Transformed with reason and nice...but still flawed....SPOILER ALERT

Rating: 9/10 (7 July 2007)

So...twenty years in the making. Sort of.
So, let me begin about the likes and dislikes of a movie I have been hoping to make myself, to be perfectly honest, but alas, i don't have the clout at this point in my career. LOL
Who cares about the plot? You want a detailed plot, look up other reviews. Good robots VS bad robots on Earth.
Enough said.
I really enjoyed this film. I had VERY low expectations, and came out happy.
I detected a very Speilbergian scent on this film. A boy and his first car. Sam buys a yellow 1970's Camaro. It was parked next to a yellow 1970's VW bug, a nod to the Generation One fans. Other nods throughout as well.
Including having Leonard Nimoy in with his voice in the film, but not as any character. As Spock, cause Bumblebee's voice is damaged, so he "talks" TV to the kids. Another nice touch is the John Wayne voice at one point, a subtle nod to E.T.
It was nice to see Optimus Prime. Finally! His voice. He's a big truck! Whoo hoo! I had a geek orgasm.
Oh yeah. Mr Bay LOVES to portray the military in a positive light. Sometimes, I felt this was a recruiting film for the Air Force. I was impressed how much the military cooperated with this film. Of course, since the target audience is most likely young males, that makes sense.
Megatron doesn't make an appearance until late in the game, which makes you wonder if his appearance in the obvious sequel, if his look will change.
Ah the robot designs.....
Mathematicians probably saved some of the reality factor. A problem with the old cartoon series was that the robots proportions changed a lot to fit the plot. This was cleverly explained away in this film, with the robots looking like the size of the vehicles they transformed from. For example, Bumblebee changed at one point from a 1970's Camaro to a 2008 concept Camaro.
Purists will bitch that Bumblebee should have been a VW Bug, but people, even if he is a robot, a 1970's VW BUG, or even a modern Bug, would have trouble racing around against a Dodge Charger Cop Car. The octane level is high. So, I understand the desire to get the muscle car for the car chases.
And in the old cartoon, Optimus Prime had a trailer attached that magically disappeared when he went to robot mode. Understandibly, his Peterbilt truck in this film did not have a trailer. Problem solved.
Who knows? They might have Bumblebee VW Bug be in the 2010 concept, depending on how soon they scrape up the coin for the sequel.
OK..so anyway..the robot designs.
They were a little too busy. Optimus was pretty much the guy we know and love. Yay. Except for his face shield! He had a mouth...no...he has to have that cool face shield, and he does get it during on of the action scenes.
Soundwave....er...whatever his name was, a small GPX CD boombox. He looked like an outcast from the Star Wars kiddie robot fare. No accident, since ILM was the only FX company with enough Macintosh Computers on hand to make this movie work. But he was my least favorite robot. He sounded like the buzz droids from Episode three, for the most part as well. Ugh.
The rest of the Autobots, looked a little too, well BUSY. They could have made their faces more human like the cartoon. I mean, if they feel pain, go ahead and give them human features. Square jawed. Anyway....
The action is pretty up there. i am glad they didn't always pull away from the the transformation sequences. They were pretty cool.
On the other hand, the Prime VS Megatron fight was pretty clipped. At point, Prime utters his famous "One Shall Stand...One Shall fall line...." Just like in the 80's film.
But the shot was on the kid and not Prime facing Megatron! I had a hard time believing this....but then I thought about it. Maybe they spent all the effects budget by then, and couldn't afford anymore shots. These FX movies are tedious to make.
The important thing to remember though is that the back story from the cartoon makes cameo appearances. I feel they tried to make the film stand on its own. There is not a TV series worth of history going into the the drama of these guys.
The other main gripe is Megatron's look. I know, having him change in to a big gun for Starscream to use is silly, but his look supposedly was inspired by the Decepticon Logo. Well, he looked, like yet again, a Star Wars baddie recycled for this. He is probably my biggest disappointment and his voice.
So what if Frank Welker has aged. So has Peter Cullen! Frank Welker had the character for years. A bad call on Mr. Bay's part. He probably would have been cheaper than Hugo Weaving, who is still good. Anwyway, my gripes aside. Megatron was still very mean.
The action you can decide for yourself. I thought it was hyper active at some points very hard to keep up with. Just as I said on SpiderMan 2 and 3.
Slow down!
Overall, popcorn munchin fun.