What a Career Change for Bay

Rating: 8/10 (23 August 2007)

Michael Bay has directed seven theatrical films now. For a long time he was a trash director. Before "The Island," he had five to his name: "Bad Boys (1995)," "The Rock (1996)," "Armageddon (1998)," "Pearl Harbor (2001)" and "Bad Boys II (2003)." Only "The Rock" is not deplorably bad, and the other four sometimes border on unwatchable. I refused to see "The Rock" for a long time, but did on the advice of a friend, and after seeing it, I felt that Bay could be a legend one day if all of his films were that good.
Bay has now increased his record to three for seven. "The Transformers" is a first rate Science Fiction film that abundantly brings action, drama, computer visuals and inventive sound to the screen. While I contend that "The Matrix" did not deserve its visual effects Oscar, I give no argument to its sound effects award. "The Transformers" employs equal inventiveness and raises sound effects to a level never achieved before.
The most challenging effects are the complex transformations themselves. They take place so quickly that it is impossible to see most detail, but the ear has no such limitation and the terrific sound sells the illusion. I look forward to the DVD release so I can discover how many creative noises were used in the symphonic cacophony of sound (how's that for an oxymoron?).
The brilliant audio is not limited to the transformations. A transformer named Frenzy attacks with hurled blades with a distinctive hum that will be tattooed on my mind forever. The transformers' voices are all mechanized and deepened, yet easily distinguished from each other. Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith from "The Matrix") voices Megatron and his voice is altered so well that I could not tell it was him, yet their speech is easy to understand. There are a host of other examples like the whizzing of Scorponok's blender hands, the hum of Starscream's jet engine, the sound of the robots' computer hacking, missiles zooming through the sky, shockwaves, and the crunch of metal beings striking one another.
The opening narration explains the premise. "The Cube" can create planets and fill them with life. On the transformers' home world, a group called the Decepticons used the Cube for evil, and the entire planet was rendered lifeless in the following war. The Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen) scour the stars in hopes of destroying the Cube to prevent the Decepticons from ravaging other worlds.
Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBouf) is the grandson of an arctic explorer. The explorer found the frozen Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. Megatron's followers come to Earth and believe that the Cube is here and Sam holds the key to finding it. An Autobot named Bumblebee locates Sam and protects him until his comrades can arrive.
Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense John Keller (Jon Voight) gathers the most brilliant computer students in the country to identify who hacked into their defense system. One of them (Rachael Taylor) asserts that an artificial intelligence did, and is bluntly dismissed. Witwicky picks up Michaela, the High School belle (Megan Fox), and they are both thrust into the crisis when Bumblebee fights a Decepticon disguised as a police car. Another Decepticon destroys an airbase in the Middle East.
Complicating the matter is Agent Simmons (John Turturro) of Sector 7, a secret group whose existence is unknown to even Secretary Keller. This point is where the film works against itself. Simmons knows enough to realize the scale of the threat, yet he takes the simplest course of action--arrest the Witwickys. No questions, no thinking, no planning, just barging in with handcuffs. Simmons waves his "do anything I want and get away with it" badge in their faces like a power hungry child. Optimus Prime frees the family, but when the largest SWAT team comes out of nowhere, the Autobots no longer help, even when the government peons capture Bumblebee.
"Why should we protect them?" protests Autobot Ironhide, "they are a primitive, violent species." When I heard that line, I almost agreed with him. The government had made its noose and placed it around its necks, and were about to jump. It all works out, of course, when Keller intervenes, but suppose it had not. The Decepticons might have won. I have no problems with Turturro's work, but I hate seeing him on screen since he seems to always play idiot of the decade.
I wrote in my review of "Spider-Man 3" that the Academy could hand it the visual effects Oscar. After seeing the awesome climax, I have to reconsider that statement. The sand effects in the Spider-Man film were more impressive, but nearly the entire finale here is computer created, and it is long. It is sometimes hard to follow who is who, since only Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, Megatron and Starscream have their own personalities.
Were it not for Agent Simmons, this film may have received a ten star score, although I wanted to see more of the Optimus, Megatron fight. The human characters exceeded my expectations and the setup allows a strong foundation. In any case, Michael Bay is now a respectable director, and I look forward to his next film.