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58 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A blend of cringe inducing screenwriting, nostalgia and mind blowing action, July 3, 2007
For a nerd that used to drool over this show as a kid, this movie hooks you from the very beginning. From Optimus Prime's summary intro (with Peter Cullen still at the helm of our favorite alien semi) to the Decipticon attack on the military base, you have no doubts that this is Transformers. Shia LaBeouf makes his entrance and proves the perfect part for this movie. He's actually pretty funny and acts the part well. As far as the rest of the humans in this cast, not as much can be said.
After the awesome introduction, the first part of the movie deals mainly with Shia LaBeouf's Sam purchasing a Camaro that actually turns out to be the Autobot Bumblebee (in the cartoon, originally a VW Bug. I think the yellow VW Bug in the car lot next to Bumblebee was a homage.) Sam unknowingly uses his alien car to impress a girl. Of course she actually is impressed when they find out it's an alien. There are some pretty funny scenes in this part of the movie as well as some action scenes that are very well done.
Soon comes the arrival of the other Autobots and they reveal to Sam their true purpose, which is to locate the Allspark -a powerful device capable of transforming a planet- before the Decepticons get a hold of it. I thought at this point that the slow parts of the movie were over, but not quite. From here we go into a few too many scenes dealing with side characters, from video game playing computer experts to goofy secret agents whose quirks border slapstick comedy. Too many of these characters could be chalked up as comic relief, and most of what they attributed was not very funny. There was a slightly funny but overly long scene where Sam was trying to hide the autobots while he searched through his house for a relic they needed. And then arrived John Turtorro (playing the said goofy secret agent) whom I love, but who severely overstayed him welcome in this. Other performances, namely John Voight's, were just plain campy and the cookie cutter dialogue was cringe inducing at times.
Luckily, I forgot most of that by the time the movie got to its last act. Once the Decepticons arrive in force the movie is a non stop ride of action and jaw dropping effects. While someone who's not familiar with the characters and story might not care what the outcome is, I found myself with memories as a kid, watching the 1986 movie for the first time. I forgot about the humans and their ho-hum sotrylines as my favorite characters and toys from my childhood crashed and shot and ripped each other apart. I forgot that I was watching CG effects as the transformers look as real as the environment they're destroying. The action scenes are larger than life and I'm amazed at how well the battles of the cartoons translated onto big screen. The transformers themselves were all very well done, applying actual physics to their transformations and robot appearances. They look real and modern but don't lose the heart of what the fanboys loved about them from back in the day. And Hugo Weaving as Megatron was genius. I missed hearing the original Starcream, but the original voice actor died many years ago, and the two or three lines Starcream had in this sounded suitable.
Despite the great flaws in acting, dialogue and script, I left this movie with that rare itch to want to go straight back inside and watch it again. From the previews, it looked like the movie was going to take a realistic perspective and show the warring alien machines from a human point of view. But that's really not the case at all. In every other Michael Bay movie, the corny dialogue and overdramatic characters ruin an otherwise good premise. But Transformers is based on a cartoon, so why shouldn't the movie feel like one? Here it works. It's big, dumb nostalgic fun that the kid in me has been after for 20 years.
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29 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
better than expected, December 8, 2007
Maybe it's not the best movie as far as dialogue goes, but for being an action movie about robots from outer space, it's good. The transformations are good enough to not raise doubt about the mechanics of them (which is good for me as an aerospace engineer, because I tend to notice these things). This is the kind of movie that makes large HD televisions and high-quality sound systems worth having.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lacks that All-Spark, November 10, 2007
Growing up in the 80s, I saw the 1986 Transformers movie in the theaters and recently watched it again, and even though I'm in my late 20s now, the movie holds up remarkably well: it has a good pace, great balance of storylines, well-defined characters, and plenty of action that builds towards a monstrous battle that includes a genuine surprise.
Unfortunately, the Transformers 2007 movie lacks almost all of that. Credit Shia Lebeouf for his role in this movie, because he carries the entire overwrought monster for a good two hours or so, and his ability to do both comedy and drama in a single movie is impressive. And there are many more people here that turn in solid performances, including Megan Fox, his female costar. Beyond that, though, we get a smattering of comedy here and there along with maneuvering, slow reveals, and more buildup, and more, and more until, almost two hours into the movie, we finally see most of the Decepticons, and there is finally a real battle ... which lasts for about 15 minutes.
This movie is big ... very big ... and the final battle has a lot of action (though Bay's direction insures that it's nearly impossible to tell what's going on a lot of the time). Coupled with some very sophomoric humor, the audience here is clear: it's young adolescents, fresh out of being tweens, who still want good action and jokes but crave a bigger storyline and higher stakes.
THE GOOD: Some of the jokes work, and work well. Shia and Megan do a great job in their roles. Seeing Optimus Prime, Jazz, Starscream, and a few other familiar faces gave this Transformers fan a warm feeling.
THE BAD: You see Autobots play glorified hide and seek with Shia's parents, a dog pee on a robot, a robot pee on a person, John Turturro stripped down to an undershirt and boxers, enormous plotholes involving the All-Spark, no Dinobots, no real use of Starscream, a completely anticlimactic battle between Optimus and Megatron that ends in an enormously stupid way, two long hours of build-up for one confusing battle, and to top it all off, Anthony Anderson.
The original Transformers movie was for the fans, then and now. This one's a dull mess that is for the 2007 box office receipts. Rent it, and then buy the original.
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