Just awful!!!...the 1986 film was far better and that's not saying much

Rating: 3/10 (7 July 2007)

Let's be honest, people. If you are like me, you are perfectly capable of turning off your brain and enjoying a good action romp. Live Free or Die Hard was a good example of this, although it was smarter than most people give it credit for. This piece of garbage, however, featured probably the best special effects ever seen in a movie, with no emotional subtext to make you care about any of it.
The opportunities for character development are wasted on childish drivel. There were more intelligent adult themes in the original cartoon than this, and that's not saying very much (even though I am a die hard G1 Transformers fan). If you don't care about the characters, you don't care about the action sequences. Incidentally, the action featured so many quick cuts and rapid camera motion that it was really hard to enjoy them.
There were a few funny jokes in the movie, and a lot more bad ones. All of the acting was terrible, although Shia and the people who played his parents did a halfway decent job. The plot was mediocre, but bogged down by terrible dialogue and directing. Michael Bay did what I expected him to do, which was to waste a wonderful opportunity to make an engaging action spectacular.
The biggest crime for me was the characterization of all of the Transformers. No Starscream-Megatron rivalry at all (except for one throw-away line). No personality at all, in fact, for the Decepticons. Ironhide was the only good Autobot personality while the rest, including Optimus, just aroused no feeling in me, and the Jazz character was just racist IMO (Scatman Crothers did a much better version of Jazz in the original series). I didn't give a damn who won the battle because I didn't know any of these undeveloped characters.
In the 1986 film, people were crying their eyes out in the theater at some points (no spoilers here because this is the film all of you should see if you care about Transformers). There's nothing to care about here except the really cool transformations and a few jokes. That's it and nothing more at all. I am so unbelievably disappointed.