Unsatisfying & Forgettable Summer Misfire

Rating: Null/10 (7 July 2007)

I really am sad to say that Transformers was a misfire. I was looking forward to this film and was disappointed by this unsatisfying and incredibly shallow movie. It's the movie equivalent of cotton candy. It's large, bright and appears full until you go to take a bite and it disappears. It's all fluff delivering a soulless, babbling film. Most of the cool special effects are negated by presenting them with the jarring, shaky camera style. Since everything on screen doesn't read true, I guess Bay decided to jolt the viewer and to try and fool the eye by shaking everything up on many of the action sequences. My eye isn't so easily fooled and the jumbled mess of action gets washed away in the nauseating confusion. You expected plot stupidity and flaws in logic everywhere but you also expected those ridiculous flaws to be overcome by fun action and explosions. Sadly, that's not the case with Transformers. There's not one satisfying robot brawl that was not ruined by the shaky zoom of the camera. The Megatron Vs Optimus fight was a useless garble that looked like an erector set accident. The acting was beyond horrible (Megan Fox may be a cute little girl but she sure can't act) and the plot was awful. Transformers doesn't have much going for it, unfortunately.
When stupidity overcomes the fun, you're pulled out of a movie. Any intelligent person will ask themselves, why doesn't that Decepticon just kill the army rangers instead of following them for no reason? How does Megatron not get Sam in the old building when he's only a few feet behind him on the ground floor? (Did he really climb forty stories that fast?) Where did Optimus go when the brawl started? Why did the Transformers need to hide from Sam's parents? How do you call down an air-strike in a populated area using Morse code and old walkie talkies when everything in aviation is computer controlled(guidance, flight, propulsion)? There's far too many dumb moments to list. ALL of this stupidity hurts but it could've been forgiven had the action sequences been fulfilling. They're simply not satisfying enough to overcome the dumb plot, bad acting and to elevate this erector set GM commercial above an easily forgettable summer misfire.