Me Mini Movie Reviews: Transformers

It’s the big blockbuster of the summer. Or one of them anyway. And so a friend and I went to see it tonight, as we were both in the mood to see things blow up good. And now having seen it, I have to say – that’s what all the hype was about? That’s it? Now, I have to preface this by saying I wasn’t into Transformers as a kid, so there’s not much sentimental attachment for me like there was for a lot of the fans. But I still knew some of the characters, and I can appreciate action flicks with robots kicking each other’s ass. However, the ‘story’ (or whatever that was) was loaded with lots of cheese, and it seemed to take forever to get to some good robot ass kicking blow ‘em up action. The first half of the movie dragged, with more talking heads than I was expecting. The Transformers, once introduced onto the screen, were great, (Optimus Prime transforming from the big rig had me smiling) but there was too much mucking around – let’s get to the action already. Take for instance the “find the glasses” scene at the kid’s house while the Transformers were “waiting” for him. Sure it was funny at first, but it went on forever. There were some good spots of action, but they were far and few between until the last half of the movie with the big battle climax. That battle was fantastic though, with wall to wall action. However, by the time we got to it, the only characters I remotely cared about anymore were Shia Labouf’s Sam and the soldiers who had survived the initial attack and thrown down with a Decpticon again and lived to tell the tale. I didn’t even care when some of the Transformers got hurt or worse. It had taken too long to get there, and I had stopped caring. I still enjoyed the flat out action though, and Optimus Prime’s freeway fight was probably the best. One surprise though was Shia Labouf. I thought he’d be annoying, but he was a lot of fun to watch and carried more energy and spirit through the movie than anyone else, including the big robots. Megan Fox was nice eye candy, but that’s about all I can think to say of her performance. And there is no way anyone is buying Anthony Anderson as the greatest computer hacker in the world that can crack the code. He was just annoying. I was also surprised at some of the pot shots they took at certain people and even a shot at George Bush in the middle of a summer action robot movie was rather disconcerting. Next time, cut the fluff and get to the robot action already. The special effects were top notch though, and the action, once started, was a great ride. Not enough to really save the movie though. If you’re an ‘80’s Transformers fan, go see it by all means, but otherwise, wait for rental.