Transforming the Box Office

Rating: 8/10 (29 July 2007)

I had been looking forward to the Transformers ever since the teaser trailer was released and in this bloated summer of sequels I was looking forward to seeing something new - Transformers completely passed my by when I was growing up!
CAST & CHARACTERS: The cast were fine - Shia LeBeouf an actor whose career status is definitely rising was very good in his role and had some fine comedy moments as did Kevin Dunn and Judy White, who played his parents. Josh Duhamel & Tyrese Gibson were fine as the obligatory one dimensional soldiers - the fact that Captain Lennox has a baby daughter is as much character development that we got. John Voights Defence Secretary just seemed to fall apart towards the end and lost all sense of order and control. John Turturro played the oh so clichéd secret agent and a really strange way. Shia LeBeouf asked his character if he was on drugs and by that stage I was also wondering the same thing. Megan Fox has got to be one of the worst actresses on the history of the planet - a very very attractive actress also a very very untalented one. There was an actual attempt of character development in the fact that she had a criminal record for stealing cars and this proved very useful later on in the movie Rachel Taylor and Anthony Anderson were two very unlikely code breakers. Then don't forget the, almost comes as standard Bernie Mac cameo. The man is not funny people. I cannot think why this man is in movies.
PLOT: I do understand how Michael Bay films work plot wise -we get one line of sensible dialogue for about ten explosions. We are introduced to Sam Witwicky giving a report on his great great grandfather who went exploring in the Artic Circle and stumbled across Megatron frozen in the snow. Many years later Sam is selling glasses that his grandfather wore to the Artic on EBay, one of the many subtle product placings in the movie. But really, lets be honest with ourselves - who came to see Transformers for plot?? I didn't for one - I came to see an action movie were big super intelligent robots come to earth: some are there to help and some are there to destroy. There was a mention of finding a big cube at various stages. I did notice a mocking dig at George Bush as the President on AirForce1 but it was all a bit unnecessary
ACTION: In a Michael Bay movie it's action that matters and not plot and here we got plenty of it. Plenty of explosions, action and thrills to satisfy even the most hardened Michael Bay fan. It was just loud and unsubtle and to be honest it was great!
THE TRANSFORMERS When the Autobots were on screen the movie really picked up. Each had their own personality and style. The scene were they were all in the Witwicky garden was very funny - silly but still funny. We were all so into the movie that when Bumblebee got attacked by the humans I was grabbed by a friend and told to "do something!!" and when Jazz got killed the whole audience was devastated. The Decepticons, all complete with silly names such as the Destructor and BoneCrusher, actually all transformed into cooler vehicles than the Autobots, but were never going to win. Megatron actually got the biggest laugh when he flicked away a human in disgust. The fact that the Transformers could feel pain and could get hurt seemed to make them seem more human - and made you care for them further, especially since they all had human like eyes
PLOT HOLES There were some: What happened to the group who stayed at the Hover Dam? Maggie, Glen, Agent Simmons and the Defence Secretary? Are they still there now? We seemed to forget about them at the end. Why would it be helpful to send Shia LeBeouf off to a helicopter to get the cube to safety? Surely Megatron would just blow it - and low and behold he did!! Why did Optimus Prime tell us that the Autobots were all hiding yet, there he was standing as bold as brass on top of a big hill? Plot holes yet - but do they really matter in the long run? No
OVERALL I was not disappointed. I knew I was going into a Michael Bay film and I knew what to expect. There will be many people who will automatically hate it because of Michael Bay and will criticise all the explosions and noise, but they seriously need to get over themselves and just enjoy a summer action movie for what it is without looking for a deeper meaning. I didn't care that the characters were a bit clichéd and one dimensional. I didn't care about all the product placement - A Nokia cameo is almost as expected as a Bernie Mac one these days and who doesn't want the new Camaro?
I would give it an 8/10. It loses a point for Megan Fox and Bernie Mac and it loses another for the few plot holes that were scattered about the film. Transformers should be seen in the cinema so it can be enjoyed at maximum effect.
It deserves credit at least for not being a sequel in a summer full of threequels (I know there were cartoon movies made before this one!). Is a Transformers 2 needed ?.erm no. Will I see it?yep!!