My extensive and harsh review of Transformers.

TRANSFORMERS (2007)

‘More than meets the eyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeee!’

Transformers, see’s Optimus Prime (voiced by the original ‘Prime’ Peter Cullen) and his noble fellow Autobots travel from their home planet Cybertron to Earth, to seek a giant stone square called the ‘All-Spark’, which has the ability to create habitable worlds. Oh, and they want peace for mankind cause we're a young species with a right to life, ok : /

Cybertron got pretty screwed up a long time ago see, mean robot Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving, not like you’ll notice though) decided to start a war, which consumed and destroyed the planet. The ‘All-Spark’, which fell to Earth following the planets destruction, became the golden prize for both groups of Robots, the nice Autobots, who NEVER harm humans (though a few hundred were probably killed in the cross fire in the final battle), and the evil Decepticons, both groups capable of transforming from robots to vehicles (Truck, Chopper, Jet, Tank, cars). So both groups travel to Earth, to find the All-Spark.

However, seeing this giant block which gives off a crapload of energy (that Transforms anything into a pissed off robot) can’t be found through some kind of futuristic, robotic tricorders, the Autobots enlist the help of Sam (played by, oh god, Shia LeBouf), whose great-great (and so on) grandfather led an expedition to the Arctic Circle, where after discovering and activating the frozen Megatron (oh he crashed cause passing over the magnetic poles screwed up his navigation, right.), manages to get the co-ordinates of the Cube imprinted on his glasses, I don’t know how, but he just did.

So we meet Sam, in his ‘History’ class, where he’s giving a presentation on his grandfathers expedition (yep, a ‘seamen’ joke is thrown in <sigh>) while trying to pawn off his grandfathers old belongings at the same time ('Oh they’re on e-bay! Cha-Ching!'). Predictably, no one, not even his teacher seems to give a crap, and his story is dismissed by all. His teacher heckles him for hawking off the old relics and his prepared to offer him a B- (amazingly, this is like, a key plot development), Sam however asks the teacher to look into his heart, do ‘what Jesus would do’ (WTF?!) and give him an A so his dad would fork over the money to buy him a car.

The teacher relents and awards Sam with the mark, after a boring, unfunny scene with Bernie Mac as used Car salesman Bobby Bolivia ('like the country but without the runs’ ugh.), Sam comes into possession of his dream car, and no, it’s not the Volkswagen fans would be expecting, it’s of course, the ALL-AMERICAN Chevy Camaro. The same holds true for Jazz, formally a Porsche, now, a Pontiac. Did Orci and Kurtzman have a problem with German-made cars as protagonists??

So Sam now, content in having the car, returns home, goes on a speech bout now all he needs it ‘the girl’, really? Like we didn’t see that coming, the geeky kid wants to get laid. Big surprise, anyway, after skipping some more non-important crap we’re introduced to Mikaela (Megan ‘is a’ Fox), who after being berated for wanting to drive the car of her doofus, stereotypical meat-headed, douche bag, chauvinistic boyfriend (so it’s clearly spelt out to the idiotic audience who the better man is) for fear of 'grinding his '22s', decides to hook up with Sam. The secret, Bumblebee spitting out a bunch of cliché romantic 80’s power ballads much to Sam’s chagrin (‘Sexual Healing’, ‘Baby Come Back’ and another similar song are used back to back in about 3 minutes).

Eventually Bumblee reveals himself to Sam and Mikaela and they meet Optimus and his posse. Optimus explains they discovered Sam through ebay (lol), and they want his grandfather’s glasses for the much needed co-ordinates, the Decepticons have the same idea.

However that’s not the end of it, 2 other useless plots are thrown into the equation. Rachael Taylor fills in the ‘technical analyst’ role helping out the NSA, cause they’re so understaffed of course, shipping in Australian Soap Stars to deal with the issue of the Decepticons hacking the US Defense Network is the only option. The whole story is completely superfluous; of course it’s the Decepticons hacking the network, considering we kinda worked that out the moment one of them decided to destroy an American Army base in the Middle East and try to obtain sensitive military information (plot 3). Anthony Anderson also jumps along for the ride, being annoying once more. Why? Who knows?

