Transformers (2007)

VERDICT:
5/10 ROBOTS?? FIGHTING!?!? YES!!!!

One day during my senior year of college, I came back to my apartment to find my roommate and his friends sitting in the living room with all the lights off watching a movie.

Being the polite roommate, I asked, “Hey, whatchya’ watchin’?”

His response, “Only the greatest movie ever made.” Cue my roommate high-fiving his friend in agreement.

I turned to the TV and was amazed to find that they were watching Transformers. What was I expecting? The Godfather, that robotless piece of shit?

Consider myself served.

Transformers is about good alien robots and bad alien robots who can transform their shape from cars, jets, etc. to giant fighting machines that each have their own little quirks and personalities. Anyway, they come down to Earth to look for something called “the All Spark”, somehow Shia LeBeouf and his unrealistic love interest, Megan Fox, get involved, and then the robots fight for the next hour and half. And I think it’s based off a documentary.

Sure, there’s a semblance of a story and there are people acting in it, but no one’s going into this movie looking to give a shit about the characters or to be moved in some way. When you turn on Transformers, you want action and you want it NOW!

Michael Bay knows this. He’s always known it.

He’s mastered the art of killing brain cells for two hours, made a career out of it, and this might be him at the top of his game. Not to say that he’s got some other masterpiece of film making to live up to, but he knows his target audience and this is exactly what they’re looking for.

With that said, Transformers is fun. It’s got the nostalgia appeal for anyone who grew up around the ’80s and it has some great special effects. And as expected, the action scenes are wild when you can actually make out what’s going on.

But that’s about it.

Shia LeBeouf contributes nothing of substance to the movie, Megan Fox is around for the sex appeal factor, and all the dialogue is pretty annoying, especially since it tries so damn hard to be funny. We all know someone who tries so hard to be funny but just comes off as unbelievably irritating. No one wants to spend two hours with that person in a dark room.

There’s really not a whole lot to say about Transformers because there’s not much there apart from what you see. With that said, I enjoyed watching it, but that doesn’t make it a good movie. This is a Michael Bay summer blockbuster and it’s exactly the movie you would expect it to be:

Robots. Fighting. Robots.