I'll bet they could transform this film to be 45 minutes shorter, with their eyes closed.

Rating: 4/10 (6 July 2007)

I'm a transformer fan, not fanatic  to save you any time reading, I suggest you pass on seeing this in the theaters, wait for it on OnDemand or DVD. If you DO go to see it in the theater, be prepared to not be on the edge of your seat for about half the film.
The film exhibits either one of two classic Hollywood film making errors. Either there was a lot of story in the writer's heads that didn't make it to the screen OR too many cooks were throwing all sorts of 'trendy' ingredients into the soup spoiling the meal.
Here are some basic notes;
 The numerous subplots were SO inconsequential, poorly acted, cast, and edited - all conspired to slow down the film. It felt like a committee decided they need to fill the time between the special effects with a cute girl 'scientist' (with a heavy Aussie accent no less), Hip Hop computer hackers, teenage angst and crazy men in Black. (the kids are going to LOVE the zany Defense Secretary!)
 The romantic tension between the two lead characters (the human ones) was cliché and padded the film with useless scenes that didn't move the story. A degree of this is to be expected but it's so poorly managed here that it only adds more speed bumps to the script.
 As mentioned already by others, the action scenes use the "shake the camera" technique to both mask the effects and make it feel 'real'. Man this was irritating as hell, it made me wish the scenes (that I came to see) would just end.
 The fights were so chaotic that generally you didn't know what was happening until it was over and even then you don't get a good sense for how it went down.
 I'm not sure if it was the print we watched but the film itself shifted between good quality to super grainy, and it wasn't being done for effect, it was like they used the wrong speed of film when they shot it.
I really wanted to like this film but sadly the more I think about it, the worse it gets. If they do a sequel (and that seems inevitable) I hope it's darker and better written.
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Post First Week Box office note: I'm glad the film did well, I REALLY hope the sequel comes back darker and allows the Transformer Characters be more the story and not this 'Independence Day' style of disaster flick.
Maybe get Ronald Moore or the team from Batman Begins to write it.