Tuesday, July 03, 2007

TRANSFORMERS (2007)

Written by Hombre Divertido

Transformers – More than meets the eye, and substantially less than meets the brain.

If you are looking for a movie that will bring the toys and cartoons to life, this is the film for you. The special effects are amazing. If you are looking for any kind of story, stick with the cartoons. This film makes no sense at all.

It is a good hour into the film before we get any kind of explanation as to what is going on, but said information becomes useless as the story…wait, that’s too generous, as the film progresses. By then we have seen our forces in the Middle East get slaughtered, which was far more disturbing than entertaining, and we are still waiting to be introduced to characters we came to see.

Though the plot is missing, the performances are not bad, the characters are likable, and the dialog actually contains some pleasant humor, but eventually you will find yourself asking questions and counting the GM logos. Questions like how are people able to run away from something that big? How are robots not seen when they appear to be in plain sight? What exactly happened at the end with that cube? In a movie called Transformers, shouldn’t we have gotten to know the robots a little more and some of the humans a little less?

It’s a little unclear as to who the target audience is here. It is far too violent for young children, older kids may not know who the Transformers are, and it makes far too little sense for adults. The ending certainly set up a sequel and certainly left the audience wanting more, which is normally good, except in this case the more is a plot. Perhaps they could include that in the next one.

For a movie over two hours, one might expect a longer review, but since a review would normally give some insight into the story, and there was none, I can’t transform this into anything bigger.

Recommendation: The special effects won’t be as good on a DVD, so if that’s what you’re looking for, go see this. For a better action movie with a hint of a story; go see Live Free or Die Hard.