Keep Michael Bay away from the sequel...please!

Rating: 3/10 (26 July 2007)

As a fan of the original cartoon as a kid, I was really looking forward to a grown-up, serious motion picture treatment of the Transformers. Instead, Michael Bay's version (as is the case with so many of his movies) was an embarrassment. Aside from the battle scenes on the highway and in the city at the end - which were, admittedly, pretty amazing - I can't find too many positive points. All of the forced moments of humor (Independence Day all over again) took away from what could've been a cool storyline. The scene where the Autobots were in the back yard seemed to go on forever, and was only missing the Three Stooges. Michael Bay seems so intent on trying to please every audience, that his film-making takes very few risks. Yeah, I understand that it was based on the original line of toys and the cartoon, but the kids who enjoyed those two elements are now in their 20's and 30's. They don't need this story to be kid-sized for them anymore. This is simply a case of studio execs, producers and a director who couldn't decide if they should make a Transformers movie for today's kids (who will buy their new line of toys) or for the original fans (who deserve a story minus the kid gloves). Instead, they made a movie that lands disappointingly somewhere in the middle.