Disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (9 July 2007)

I guess I'm either too intelligent or rather not quite dumb enough to enjoy this movie. I had heard all the reviews going in saying how excellent it was IF you could suspend some belief and not focus on the plot etc etc. Well...I can't I guess. This movie had so many ridiculous plot holes, worthless characters, under developed characters, etc etc that I found it impossible to truly enjoy it. YES, the action seems LOOKED really cool. But that was it. Plenty movies have action that looks cool but if you don't care about the characters AT ALL (i.e. Jazz...boo hoo he's dead, the only thing I knew about him was he break danced and talked like a rapper wannabe). The odd thing was you got the feeling that if the writers, director, editor etc had taken a little more time they'd have gotten it right. It is OK to have a simple plot but at least make the characters buy into it and live it. This movie went from War of the Worlds, to Herbie the LoveBug, to War Games, to MIB, to Bad Boys but never became a complete movie of its own. How can the team that did a silly comic book toy line like XMen get that SOOO right the first time but the team behind this puts out XMen3 on the first shot? For you who have seen it here are a few of my complaints / ideas.
SPOILERS 1) No tension building in opening scenes. Blackout/Scorponok scenes could have had real impact if they had been built up a bit more. If they had removed all the Capt Lennox family bs (since it never had a payoff, his family life never comes into play by effecting a choice he makes or is felt in some other manor by say having the town his family lives in being wiped out if he doesn't do something.) they could have spent a few more minutes investing in building tension prior to Blackouts transformation and attack and/or developed the soldiers trek through the desert and Scorponok tracking them more.
2) No tension built up in the Barricade/BumbleBee meet/fight. Again, skip the classroom scenes and some of the scenes with Sam's friend (again a character never utilized in this movie at all) and instead spend some time showing BumbleBee and Barricade searching for Sam, who'll get to him first type of thing.
3) Frenzy - could have been a cool character if he was a little more serious and a little more mysterious. I know the writers must have thought he was good for kids but he isn't. My 5 year old kept asking me what he was saying and never really laughed at anything he did. (By the way, if you're trying to make a kiddie character don't have him use subtitles to speak, Frenzy was a Jar Jar Binks you REALLY couldn't understand) 4) BumbleBee - Barricade fight. How about showing it!!! Instead we cut away to the Gremlinsesque scenes with Frenzy and Sam and Mikaela.
5) Autobot intro scene is too over the top. Adults think it's stupid/kids (once again) don't get what is going on or said. Character development for these guys should have been done here (and some in Sam's backyard) but instead all we get is slapstick comedy routines that quite honestly are not all that funny. (By the way, from now on can screenwriters have teams for doing movies like this where you have an action writer, romance writer and comedy writer, having two nerds try and write comedy and romance really sucks) 6) Hackers - Completely unnecessary. Especially Anthony Anderson. Not funny for adults or kids. Make no sense to adults. Kids. LOL. Are you serious, get back to the transformers. Again, I can see the point of having that one person who figures stuff out but too many were brought in here and given too much screen time. Keep is short and sweet, ie the guy that busts in the door in some armaggedonish movie and says, "we have 4 days".
7) Sector 7 - should have been played serious, making them comical takes away all tension and anxiety in late scenes such as when the army guys and sector 7 guys square off on what to do (and your only job is dealing with the transformer threat and you end up being the MOST incompetent group fighting them??) 8)Final battle. Obviously this is where everyone on the production team put all their focus and it is a cool 30 minutes (minus the scenes with the hackers/defense secretary etc) or so but all the failures up to this point really take away how effective it could have been. You don't feel for Jazz dying cause he is under developed, you don't care for any of the Transformers on either side. Love or hate so you don't cheer when a Decepticon gets punked or cry when an Autobot is killed or wounded. The lack of emotions just makes this an eye candy scene that feels like it could have taken place anywhere in the film. There is no tension build up and you don't care who wins or loses.
Overall. I walked out thinking, eh, it was OK. Not as good as I had hoped but bearable. But after a few days it started to bug me more and more especially when my son who loves the toys (he has at least 50 of them and it is all he wants to look at at Target and all he wants for Xmas every year etc) didn't care to want to go see it again. He actually asked to stay home and watch the Transformer Cybertron episodes we have on DVR. This could have been to him what Star Wars was to me but it didn't even come close. Sad.