Overblown silliness

Rating: 5/10 (23 December 2007)

After buying his first car, gawky high-school nerd Sam (Shia Leboef) learns he has actually stumbled across Bumblebee, one of the transforming 'autobots' from planet cybertron. He is there to warn off an impending attack from the decepticons, an evil brand of transformer, who are hell-bent on launching an all-out invasion. Together he teams up with high school sex-goddess, borderline lap dancer, Mikaela (played by Megan Fox who looks a lot older than most high school girls). The original series of Transformers was nothing special, but admittedly had charm. Michael Bay's latest crime against cinema takes that charm, and turns it into a great big two hour advert for a mobile phone. Every girl who shows up just happens to look like Paris Hilton, and you could probably fill a beach with the amount of gruff dirt and manly sweat dripping from the eyebrows of our beloved human heroes. Even the action is underwhelming, devoid of menace or subtlety to underplay the visual vasectomy that your eyes will suffer from. The only redeeming quality is Shia Leboef, who is so charmingly funny amid the preposterousness of the actual Transformers, almost validating the movie's ballooned sense of silliness.