Michael Bay Finds His Niche

Rating: 8/10 (28 June 2007)

Steven Spielberg was right. "Transformers" is a great fit for Michael Bay. The king of action, flashy effects, macho posturing, cornball humor and over-stylized photography should have been doing cartoon adaptations from the beginning. What seemed cheesy in "The Island" and over the top in "Pearl Harbor" mostly works in "Transformers." Much of it has to do with Shia Labouf's likability, a quick-paced and often-funny script and amazing special effects.
Of course, the script doesn't offer much in the way of story (good robots plus bad robots equal big explosions). But it does give us some great action set pieces and one truly great Spielbergian sequence right in the middle of the film. Take a few friendly aliens, throw them in a boy's backyard, hide them from the parents and fend off the men in black, and you've got "Close Encounters" meets "E.T." meets "The Lost World: Jurassic Park." And Bay pulls it off with truly funny results.
From that point on, however, it's all action. And that may be the film's biggest weakness... or greatest asset, depending on your perspective. Characters fall by the wayside, big story set-ups get cursory finales, and one particular death scene is rushed and quickly forgotten (especially strange for a director who loves dramatic music and slow motion photography).
Most importantly, though, the robots are AWESOME. And THIS is why Spielberg hired Bay. The effects are real. The Autobots and Decepticons lumber, fly, battle, roar and smash. When they fight, you can feel the metal crunching, and when they fall, the ground shudders. But the frenetic fight choreography is both frustrating and exciting. Sometimes the film is way too cluttered with tangled robot arms and weapons, even if the chaos does add a real-world dimension to the effects' believability.
Anyway, "Transformers" is two hours of good looking people shooting at cars and robots, running away from cars and robots, and watching cars and robots explode. And it's pure entertainment.
Best part: check out the producers' "f**k you" to Volkswagen near the beginning of the film. Bernie Mac makes the scene.