The perfect film for 15 year olds of all generations

Rating: 6/10 (1 July 2014)

As a kid I never actually collected the Transformer's toys or watched the cartoon show (always enjoyed a lie-in on Saturday morning and we didn't have a video recorder yet). I did stumble across the comics and was hugely impressed with them, fortunate enough to enjoy the British versions which are commonly accepted to be far superior to their American counterparts. Now people of my age-group are the makers and shakers in Hollywood so we're getting films/TV shows based on the culture of the 1980s, both the good (GI Joe aka Action Force/Battlestar Galactica), the bad (The A-Team/Miami Vice, shudder!) and the mediocre (Knightrider TV series/Tron). I'm sure Automan, Manimal, Cover Up and the Care Bears are not far behind. The moment I saw that car ad where it transforms into a dancing robot I knew it was inevitable.
So the good? The robots themselves are just terrific, couldn't ask for better, watching them interact realistically with humans is mind blowing. The speed, ferocity and sheer destructiveness of their combat takes your breath away, the opening attack on the US military base just stunning, you instinctively think nothing short of a tactical nuclear weapon could stop Blackout. Megan Fox is drop dead gorgeous if a little plastic and I would call the shameless exploitation of her body reprehensible if it were not for the fact that she used it to transform herself into a huge star, going from little known sitcom actress to pin-up girl of every teenage boy in the world. It really reminds you of Bo Derek in '10' or Cameron Diaz in 'The Mask'. Love the scene where she's introduced to the hero' parents, his mother delighted her son has found such a lovely girl and his dad visibly impressed by his boy scoring such an incredible hottie.
The Bad? Plenty, incomprehensible plot, why drag the Maguffin from the centre of the desert to the city where the battle presumably kills thousands? John Voight and John Turturro slumming it for the sake of a paycheque, Shia LaBeouf is rubbish (what does everyone see in him?). Josh Duammel is handsome and looks good in uniform but his character is largely pointless. Too many human subplots (what the hell is the point of the hackers?) and not enough giant robots. Disappointing that they change what some of the robots transform into, especially Megatron who whilst the bad guy always had a brutal charisma about him. And why kill Jazz, everybody's favourite Autobot?
So, not bad but could have been a lot better