Movie Review: Transformers
Transformers (2007)–*1/2
I don’t know whether it’s better to be a fan of the original Transformers cartoon or a novice to the series, like I am. Having some sort of emotional investment in the robots may at least make this hulking, soulless Michael Bay epic worth sitting through, if only to finally get to the robots.
Without the dire need to see CGI versions of the classic 80s cartoon characters, Transformers feels a lot like any other hollow Bay flick. Now, with Steven Spielberg hovering over the production, what could have been a sensationally bad B-movie turns into a hybrid Bay/Spielberg blunder. It’s War of the Worlds meets Armageddon, and for anyone who has seen either, that’s bad news times two.
Shia LaBeouf plays Sam Witwicky, the descendent of American explorer Archibald Witwicky. Sam knows his great-great grandfather traveled to the Artic Circle. What he doesn’t know is that Archibald made the most important discovery in the history of mankind.
The discovery has to do with a U.S. Government’s super top-secret project known as Project Iceman. The project is so top secret that even the Secretary of Defense (Jon Voight) isn’t told about it until giant robots start to attack Defense Department communications.
Meanwhile, Sam is buying a new car, one that suddenly appears on the lot without the lot owner’s knowledge. The car turns out to be part of a team of good giant robots called Autobots. Once Bumble Bee (Sam’s car) makes first contact with Sam, it alerts the rest of the Autobots to come to earth. Led by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), the Autobots begin to look for an artifact from their dead planet that the Decepticons (bad giant robots who are fighting the military) want to use to create a new world on Earth, minus all the humans.
We don’t get the first real Autobots vs. Decepticons fighting scene until the last part of the film. We don’t get to know the robots as characters until more than halfway through. In usual Michael Bay-style, we are left to spend our time with uninteresting human characters as they deal with a grand threat to all of humanity.
Shia LaBeouf, a young actor who deserves to be considered a rising-star, is entertaining, as he always is, but this young Jim Carrey/John Cusack combo is hardly the person to be a lead in a Bay film. His silly role as a high school hero in the making, clashes with the apocalyptic vision Bay insists on adding to a film that should have merely been silly.
Silly is John Turturro, who plays an agent in the super-secret government agency, known as Sector Seven. Apparently Bay-regular Steve Buscemi wasn’t available for this ridiculous role, so we are stuck with Turturro who overplays his comedic hand.
I wouldn’t have cut Turturro from the film, though. There are so many other moments that should have been cut that it’s surprising to see an editor credit on this film at all. I could have tolerated some of the more amusing LaBeouf moments (arguing with Optimus Prime in his backyard over ruining his parents’ shrubbery), if it wasn’t for the contrasting and wholly uninteresting military moments.
Bay will likely direct the sequel, so I can’t even say that this 144 minutes of sloppy exposition would have opened the door to a better second film. At least next time we can get right down to robots fighting robots. Those battle scenes may be the only things that went right with Transformers.
Get Email Updates
