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"He drives Herbie Fully Reloaded ---oops, my bad, 'Bumblebee'--- to woo the hot babe. In case you are still awake: the nerd gets the girl."

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Transformers (2007)

A Review by Techtite

Sometimes, the problem with a film isn't that the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing, but rather, that the two hands working hard on a project didn't notice all the other hands dozing off. It is clear when looking at this movie, that the folks at ILM effects studios worked hand-in-hand with the toy marketers, to deliver life-sized, animated likenesses of every boy's favorite toy, the Transformers. Too bad those hands weren't paying attention to the writers, the director, and frankly, the whole live action cast.

The story is easily summarized by the classic 1984 TV series jingle. Autobots (the good transformers) are waging a personal battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons (the evil transformers). This battle, as you might have already expected, has been taken to Earth, which is why both sets of robots look curiously like human vehicles and appliances. Don't shrug this action movie concept as another Godzilla turkey. There's a lot more potential to this story than giant robots hitting each other. Too bad the scriptwriters felt differently.

The problems with this film unravel when we are introduced to not one, not two, but three live action story arcs. I can only presume that the idea was to make this film more "human" with various live actors present. Yet if their intention was to add more "life" to the story: why are these side stories so cliché and lifeless?

Here's an example: Sam (Shia LeBouf) is a nerd who likes this cool girl at school. By bizarre coincidence, Sam happens to buy the one Transformer “car” in disguise at a used car dealership. He drives Herbie Fully Reloaded ---oops, my bad, “Bumblebee”--- to woo the hot babe. In case you are still awake: the nerd gets the girl. You'd think this is a stupidly worthless story arc, and...well, aside from a really imbecilic plot twist: it is. Ready for the biggest plot contrivance? The hot babe is an expert auto mechanic. Whoa! What are the odds of that?

While one such live-action story arc would've been okay; the script adds another...and another. The movie seemingly starts well with a pair of army soldier buddies valiantly fighting against  giant robots, yet as soon as we grow interested in that story, we quickly jump to the “Sam” story, which is just plain weak. If by some stroke of luck you succeed in enjoying the Sam story, in comes live-actor story arc number three, involving Maggie Madsen (Rachel Taylor) and John Keller (Jon Voight) helping the government discern the motives of these strange robots. Do we really need a story arc about the government's reaction to all this? No, and we didn't need a story arc about the kid, either.

Yes, I have heard the "official story" to why they felt they needed live action: allegedly, the film's budget would've been too high if not for live action scenes, which cost less FX money. Except this summer has already seen two completely-CGI movies. Heck; just last week I saw an entire movie about an imaginary cooking rat, so again I'm wondering why I am watching the dweeb woo the babe. Is this an action movie, or is this Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel?

However, it needs to be said: yes, the scenes with the Transformers are amazing. Fanboys will be able to look beyond the live action vapidity and simply enjoy seeing their childhood toys as "life sized" behemoths. I've heard sometimes, whenever possible, the film even cast the original voices from the cartoon for each Transformer. That's an attention for detail that...well, that the script should have.

Don't get me wrong; this movie isn't garbage. It just is so flawed...so much so, I have no choice but to drop my rating for this film to an "affectionate" thumbs-down level. It’s a cute popcorn flick, though you can't promote a film as wildly as this film has been promoted, and have so much comedy relief cornball. The “bat signal” an Autobot uses to signal the other Autobots. The whole “Herbie Fully Reloaded” feel of the Sam-and-Bumblebee story. The imbecilic decepticon who kills himself with his own weapon. The “evil” Mountain Dew soda machine. The fact that, out of almost 100 stories from the original 1980's TV cartoon, they chose…this…”story”...?!?

As I said: this is a good popcorn summer flick, yet it didn’t really “sell” itself for me. That’s okay. Others will ask if I saw the same movie and insist they had a great time. Sure, I can buy that. If you came into this movie expecting nothing more than big ‘splosions and some “Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots” style battle scenes ---Pow! Slam! Kaboom!--- then yeah, you’ll have fun. If you're the sort of free thinker who leaves the theater wondering if that Transformer was leaking oil or taking a leak, well, perhaps you should stay home.

---Techtite

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