Good Film despite being a plug for GM and the Air Force

Rating: 8/10 (8 July 2007)

I came away pleasantly surprised. To think that the first time I heard about this movie was in Clerks 2 and, thanks to being on a naval ship stationed in Japan, I saw absolutely no advertisements, I went in figuring I could chalk this one up as another sub-par cartoon to movie adaptation.
However, it was quite good. The action scenes were intense and kept you on the edge of your seat just as you'd expect from Michael Bay, the CGI, as pointed out by so many other reviewers, was fantastic and made the movie I saw the night before, FF2:Rise of the Silver Surfer, look sub-par. It had just the right dosage of comedy, and thanks to premium casting, the acting stays afloat.
As a casual fan of the cartoon series I watched as a child, I was OK with the changes made in order to modernize the film, such as the notorious Bumble Bee VW Beetle to Camaro decision, and obviously Starscream couldn't fly around as a F-15 anymore and expect to blend in with F-22s. The majority of the changes were do to the fact that GM spent a lot of money on product placement and it shows. Die hard fans will probably be annoyed by this, but the casual movie goer won't know the difference. Just hope that you don't pass a dealership on the way home.
The military accuracy was by far the best I've seen in a movie of the genre, (with its usual movie polish of course) and can be attributed to the Air Force giving a substantial amount of participation in this flick. Although at times I couldn't help but feel I was watching a recruitment video. Still, it made for great cinematography of real aircraft, and when I returned to my ship after the movie, I kept waiting for the MH-53 on our flight deck to transform into a 50 foot robot.
I had a few minor nit-picks I won't bother to get into here, but the main one was the lack of closure on a few characters like Maggie, Glenn or any of the other main Air Force guys other than Captain Lennox. In fact the only characters that get any real closure is Sam and the Autobots.
Despite that, its ultimately a great film for a fun night at the movies. The Aussies seemed to enjoy it at the theater in Townsville, Queensland, so I'd expect than movie goers outside the US should feel the same way.
I can only hope that the sequel is done with the same panache as this film.