Outstanding.

Rating: 9/10 (4 July 2007)

I thought Live Free or Die Hard was completely action-packed...
It's interesting to see what a complete 180-degree turn the reception to the Transformers movie has made on the movie-going public. Most took it as some bad joke but as the trailers emerged and we got a glimpse of the robots in disguise, we couldn't take our eyes off of them.
Transformers works well as an action movie, especially when it's an action movie based on one of the longest-running toy lines ever. It's intriguing that so much occurs in the first half-hour or so between the Decepticons' attack on the world and a fight between Autobot Bumblebee and Decepticon Barricade that you forget that the other Autobots haven't even arrived to Earth yet. I'd never been in a more enthusiastic theater. Cheers were everywhere when Bumblebee becomes the '08 Camaro, and when Optimus Prime transforms and introduces himself. The filmmakers understood that we want to see the action between the good guys and bad guys and thankfully refrain from some 'adjusting to life on Earth' subplot.
Shia LaBeouf gives an incredible of a performance as Sam. He gives in way more than was probably asked of him for the role, and he ends up being just as good a part in the movie as the robots themselves. He's got a lot of awkward charm that is a great balance with his love interest Mikaela. The scene where Bumblebee, because of his lack of speech, uses the car radio to help Sam win Mikaela over is a riot. The movie manages to do fish-out-of-water comedy well. Some moments seemed to overdo it a bit, but they're made up for by the fact that it was genuinely funny. I also enjoyed how the Witwicky family is your average American family with its ups and downs that aren't victims of Hollywood screen writing. They're likable enough people without being obnoxious and obnoxiously sappy.
The one thing one must prepare for when walking into the movie is that it is a brutal, intense, violent movie. How many times has the shot of Bonecrusher smashing through a bus made people drop their jaws? The robots don't get into comic-book fights where "Pow!" and "Kablam!" fill the screen. They are out to kill one another, amongst a really powerful score for an action film, no matter what it takes. Some characters get hit worse than others. They're glorious battles, but neither faction holds back. Michael Bay certainly didn't, which is why he was the man for the job. Some shots during the fights were all over the place and were kind of disorienting with the thousand robot parts moving everywhere. For the most part, the action is beyond well-done. The movie also features some of the most inspiring uses of CGI in a film. In a world that's getting tired of the technique, it is amazing to see them transform every single time.
Fans, hardcore or casual, can breathe. It was that good. It isn't the '84 cartoon, and thank goodness for that. Also, Hugo Weaving is very scary as Megatron.