Way more than I expected! Best movie of 2007 so far!

Rating: 9/10 (8 July 2007)

I've never been a huge fan of Michael Bay (I thought Pearl Harbor sucked), but OH MAN did he hit it out of the ballpark with Transformers! I am one who grew up with Transformers, so I was highly skeptical of this project when I first heard about it. Transformers delivers on so many fronts - action, humor, romance, sci-fi - that I found myself wishing it wouldn't end after just 2 hours and twenty minutes. Shia Lebouf did a fantastic job lending just the right amount of personality and humor to Sam "Spike" Witwicky, the CGI robots themselves oozed with personality, and the action was just jaw-dropping. As an added bonus, Bay employed some great character actors like John Turturro, John Voigt, and Anthony Anderson to complement a decent, though in no way perfect, script.
I think the icing on the cake for us Tranformers fans is the dedication Bay put in to making this a movie for the fans. Getting Peter Cullen (the original voice of Optimus Prime in the cartoon series) back as the voice of the Autobot leader was pure genius, and was a move that definitely hit a positive nerve with this movie-goer. For those who never really watched the old 1980's cartoon series, you have nothing to worry about. While Bay took great care to satisfy fans, I feel that he also did a nice job bringing in everyone else with the action, story-line, and acting. My wife, for example, never watched the cartoon series, but thoroughly enjoyed this movie.
I can't wait for the sequel - especially to see which new Autobots and Decepticons are used!