Transformers The Movie (2007) Review

Hey folks, Valkor here. When I first heard Transformers was going live action, I was damn excited. Then Michael Bay was announced and then I was kinda on the fence about that, I mean he makes good popcorn flicks, but this is Transformers, this isn’t just a popcorn flick. But when pics and the trailers, and even the leaked script began to surface, and all excitement that was left in me slowly began to fade; It all looked pretty grim for my favorite robots in disguise. But then Peter Cullen came on board, more images came about and my expectations were raised just a teensy bit. Now the film has been unleashed on the masses and what do I think?

Transformers, the live action film, actually rocks.

I’m very, very, very surprised just how good the film is. Peter Cullen’s Optimus Prime opens the film with a narration about Cybertron, the Autobot Decepticon battle, and this thing called the Allspark, which is basically a cube with so much power that it would be the deciding factor in the war between Autobots and Decepticons. Once we get past that, then we move to Qatar, where a bogie lurches toward a US army base, but lo and behold, it’s a Decepticon. It wrecks havoc on the base and on top of that it’s hacking their systems looking for… something which we later learn is a project called “Iceman”. But basically there is a lot of freaking out on the base, and I actually fucking love this as you have a lot of radio communications and the troops rallying to do… something against this unknown threat. But when the dust clears, the Decepticon is victorious and it is presumed everyone on the Qatar base has died. We’re then introduced to our next main character, Sam Witwicky, who wants to buy a car. He wants to buy a car to get the girls, so after scoring a slew of A’s in school, his dad decides to buy him a car, a yellow, rundown Camaro… a Camaro with an Autobot insignia on the steering wheel, which we all know as Bumblebee. Now why is Sam so important? Because we learn that his grandfather was the guy who actually found the “Iceman”, and mapped out the location of the Allspark on his glasses. Plus he knew about the Cybertronian symbols and such. Bumblee sends a message to the other Autobots and thus kicking off a race to find the Allspark, before the Decepticons find and revive Megatron and they start going after it. Which then kicks off a HUGE robot vs Robot battle in the city streets. And only one shall stand and one shall fall.

YES! YES! YES! This is THE summer movie that pretty much does it for me. This is a true guy film with lots of robots and lots of shit blowing up all over the place. My biggest fear was that the Transformers would get little screen time and the humans more. It’s actually very well balanced. Once that fear was set aside then there’s the plot. The plot was actually pretty weak. The whole thing about the Allspark, makes no sense. It’s a cube that can make things into Transformers…. Okay. You would think once the Autobots found it they would use it to make more Autobots to fight against the Decepticons. I mean that’s what Megatron wanted. The Allspark seemed pretty insignificant to me and I think the writers could have thought up something better. While the story in and of it self harkens back to G1, they could have stuck with the G1 storyline where the Decepticons came to earth to gather resources to use in the war. But visually this is what Michael Bay does best and you are literally in for one hell of a ride. When Optimus and crew step on the scene all bad ass, you know shit is going down. And boy does it ever as these robots tear up streets, cars, buildings, whatever. Autobots care so much about humans, but when it comes to property they could care less. And that’s what I love about this film. It’s all balls out action, and that pretty much sets me straight. Will I buy this on DVD day one? Hells yes!

This actually moves us into the negatives of the film. The plot was one, another are the scenes that actually made no sense and just went on longer then they should have. One scene in particular, the Autobots are at Sam’s house, while Sam looks for the glasses. Too fucking long! Giant robots sneaking around the house, the parents doing whatever it is they were doing and Sam looking for the glasses? They could have chopped this 10 minute plus scene down to five easy. We didn’t need the complication of Sam trying to keep the Autobots secret from his parents. That’s time wasted when we could have been blowing more shit up.

Now I will agree with a lot of folks, namely my buddies Alacran and AP3X on the movie being a big advertisement. But that’s the pun, I think. The original Transformers TV series was nothing more than a 30 minute commercial used to sell toys. However it is a big distraction when you have the GM logo in your face every 30 seconds. Leave us not forget Nokia, Mountain Dew and even the Xbox 360 made an appearance. WOW!

Another objection has to be the jokes. Even more time wasted when we could use all this wasted time blowing shit up. Optimus’s “My bad”, Bumblebee peeing on a guy, one of the army guy’s, while in the midst of battle, actually argues with an operator over how he can save money if he buys into a plan. HUH? It’s actually the jokes that draw you OUT of the film. For the next film, definitely leave the jokes out. Or actually make them funny.

The ending battle between Optimus and Megatron, while heavy on action was a bit of a let down at the end. I mean I thought it was bad, AP3X and Alacran thought I thought it could have ended better. At least toss in the Matrix, something. ANYTHING!

Lastly the design of the Transformers. I didn’t hate their look, but I think there are just too many parts. TOO MANY PARTS. It took all but a minute to transform, when it’s something that should be instantaneous. Anyone suffer through Beast Machines, when they had to “learn” to transform? This feels like Beast Machines, and Beast Machines sucked huge balls. The overall look of the bots are great, but you don’t need the original transforming sound for something that will take 30 seconds more after the sound passes. It loses the effect of the whole thing. Prime has a mouth. UGH! ILM should have stuck with the face plate. Save on the animation and the money you save could have been used to blow more shit up.

But it’s all about the robots and shit blowing up and I got more than my money’s worth. Michael Bay, I will never doubt your skillz… until Transformers 2, when you should really unleash your blowing shit up skillz. So what do we have: not much of a plot (race for the Allspark), huge robots (always a good thing), humans vs robots, robots vs robots (two great fights that go great together) and lots of shit blowing up (YES! YES! OH GOD YES!). Yea this is a definite must see for anyone who likes to have fun going to the theaters. You will walk away quite sassified. Out of 5 stars, even with my objections because overall I was very well entertained, I give Michael Bay’s Transformers 4 stars. Will I buy the DVD? Hells yea!!!