And the third plot stems from the opening attack on the American base in Qatar (which is depicted as a typical desert slum of course) with Josh Duhamel playing Captain Lennox. Yep, that’s right, no first name cause you wont remember him at all, just another pretty face brought in to further the story, why? He works out the Decepticons weakness. We couldn’t find that out from the Autobots, of course. So the good ole Yankee soldier wants to get home (like any other, duuhh), so he can see his wife and infant daughter (Lennox can’t differentiate between his daughter laughing or farting, this movies comedic edge was in the gutter from the opening few minutes.). Of course, that storyline means nothing also, and when we see him reunited with them at the end, it’s as if his they were conjured from thin air.

He’s joined in his desert (and later urban) antics, by his troops, the tough black soul’ja Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson), the superstitious, cajun food loving, espanjol essay ‘Fig’ (Prison Breaks’ Amaury Nolasco) , and nerdy, baseball and hot-dog loving but doomed white guy Donnelly (Zack Ward), you think I’m pigeonholing? This is how these characters are presented, no joke.

They add the muscle for our group of human heroes but not much else.

Additional roles, Kevin Dunn plays Sam’s father, I remember when he played the same role in ‘Small Soliders’ (about a bunch of anthropomorphic toys also!)! Stanley Tucci makes a fool of himself with his shockingly bad performance of Agent Simmons (seems half these characters don’t need first names), the ‘Sector 7’ (secret organization who built the Hoover Dam around the All-Spark, and stupidly keep Megatron on ice in the same location) operative who unconvincingly bullies his way around the movie. Even wears a Superman style S7 logo emblazoned on his singlet (wife-beater’s I think they’re called in the U.S.).

Jon ‘Bratz’ Voight plays the Secretary of Defense, handles a shotgun with precision second only to Dick Cheny, does a lot of walking around and asking for $hit to be done, meh.

And the Transformers themselves, forgettable, no REAL surprise considering so much focus had been given to the cast of generic good guys and their own yawn inducing stories. I’ve never been a Transformers fan, but I’m amazed any fan could appreciate the way that these giant TOYS were presented. Each only had a few lines of exposition, they all looked the same when not transformed into moving TV commercials, vehicles. And none seemed to have done anything of importance considering they apparently had their own little roles, the medic, the weapons expert, the uhh…oh god who gives a crap they never did their jobs!

Notable mention to the scene with the Autobots hiding in Sam's backyard for about 5 minutes (real-time), really, just exemplified how Michael Bay had lost touch with the source material. And later on in the film (commercial), at one of the more pivotal moments, Megatron is about to face off with Optimus Prime, predictably however, after Megatron tough talks Optimus and the fight is imminent, the following shot is of ‘Sam’ stuck in a crater in the ground hiding, and the fight seems to have been discarded. Yep, Bay sure knows where the focus of this film had lay, and that moment just defined this movie.

The effects were impressive, but weren't utilized with enough clarity; the 'fight' scenes were choppy, jarred and hard to define on screen, what good are the effects on the robots, if you can't make sense of its head from its ass?

I have no problem giving this ‘Some Ole’ Bullshit’, if you’re not a fan of Michael Bay, you know EXACTLY what you’re in for.

And if you are a fan of Transformers, you should be saddened something you loved as a child or teen was picked up by this HACK (yes I do have a problem with him, obviously) who continues to make the same movies over and over again, the only difference is in the story, but you still see the same cinematography, same clichéd slow-mo ‘circle round the hero’s from a low angle’ shots utilized time and time again, same colour over-saturation, same clichéd characters, most of them there simply to spout the same expositive dialogue, laced with crummy jokes here and there worthy of a playground.