FILMBRATS - REVIEWS

Sam is just your typical high-school teenager. He pines after the most popular girl in school. He sells his cruddy old wares on ebay in order to save enough money to buy his first car which he hopes will increase his chances with the aforementioned girl. Well, he gets the car, but the beat up Camaro isn’t exactly what he was hoping for. No, it turns out it’s much more. You see, his car is named Bumblebee. It’s actually an Autobot from the planet Cybertron that can morph between vehicle and giant robot forms. He’s one of many robots/vehicles that have recently traveled down to Earth in search of a device called the Allspark, an extremely powerful item that could decide the fate of an everlasting war back home. They believe Sam holds the key to finding it. Unfortunately, the bad Transformers (called Decepticons) also think this. Oh, and the government wants to get involved, because, you know alien robots equals potential weapons for the future or possible end of the world. Hey, all Sam wanted was a car and a girl.

You know what my least favorite part of “Transformers” was? The transformers. Virtually everyone knows this movie is based of a wildly popular cartoon from the 1980s that still lives on in various incarnations today. So, why did they mess with the design? These characters have no distinguishing characteristics besides their voices. Do you know why the characters have to announce themselves every time they come on screen (“Starscream!”)? Because they all. Look. The same. I know the production team worked hard to make it so that every part of the vehicle was used and placed in the robot version, but why when the end result is some horrible frayed metallic skeleton with very few distinguishing features? Do you really have to show each part? Can’t you let the fantasy of the situation take over? And why are they so much bigger than the cars and planes if they only use those parts? And where the hell is the transforming sound?!?!?! I mean, come on. I enjoyed the cartoon, but I’m not a massive fan. Yet I can still tell they really missed the boat here. Hmmm….maybe they should have had a boat character.

And not only are the robots lame by design, but in practice too. The characters just aren’t fun. The dialogue given to them is pathetic and fight scenes are completely dry an uninteresting. Why don’t they have laser beams anymore? Why can’t the robots do different things? Instead there’s a tiny one that steals computer data and a whole bunch that can just hit each other. It gets old. I don’t like that they try to make the robots doofuses (doofi?) The movie tries to be so funny but it just doesn’t work when you get the Transformers (or Bernie Mac) involved). This movie is trying so hard to be “Independence Day” that you’re just waiting for Randy Quaid to appear with the Allspark in hand.

The only real saving grace is the humans. There are fewer stupid jokes when the humans are talking and the interaction between them is actually pretty fun to watch. I think that has to do with another good showing from rising star Shia Lebeouf (Sam) and from letting a decent supporting cast riff and improvise a little bit. I liked the scenes between Sam and his parents. I didn’t like when the Transformers were playing hide and seek in the backyard.

So, even though I wasn’t all that into the fight stuff, I still feel like there should have been more rock ‘em, sock ‘em action in there and a little less exposition. Maybe show us a little of that epic war going on in Cybertron? That would be fun. I can’t imagine fans of the series will be too thrilled about this one. I mean it makes up for the lack of Bumblebee from the 1986 animated movie, and there are no Dinobots, but that’s about it. So it only took about 25 years for the cartoon to be defiled by a live action movie. Something for you Pokemon fans to look forward to in about 15 years.

respond to jon@filmbrats.com