals, the eye candy, and the comedy are intertwined so perfectly as to give you more a sense of being on a theme park Virtual Ride than in a movie. Then comes the " we have to explain the back-story " sequence and really slows down the pacing. I think it would have been better served to put it in the sequence when we first see all the Autobots together, but hey - I'm here and Steven Spielberg is there - what do I know. :-) Last little request from film makers - if you're going to put a " aren't you glad you got in the car " moment into movies, don't stop the entire final fight scene ( soundtrack, explosions and all ) to let the male and female heroes have a tender moment....
All in all, I cannot imagine any kids NOT wanting to head to the Transformer aisle between now and Monday, and I am certain that EBAY will be on fire with "rare and collectible" Transformer collectibles for the rabid child in all of us. From someone who NEVER watched the Transformers as a kid ( I'm 40 ), I can tell you that the movie is a runaway success on all fronts. It didn't surprise me to see that Transformers 2 is already in the works, and slated for a 2009 release. I guess the only things to speculate on are what new Transformers will be in the sequel, and will GM be able to afford an exclusive lock on the product placement in the next installment of this brilliantly crafted franchise. As if Spielberg needed any more money...
RRInfoGuy PS - I hope that Chrysler gets to play in the next one.. who wouldn't want to see a Viper or Cuda up there on the screen?