$147,000,000 and a need for a script Trans-plant.......

Rating: 6/10 (27 July 2007)

I had high hopes for this one, more so when I read a couple of reviews from normally reliable sources, such as Empire magazine and Dark Horizons. Sure they made excuses for it being a big, bombastic blast of mechanical carnage and you could overlook the childish silly story.....Well I couldn't. And I am equally surprised to find seasoned reviewers who could. They left out the words bland and unengaging!
The battles-particularly the slow-mo sequences in the city toward the end-were superb, although at times the hyper-kinetic moments in real time were far too overwhelming for the eye to take in at times. Roll on the DVD, as some of it needs to be watched at 1/8th speed!! But how on earth does a movie with a $147M budget and a certain producer called Spielberg ever get made with such wanton disregard for a story or script. It is inane; the human character's acceptance of these alien robots is so matter-of-fact; the "reveal" of the decepticons plot and the "cube" plain lazy. Even if the story is just an excuse to create mecha-Armageddon, you could have invested a little more time in making it interesting and reasonably more realistic than the effects themselves.
Aside from the mega battle in the last 45 minutes, Michael Bay's credentials as an action director are also questionable. The Barricade/ Bumblebee car chase is a damp squib; poorly edited and just as it looks like it is about to get going- it ends as day turns almost immediately to night! It gives the impression that they have been chasing one another for an hour or so but could not be bothered to show us any of it. The look of the film is a total Bay-ism, that Tony Scott "80's" touch. Lots of sunsets and sunrises etc.
Shia Lebeouf does a fairly good job of fleshing out his smart-mouthed nerd character who blossoms into the hero (is there any other in American Teenagerville). Megan Fox brings little to the movie other than some smoother curves to the robots sharper edged contours.
The humour is very uneven, going from pleasing the average 10 yr old with visual gags- such as autobots playing hide and seek in the garden, through to Porky's style coming of age comments and swearing. Seeing as the Transformers scriptwriting duo are now working on the new JJ Abrams "STAR TREK" is causing me to break out in a cold sweat.
Michael Bay riposte to Bruce Willis' recent childish verbal outbursts; stating his film knocks Die Hard 4 out of the park for action is like saying "Pearl Harbour" is better than "Lawrence of Arabia"- both dealing with the subject of war, but doing so on different levels. My enjoyment of the final Die Hard was partially down to a lack of expectation- but at least they tried to give the silliness a sense of reality. Just because Transformers is based on toys and a cartoon should not start you thinking that story does not matter- just because you are throwing over $100M in FX at the audience.
Its a shame to get caught up with the marketing push of the Hollywood machine. Unfortunately, it seems to be happening more often nowadays- even the actual critics we rely upon seem to letting us down as well. Perhaps I, and other more discerning movie goers, should look before we leap!Otherwise they will keep chumming the waters with this crap and getting us hook, line and sinker every time. Not that any of my comments will matter to Michael Bay as he sits on a mountain of money, smoking a fat cigar!