A Reasonable Beginning

Rating: 7/10 (23 May 2013)

The first installment in the Transformers trilogy does a reasonable job of setting things up and manages to look the part nicely- for the most part. The technical aspects of the film are incredible, and the Transformers themselves look very real. The battles are well done too.
However, the film suffers from too many human moments. The cartoon was always about the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons. This film, and its sequels, focus too heavily on Sam and his relationship angst, rather than what the focus should be on- massive robots slugging it out.
Another complaint- in the midst of all the battles and and fights, it becomes very hard to figure out which robot is which- only Optimus and Bumblebee (whose 'speech' gets quite annoying after a while) stand out from the blur of samey transformers.
Despite these flaws, it's still an entertaining film- but it could have been a lot better.