more than meets the eye

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2008)

Again a great movie I missed till it came to DVD. Sigh. Tranformers, re-imagined by director Michael Bay, is loud, funny and fast. Its a perfect popcorn movie and a real feast for the eyes. And no, I don't just mean Megan Fox. The effects in the movie are some of the best I've ever seen, truly good and utterly convincing. Of course the characters reactions aren't always so real, but hey its a summer movie.
For anyone unfamiliar with the toys from Hasbro or the ludicrously popular cartoon from the 80's, this is probably confusing. Hence Optimus Prime delivers the prologue himself. Very cool, even cooler its still Peter Cullen doing the voice. Kudos to the film's makers for that. I did miss Starscream and Megatron but I think those performers might be dead. Hugo Weaving did a nice job as Megatron.
Shia Lebouef, awful name but nice kid, does well as Sam, he really carries the film at times. Megan Fox is the love interest here and I take umbrage with any complaints about her acting, you try acting in a piece like this! She was smoking hot and very convincing to me. So there. To those who said there was no plot or development, did you actually watch this movie? C'mon, Mikhala is pretty shallow till she meets Sam and she proves her mettle by hanging with him in this crazy situation. Remember the line, "get in the car"? She did, remember that.
Optimus looks great and the Bumblebee Camaro is awesome. I love the in-jokes, especially the one about "Armageddon" this movie had me laughing and cheering, just like a popcorn movie should! My only complaint was I thought the final battle was slightly off, not bad, just should have been bigger, less stupid extras and more demolition. Other than that it was great. Oh, one other complaint, other than the great old songs used by Bumblebee in the beginning of the film, lousy music score, oh well. Still a great flick.