Killer Robots From Outer Space: a moronic action flick

Rating: 1/10 (14 July 2007)

If you like watching things move around and explode, you'll absolutely love Tranformers. However if you also want a movie to have a basic storyline then maybe Tranformers is not for you.
There is so incredibly little story or character development, even for a movie about killer robots from outer space. If they can afford all those CGI effects, surely they can afford better writers? What was with the whole backyard scene? It was completely pointless. Whatever happened to the power-struggle between Starscream and Megatron? I don't mind a few small plot holes, but why didn't the decepticons just buy the damn thing off of eBay and have it sent to them!? It makes the chases and the fighting all the more ridiculous when you think about that. And the all too obvious open door to a sequel was just laughable.
Anyway, it's mainly an action movie and the first helicopter attack seemed promising, but after that it moves from one car chase or explosion to the next. There's no build-up or suspense, there's no dynamics, it just turns the volume to 10 for the rest of the movie. What also bugged me, was that most of the Transformers fighting scenes are obscured by bad camera angles. For example, during the highway scenes, it suddenly cuts to random bystanders, and the action is somewhere off in the distance. And the organic robot design make the fights even harder to follow. First there's a confusing transformation and then two huge piles of scrap metal fighting each other. It's hard to even distinguish an arm or a leg.
The movie tries to offer some comic relief but the jokes are painfully unfunny. There's an obnoxious super hacker who lives with his grandma and plays videogames all day, a giant robot "urinates" on a government agent for no reason, masturbation jokes, fart jokes: all very tacky. I thought the whole Indian telephone operator scene was just awful.
I could go on about the shameless product placement, the pro-military propaganda, the incredible overacting, the stereotyping, the clichés etc. but I won't. I can't believe there are so many positive reviews, this movie is horrible.