Transformers (2007) B
I remember when Jurassic Park first came out, and how I was wowed by the visuals. It made me believe that there are living breathing dinosaurs out there. However the next thought that entered my mind after watching that movie was "if we can do live dinosaurs now, then give me my Transformers movie." I had to wait well over a decade later for that wish to come true, and watching "Transformers" made me feel like a kid again, believing that there are living transforming robots out there. There are a lot of things that were done right with this adaptation of the popular cartoon / toy line, and the main thing is that the people behind this movie did a good job grounding this concept into reality.
There's no denying that the real big draw for watching this movie is to see big giant robots fight each other, and I have to say that director Michael Bay and executive producer Steven Spielberg did a good job achieving that. Being that this is a Michael Bay film, the action sequences are in your face and quite exciting. Right from the first few minutes of the movie, there's already exciting tension that goes all the way to the inevitable climax at the end of the film. A big surprise to me however was how much comedic moments the movie had, and a lot of them were actually funny. Sure some of the jokes and visual gags are cheap, over the top, or cheezy, but there is something humorous about watching giant robots trying to hide from a regular sized human. I also enjoyed watching the scenes were the robot camaro Bumblebee tries to help Sam Witwicky put the moves on the unbelievably smoking hot Megan Fox character.
It's not without it's faults though, as there are several things that almost dangerously removed me from my suspension of disbelief. Logical flaws and plot conveniences seems to be the main culprits. Simple questions like how come nobody in a suburban street doesn't notice or hear the sounds of the transformers walking with heavy metal feet? Or if they bought an alien robot car from the car dealership, how are they suppose to register the car that theoretically should not even have a VIN number to the DMV? The whole last 1/4th of the movie also had a bunch of scenes were I was going "why don't they...." or "how did they...." or "well that's kinda stupid..." The over acting by some of the casts also made the movie a little more silly than it probably should be, like John Turturro as the Sector7 head guy. The designs of the robots are also a bit of a problem, as to me the majority of them still look a bit "messy looking." It can be hard to tell where the arm or leg is sometimes, especially when they have an erratic camera following two robots fighting each other, and we couldn't properly tell what is going on at times.
Besides the Transforming robots, or how cool Optimus Prime is, and how he was being voiced by the original actor from the cartoon; Peter Cullen, another standout of the movie is the performance of Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky. Still a young actor, but LaBeouf has great screen presence and really allows us to easily imagine ourselves in his role, being the main human person that gets involved with alien robots. His role is vital in establishing that having a robot as a friend is more than just a kid with a robot car, because the transforming robots in this movie are suppose to be treated like living breathing creatures like us. The movie walks a fine line at making the robots be more like "pets" as opposed to a living human equal.
For those fans like me out there who grew up with the "Generation One" Transformers cartoons, yes it's true that this is not really a live action adaptation of that particular series that we love. There's no point in me nitpicking on comparisons between this movie and the cartoons, because this film is just yet another new version of the Transformers, and we should already be used to that by now. This Transformers movie isn't perfect, with the plot being a little flimsy, the robot characters not developed enough, and arguably too many human scenes as opposed to more robots. However, this can be seen as a huge great teaser to how much better the sequels are going to probably be. Enjoy the movie for what it is, and you will be a very satisfied person at the end of the film.
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