An excellent action film despite a weak story

Rating: 8/10 (7 July 2007)

OK, so let's be honest here. Was anyone really going to see Transformers for the story? Of course not! If you were than you didn't know what you were going to see.
But despite a cheese factor through the roof, a mismatch of throw-away subplots that didn't quite fit and obvious plot holes such as about five characters being randomly forgotten about towards the end, the movie was never-the-less spectacular. It wasn't about the story. It was about the Transformers, the action, the explosions, and the entertainment. The CGI was beautiful, seamless, very well integrated and generally a pleasure to watch. The whole movie was nothing but eye candy. As for the entertainment, the movie felt like a really fun roller coaster and the humor and obvious cheese factor counter-balanced the action and chaos to keep it from becoming too dark.
But back to the movie being about the transformers, one of my real complaints is that the transformers didn't have enough development. The movie focused too much on the humans and not enough on the transformers. We don't care about the humans so much, we care about the transformers, that's what it's about, they're the one's who take up the screen, make things interesting. But the movie did leave openings for a sequel so maybe we'll see more character development for the transformers in the second one.
My other complaint is... What the hell was up with the racist crap? Did anyone else notice that they went out of their way to ghettofy Jazz, make him up to supposedly be black, and then he was the only autobot to actually get killed? Shame on Michal Bay! I was willing to over-look all the stereotypes, the Mexican guy at the beginning who refuses to speak English, the middle class family who's dad doesn't want anyone to walk on his lawn (And is the family of the main character) the computer hackers cousin busting through the glass door and getting tackled by the police, but Jazz getting ripped in two did it in. The movie's got racist issues. (By the way... I'm white... And I'm saying this...)
Despite all the crap I've said. I give it 8 stars. Why? Because of what I said to begin with. It's not about the story, screw the story. It's about the transformers, the explosions and the action... And as far as all that goes... 10 stars!