A Poor Movie

Rating: 3/10 (26 July 2011)

I'd just like to open this review by stating that this film appeared to replicate every negative stereotype about Hollywood directing at once. Sure, it had great special effects, I'll give it that, but that is the only real saving grace this movie has been blessed with. Almost all of the characters were boring and unlikeable, and I think Michael Bay tried too hard to make the Autobots act human. Sure, Bumblebee hacked a radio and they learned about our language. I understand that they're highly intelligent and everything, but you'd expect them to retain some of their own culture instead of essentially becoming humans. But whatever, that's just a minor complaint. First of all, this movie went on for way too long. When you make a movie in which action is the focus, don't drag it out for so long and keep repeating the same thing over and over again. Unfortunately, this movie did just that. The action sequences were highly boring (oddly) and seemed highly repetitive. In addition, the physics of this film are laughable. At multiple points characters are saved in midair as an Autobot runs to grab them and prevent them from falling. That's all well and good, except it would take about a second for the characters to hit the ground at most of these occasions and the Autobot in question comes from a fairly far distance. And that's just one of the incidents that makes Isaac Newton roll in his grave. I brought this up earlier, but the characters are all very bland and often I didn't really find myself caring what happened to them. Many of the actors were very wooden in this film were very wooden. (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, I'm looking at you) It is crucial to make us care about the characters in this kind of film, seeing as they are in constant danger. This movie failed to achieve this. Finally, the writing was very corny and cringe-worthy. It seems that Michael Bay tried far too hard to Americanize the movie, especially that corny scene where Megatron destroys the statue of Abraham Lincoln and sits in the empty throne. Both the writing and plot were very weak.
So, in conclusion, this movie is mostly just eye candy. The special effects, if those are your cup of tea, are the only real reason to watch this film.