Review: Transformers

Annnnnd... it has some giant robots that turn into cars and stuff, too!

So, a quick check of my Comic Book Inventory System confirms that I don't, in fact, own any Transformers comics. Never watched the cartoon series. Knew next to nothing about the concept beyond the whole cars that turn into robots thing. I came into this movie, as they say in the business, virtually cold.

I guess it would be reasonable to say that it's a pretty cheesy movie. Some of the dialogue definitely inspires laughter of the wrong sort, but to be fair, other bits of humour are right on the mark. When the teenage hero's parents burst into his bedroom - where, unbeknownst to them, the too-sexy-for-words new flame played by Megan Fox (shown above) is hiding - his mother chooses that particular moment to ask him if he had perhaps been masturbating! That scene alone practically justifies the hundreds of millions of dollars that went into... well, showing us robots-that-turn-into-cars beating the crap out of each other!

The wife and I first encountered young Shia LaBeouf while watching Season Two of Project: Greenlight. In it, he won the lead role in the Greenlight film, The Battle of Shaker Heights. Over the course of many hours of documentary footage, we couldn't help but get to know young Shia somewhat better than you normally would someone in a low-budget film like that. It's hard not to cheer for a guy like that (and hey, he's in the next Indiana Jones movie, so I guess he did OK). Here in Transformers, he's effective enough - likable, heroic, frantic every 15 minutes - but it's in a part that's about as deep as a sheet of tin foil. And he sweats a lot (no wonder his mother thought she'd caught him failing at being the master of his domain).

As far as plot goes, I suppose there is one. More or less. Maybe more than "bad alien robots and good alien robots fighting for the fate of the Earth" and less than anything much more interesting than that. Oh, there's a pair of old eyeglasses that seem important for awhile, only to be replaced in that regard by a cube that's going to somehow kill us all unless one of the robots absorbs it into his chest, and all the while... robots fight! A lot!

The effects for those battles are actually pretty impressive, allowing me to repeatedly forget that it was only happening in a computer somewhere. One scene didn't work - a small girl reacting to an Autobot, where I didn't believe for a second that she was really looking at him, simply because her gaze never quite lined up with the effects - but for the most part, I bought the action. We're supposed to remember who the good robots and the bad robots are, but I'll admit I mostly lost track. I like to think that the evil ones had the lowest fuel efficiency of the bunch, though. I'm sure at least one of them must've been a Hummer, for example.

And then there's Megan Fox. She starts off being eye candy, but eventually her character's given slightly more to do than run around in a low-cut top... although, she does that, too! She hot-wires a car - one of the few ones that doesn't turn into a giant robot! - and uses a tow-truck to carry one of the good Transformers back into the big final battle. And she looks great while doing each of those surprisingly useful activities!

By the time we got to the final Optimus Prime (leader of the good robots) voice-over that wraps up the movie, we'd decided that Transformers was mindless, harmless entertainment of the easily-forgettable variety. Since it was viewed for free (thanks again, Nhan!) I think we got to see it at just the right price. It's always nice when that happens!

Rating: **