More than meets the eye... not.

Rating: 1/10 (21 June 2007)

A live-action movie about the Transformers. What more could a fan wish? A live-action movie about the real Transformers, for one.
Having owned the toys (and having loved them) and having watched the series in its entirety more than twice (and having loved that, too, in the deepest sense of the word) I was almost moved to tears when I first heard about this movie. Seeing some of the heroes of my youth really move and fight, thanks to the visual effects of today, was literally a dream come true.
Save for the fact that it's NOT them.
I seriously wonder if anyone within the production, screen writing, and SFX personnel actually remembers -or took the time to watch- the original series. The complex battle for domination (Energon cubes, anyone?) that was portrayed in the series is totally absent here. Unlike the Transformers of old, none of these ones has any tangible personality; the Decepticons are bent on destroying humankind and the Autobots are bent on stopping them. Now, this may or may not be a consequence of not having enough time/space to tell the whole story, but it's hardly a good thing to start with.
And apart from personality, what exactly happened to the robots' aesthetics? If technology is available to render a giant robot on screen and animate its morphing into a car or truck, then how hard can it be to have it morph in the PROPER car or truck?! Instead, Starscream is an F-22 Raptor, Bumblebee is a Chevrolet Camaro, Optimus Prime is... well, not a cab-over truck. And I won't even mention Megatron. The only thing left coherent with the original design seems to be the paint scheme.
As a die-hard Transformers fan, I tried and tried again, but I just could not see Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, and ultimately Megatron in the characters bearing the respective names within this movie. It will probably be a huge hit because of the exceptional and unprecedented (at least to my memory) visual effects. It will rock and shock the audience with its frenetic combat scenes, big loud explosions, and bullet time sequences. It will be the ultimate robot movie -- at least, until the already announced sequel comes out.
However, if we are to assume that 'transfoming robots' equals 'The Transformers', then we can also take any ordinary kid, have him lose his family in a tragic accident, dress him as a baseball player, paint the whole in shades of black, and finally pretend it's Batman.