Transformers (’07 review)

4 out of 5

For some reason, “summer blockbuster” has become a bit of a dirty word.  It implies all flash and no substance. With Transformers, directed by Mr. All-Flash And No Substance Himself, Michael Bay, and its based on a Hasbro toy-line, one would assume that it’s a typical summer blockbuster with “all flash and no substance”.  It kinda is, but its also cool as hell.  The film is relentlessly entertaining, and its main drawback is that in its attempt to be entertaining it casts its net a bit too wide and delves a bit into schtick.  However, its Giant Robots Smashing Stuff.  Nee-haw!! 

A reboot of the classic cartoon, comic, and toy line, Transformers starts off with high school student Sam (Shia LaBeouf) getting his first car that is actually Bumblebee, a car that can transform into a giant, sentient robot (“Satan’s Camaro” is how Sam defines it).  Bumblebee is a member of the Autobots, the good transforming robots who are led by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen, the original voice actor and still has an impressive, iconic baritone).  The Autobots are protecting earth from the villainous Decpticons, led by Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving.  Its stupid how Bay cast the original voice of Prime but didn’t cast his sparring partner). 

There were a couple of points against this film before it unfurled: first of all, the trailers and ads hinted that the POV of the story be from the perspective of the puny humans and not the huge Transfomers. While it is true that the movie is from the ground level, it actually kind of works because LaBeouf keeps things lively, and when the robots do take center stage, all the human stuff beforehand makes the robots seem more epic.  One of the places the film stumbles is focusing too much on the human response to the Transformer invasion.  Did we really need a lot of scenes with John Voight as the Secretary of Defense?  Voight turns in a terribly lame performance in this film.  It involves a lot of staring and squinting. 

Another pre-strike is that the designs of the Transformers in the movie are considerably different from the classic designs of the Transformers we all know and love.  The original designs from the ‘80s were much more bulky and simplistic.  In the ’07 movie, the robots designs are much more in-depth. As static images the designs are kind of ugly and too busy.  However, they way the super-detailed designs are used in the film is fairly remarkable.  All of the parts move and shift in minute detail and the Transformers are absolutely fascinating to watch move on the big screen.  If outer-space robot aliens do exist they probably look like this.

One thing that makes this movie so much fun is that it has a completely unhinged tone that, for the most part, serves it well.  When a Decepticon makes its first big appearance as it has Sam pinned to the hood of a car, it yells “Are you eBay user LadiesMan2817?!!”  Its such a bizarre thing to have happen, you’d expect the big reveal scene for a Decepticon to have it say something like, “Tremble before my transforming, puny Earthling!” Instead, it yells about an eBay account as it smashes up the ground.  So strange but rather nifty.

This lunacy translates the action pieces, which are some of the most spectacular action scenes of the 2007 calendar year.  The film opens with a jaw-dropping assault on a U.S. Army base where a helicopter Decepticon shows up and destroys the hell out of everybody in sight. It’s the kind of unrestrained, gleeful giant robot carnage that keeps the film so engaging, and it delivers a lot of it (there’s even a killer X-Box 360 in one scene!!) While the slower bits with humans do eat up a lot of screentime (there are moments when LaBeouf is bemoaning the state of his dog’s health that you testily wait for a robot to smash something), almost everything involving the Transformers themselves is gold. 

Almost everything.  A few bits stumble when it comes to the Transformers themselves.  One the Decepticons is this tiny information gathering dude who makes a lot of irritating noise and hacks into a security system by, seemingly, dry-humping it.  There’s a scene where the Autobots are hiding in Sam’s backyard and smash everything and nobody notices them.  And, in the film’s final moments, there’s this creepy voyeur vibe when the Transformers are standing around and watching Sam make out with his girl.  But even with an off scene here and there, the films greatest strength is that the robots themselves seems like fully-fledged characters, and never just FX.  

Using some cool music cues like The Smashing Pumpkins in an action sequences (I think a nerd-blood vessel in my head popped at that point), Bay’s hyper-stylized direction seems to fit this bizarre Energon-fueled Transformer mayhem.  He does indulge really lame jokes and thin characterization, however, when it comes to pure kinetic kick, Bay’s style actually enhances the insanity.  Using real people in his movies always felt a little too over-stylized, but when his stars are CGI created robots that bash and shoot death rays, it suddenly fits.  This is Bay’s best movie, and a good candidate for the most entertaining summer blockbuster of ‘07.