cars, robots, hot girls and explosions: the ultimate boys movie

Rating: 7/10 (5 September 2008)

I wasn't expecting a lot of a movie based on a TV show (which I've never seen) based on some toy. But Transformers look cool in advertisements so when it came to TV I decided to check it out, and it's actually a pretty decent movie. The action scenes are well done, the movie has a fast, consistent pace and I found myself surprisingly interested in what was happening.
At the same time, this is not a great movie. The robots themselves are just silly stereotype caricatures, and the dopey humor doesn't jibe with the cleverer humor earlier in the movie (i.e. the car that plays songs appropriate to the situation. The robots fail to generate any real personality, so Shea LeBouf's emotional attachment to them doesn't make any sense. Although it might make sense to undemanding 10 year olds, who are probably this movie's primary target audience.
Oddly enough, I found the movie less interesting as it proceeded from a cute action-comedy to a big action spectacular. The final scenes of mayhem were competently filmed, but there are none of those "wow" moments you get from really good big budget action pix. In fact, the most impressive thing in battles is the smooth transformation of robots from one form to the other, and by movie's end you've seen that enough to no longer be impressed.
Overall the movie is a bit of a hack job, but it's a very entertaining hack job, and sometimes that's all you really need.