Toys Run Amok

Rating: 2/10 (14 July 2007)

You know you're in trouble as soon as you see Hasbro's name in the opening credits. Good and bad giant alien robots battle for something called "the Shard of Life," which resembles Rubik's Cube. When they're not fighting each other, they transform into trucks, cars, and other terrestrial vehicles, which is interesting the first half dozen times it happens.
There are also some humans in the movie--a skinny white nerd, a hot brunette mechanic, a fat black nerd, a hot blond nerd, a gung-ho white soldier, a gung-ho black soldier--but they're as interchangeable as the robots. In the end, the skinny white nerd saves the planet and gets the hot brunette mechanic; it's unclear if the fat black nerd gets the hot blond nerd, but he deserves it as compensation for all the fat/racist jokes he's the butt of. The gung-ho white soldier goes home to his pretty wife and pretty baby. I lost track of the gung-ho black soldier, but he probably dies heroically saving the gung-ho white soldier's lifeit's that kind of movie.
This is the second movie I've seen in as many weeks where hacking the DoD's network is a plot point (the other is Live Free or Die Hard); certain screenwriters must go to the same Hollywood cocktail parties. Speaking of the DoD, the U.S. armed forces, all the way up to the Secretary of Defense (!), are depicted as superbly trained and extremely well equipped, although their clownish Commander in Chief only displays interest in Hostess Dingdongs. Not coincidentally, the movie was preceded by commercials for the Marines and Air Force.
There are certain films that revel in their own stupidity. This is the dumbest flick I've seen since 300. Judging by the applause at the end, there were a lot of like-minded individuals in the audience. I take back all the carping I did about Spiderman 3; at least Sam Raimi and co. tried to make a film with some depth. Transformers makes it seem like The Seventh Seal.