A big budget hack fest

Rating: 3/10 (25 July 2007)

"Transformers" has its funny moments... and that is one of the reasons why it sucks. Every time they attempted to make it funny, it feels very out of place. Movie directors should refrain from using comic relief, unless they really know what they are doing; most of the time it adds nothing and breaks the suspension of disbelief. But this one is dumber than the usual. See, if I wanted to laugh, I would have gone see a comedy. Preferably one without juvenile humor about masturbation or urine... that is, unlike this one, I kid you not!
This should have been a badass action film, why can not they keep it badass all the way? For example, for two films with very similar themes, compare Bay's so-so "Bad Boys" to Michael Mann's awesome "Miami Vice". One keeps tossing you back to reality; the other hooks you early on and keeps the tension high until the very end.
Also, the product placement was ridiculously in-your-face (and part of the stupid comic relief), so that also plays a part in ruining the mood.
And there are some absurd things in the writing. How come a bunch of huge robots walk around on your backyard and you don't see or hear them? How come they keep Megatron frozen outside of a freezer? If all those alien robots are so powerful, to the point of wiping an army base single-handedly, how come the humans capture Bumblebee so easily? And why does not Optimus help him at that moment?
Sure, it is just a dumb action flick, so one would expect it at least to have some wicked action scenes. Does it? Yes, but it is not consistently good. It starts great, but the final battle gets too confusing, because Bay's ever-zooming shakycam is on the loose again! I thought he had learned a bit of self-control after "The Island", which, unlike his previous stuff, was pretty good (and flopped, ironically). Nope. Maybe his best film only happened by chance. Somewhat like Ivan Reitman did "Ghostbusters", then followed that classic with an uninterrupted row of stinkers.
The creature design and the visual effects are excellent. But the writing could be much better, and the director needs some medicine to control his camera's epilepsy. Now, I have seen worse stuff; this is far from total disasters like "The Mexican", "Double Dragon", "The Avengers", or "Lost in Space". I will even say that it is rather enjoyable if you are in the right mood, a guilty pleasure perhaps. But it is nothing great, and it could, or even should, have been much better.