What a fun ride! Even while the first 30 to 45 minutes established the plot and characters there was enough action for the kids to stay interested. But when the action began in earnest, the action fan in me was intensely rewarded with extended action scenes, excellent detail and realistic dialogue for a completely unrealistic story. And in a nutshell that is what we are dealing with here. An extravagant story, with no plausability but a fun family ride none-the-less. It's juvenile in every way but still works as a family friendly action movie.
Once again Director Michael Bay (my age born in 65) does it big, I mean real big like his movies The Rock Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys. What I mean is the attention to action scenes. They are completely detailed and roll on long enough for you to feel like there is action, not just a cut scene in a video game. If you want an action movie this one is high octane joy ride. The CGI (computer generated imagery) was honestly flawless; I give the nod to Industrial Light and Magic on this one.
Without spoiling the story, the concept here is that sentient robots from another world are brought to earth by a fated past. The twist is that the robots can identify a mechanical device around them and transform into it which are a vehicle, but mostly cars. They also choose to be aircraft. As the movie reaches the two-thirds mark the back story and current story are tied together. There are a couple disposable characters in this movie which could have trimmed down the length of the film from 2 hours and 44 minutes for those of us that don't like long movies.
The robots of course are based on the Hasbro toy and the marketing in the story is deep starting with most all the vehicles being GM made. But as for them being based on a toy, I could have cared less about that and frankly had a hard time as a twenty something appreciating cars that transformed into robots as a toy for any kid. I believe an animated TV show followed sometime in the 80's and that too I had nothing to do with. I did learn along the way there were two main adversaries, one on the good side named Optimus Prime (factoid: the same voice as the TV show did the voice for OP in this movie, Petter Cullen) and the evil Transformer named Megatron voiced by Hugo Weaving. These two are primary characters in the story. Both are referred to as "autobots" and the evil side are known as "Decepticons".
What I found rewarding was that despite the attention to believability for such a silly toy made into a movie idea... that the mix of adolescent and adult humor was also nicely done. I do have a problem with some of the mild sexuality humor that some folks will find themselves possibly explaining to their 7 or 10 year old after the movie if their kids have good memories.
For starters Transformers unfolds in two locations. The first location is the Middle East Gulf and the second of course... as usual for every friggin movie every made it seems, back in good old Los Angeles California. I'm so sick of seeing California as the basis for every movies location but in this case I could stomach it. Again the movie is for kids if that wasn't already clear.
The acting was top grade and you'd expect that from an established t
eam like Dreamworks. Shia LaBeouf handles the role of a semi geeky Sam Witwicky who is just now getting his first car. His love interest Mikaela Banes played by Megan Fox was a bit too hot as a High School girl but I went with it. Including Jon Turturro was great for a comedic element but if I had any criticism of this movie it was casting him as a tough government agent. He plays tough as well as anyone but I didn't buy him in this role or position which did then remind me this was a movie based on a toy. That was always my concern going into this movie that the slightest bit of campiness could lose me. But in the end the movie didn't lose me. There were no stupid E.T. moments, yet there was enough story development early on to accept the appreciation or bond between the human characters and their robot friends.
There was only one other problem I had with this movie. These robots decided to fight for the sake of humanity. Why? The reason developed was lame but again... kids movie... So I rolled with it.
Outside of two minor flaws, I have to say this was a fun ride even for a movie over 2 and a half hours long!
The real test? When your 4 year old gets up in his chair and shushes you... and this was a classic moment for me, he says in a semi hushed but irritated voice, "Dad! People are trying to watch the movie!" (which drew laughs 5 rows deep in every direction!) then you know the movie is a winner with kids.
And frankly I'll remember my son shushing me for a long time. People really thought he was cute and funny.
OK, back to my review... the point is that my 10 year old loved it when he thought he wouldn't enjoy the movie. He really liked the movie and didn't fidget at all. Better yet, my 4 year old only needed some mild explaining who the bad robots were and from there he was cuddled up on my lap the rest of the movie. He even took the blanket and covered his eyes a couple times during chase scenes. Despite those scenes, I can assure you this movie is family friendly for the most part.
I can easily see being able to watch it again when the kids want to bring it home on video so that may really tell you the quality of the movie.
Aside from a review I should warn you there seems to be an unprecedented level of cross promotion of products in the Transformer movie. There were small almost unnoticeable ones such as Nokia (not Japanese but Scandinavian) to very big plugs for Ebay getting serious attention as does Pay pal (owned by Ebay). Even a Pepsi machine turns into a Mountain Dew Transformer! That one made me go, "sheesh". There were many more instances of cross promotion marketing to which I won't detail if you don't mind. But you'd think the movie being based on a toy would be promotion enough!
I give this movie and enthusiastic 8 out of 10 stars as a quality family movie you won't want to miss but has a few flaws that we grown-ups have to accept.
