Oscar Worthy! Well, maybe for special effects, but seriously, did anyone expect any other kind of Oscar for a Micheal Bay film about giant robots from outer space? Or for a Micheal Bay film in general? No? Good, then you're on the right page.
The one and only negative review I've seen about Transformers complained that it was too hard to follow. Really? I guess I must have been awake and looking forward in the movie theater, cause I didn't have any trouble following it. It is after all a simple, uncomplicated, Micheal "beat-you-over-the-head-with-the-plot" Bay movie. So if you had trouble following Transformers, perhaps Nancy Drew is more your speed.
Transformers begins in typical Bay fashion with slick commercial ready scenes of military hardware in the desert, focused on a mysterious helicopter which is reported to have been shot down months earlier (of course you only understand that if you listen to the dialog, otherwise you might have a hard time following the movie.)
After some incredible effects and explosions at a desert military base, the action switches to California (once again, you'll have to look at the screen, where it tells you the name of the new location, otherwise you might get confused.) where teenager Sam embarks on a buying trip with his father, seeking his first car (a beater). Here he discovers a beat to hell '81 Camero that proceeded to mysteriously trash the other cars on the lot until the salesman if forced to sell it to Sam. If one is actually watching the movie, you might notice that before Sam arrives at the car lot, the driverless Camero is following him and and Dad, making it clear to all but the Nancy Drew enthusiasts, that the car "is more than meets the eye," even before the Autobot logo on the steering wheel is revealed.
This sets the tone for the rest of the movie, humor mixed with action and brutal destruction without blood-shed. As is typical of a genre aimed at children, the adult authorities, including the Secretary of Defense, are clueless morons (sort of like the Bush administration, which is also lampooned) and it's up to the kids and their alien robot friends to save the world.
Typical of Micheal Bay, the photography is more colorful than reality, the women are inexplicably hot (like the teenage, Aussie hacker employed by the NSA who sticks out like a sore thumb. She's hot, but who's idea was that? Kind of stupid and unnecessary.) and the action is bloodless (no matter how bad the destruction you don't see real carnage.) there's plenty of product plasement, with car chases looking like commercials and brand named dropped left and right (I found that actaully less annoying, since it sounded more like how we actaully talk.)
Typical of the Transformers themselves, there's plenty of lecturing and preaching from Prime, who has no sense of humor (but that's why we love him.) and the movie pokes fun at it's own absurdities, like when five 30-foot-tall robots try to hide in the back yard ( the most amusing bits of physical humor ever achieved on film by CG robots, no doubts).
The most annoying thing I found was that for the first two-thirds of the movie, all action begins at sun-down, with the robots transforming into their true forms at night. It became almost a joke. But it might have been Bay's ham-handed attempt at metaphor, having the robots hiding in the dark until later they are revealed to all in the light of day. Whatever, it's a minor complaint.
All in all, the movie is humorous, action packed, preachy, uplifting and fun, everything I expect from the Transformers genre. As summer blockbusters go, this is a top-of-the-line classic.
