Transformers Review

You know how there are some movies that make you think about them for hours or days after they're over. Well, "Transformers" isn't one of those movies.

Still, on my way back home from the theatres, I saw lots of vehicles, including a truck, and was disappointed when none of them transformed into giant robots. So I guess that's something.

Either way, I'm pretty sure director Michael Bay (The Rock, Armageddon, Bad Boys) just wanted to make a kick-ass action movie with giant robots and lots of explosions. And he succeeds for the most part.

The film tracks the war between the Autobots (the good ones) and the Decepticons (the mean ones) as they bring their battle to Earth in search of a cube that can make every machine on Earth into a Transformer. Or something. Honestly, the plot doesn't matter that much and it's just there as an excuse to move things along to the next big action sequence.

During the first hour or so, the movie, which was executive produced by Steven Spielberg, splits its time between the U.S. military's futile efforts to fight the machines, and a dorky teen named Sam(Shia LeBeouf) with a crush on a hottie (Megan Fox) who just bought a car that is more than meets the eye.

The military stuff is a waste of time. Tyrese Gibson runs around yelling variations of "we're under attack!!!" and, as in pretty much every other alien invasion movie, we get scenes of military leaders and politicians (like Academy Award Winner Jon Voight) sitting in darkened rooms with lots of computer monitors in them and those big, lighted tables and walls with maps on them and ordering a bunch of anonymous soldiers to their deaths. This is actually the reason I really liked the new "War of the Worlds" (until its bs ending)…because it avoided that terrible cliché.

By contrast, the stuff with Sam and his family is by far more interesting and that's in no small part thanks to LeBeouf and immensely likable actor. He creates a character that you care about and even develops decent chemistry with his car (if that's possible) Bumblebee. The simple moment when Sam first spots a Transformed Bumblebee for the first time at a distance is more effective than all the garbage with the troops in the desert.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that the stuff with Sam and his car was probably Spielberg's idea, while all the military crap was Bay's doing.

One thing that Bay does that I've always liked is (somehow) convince actors with indie cred, like Steve Buscemi (Armageddon, The Island) and Billy Bob Thornton (Armageddon, to appear in his big dumb action movies. This time, it's John Turturro (I guess Buscemi was busy…or out of his element) as a government spook coming out of nowhere and delivering his looniest performance since nobody fucked with the Jesus. Honestly, I think whenever they approach serious actors to appear in movies like this, the actors accept on the condition that the director lets them do whatever the hell they want. I think it's called the Johnny Depp clause.

Anyway, things pick up as soon as the robots, particularly Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen), take center stage. All of the robots in the movie look fantastic and it all culminates in a spectacular downtown battle robot smackdown that might be the best action sequence of the year. I'll even overlook the fact that they couldn't work in Dirk Diggler singing "You've got the Touch" a song from the "Transformers" animated movie from the 80's.

The movie was headed toward a solid C, with particularly shrill turns by Bernie Mac and Anthony Anderson (who is at least mildly enjoyable), until Turturro showed up and the robot action kicked into high gear.

Transformers…B (it was gonna be a B- until that random moment when Decepticon leader Megatron casually flicked a random woman into a car)

NOTE: This blog does NOT condone violence against women: unless it's in a truly unrealistic action movie with giant robots. Or it's really funny.