Transformers (Michael Bay, 2007) **

Dir. Michael Bay
Starring Shia Labeouf, Megan Fox, Jon Voight, John Turturro, Peter Cullen

Michael Bay has made a name for himself with big budget spectacles that have become enormously successful at the box office. They’ve also been consistently idiotic and insulting to the audience. In films such as Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, and The Rock (his only decent film thanks to a great cast), he has employed a very annoying filmmaking technique of rapid editing that distracts the audience from the fact thet there is very little going on in the movie. Thankfully, he jettisoned that approach for this update of the classic 80s cartoon series Transformers, but what’s really interesting is the style he decided to adopt. Transformers has quite a bit in common with the silly, sappy, and sometimes unintentionally funny Roland Emmerich blockbusters like Godzilla, Independence Day, and The Day After Tomorrow. It’s definitely a better approach, but not necessarily a good one, as Transformers falls apart due to Bay’s reliance on silliness to make up for logical gaps in the plot.

The story centers around a mysterious cube device called the Allspark. On the planet of Cybertron, the Autobots and Decepticons, waged war over this item which would grant unlimited power to the owner. The Autobots gained possession of it and hid the device on Earth. Now more than a century later they have come back to prevent the Decepticons from recapturing it and destroying mankind. High school student Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) gets involved in this mess because his ancestor discovered the Allspark in an arctic expedition in the 1850’s and whose glasses (that Sam is trying to sell on Ebay) may contain a map to the location. He is aided by an Autobot named Bumblebee, who protects him from the Decepticons while waiting for the rest of the Autobots to make their way to Earth.

This basic premise is not a bad one. They had to come up with a reason for the Transformers to fight on Earth and the Allspark served as a good MacGuffin. It’s clear what Bay was interested in was exciting and elaborate fights with the various robots. The movie is certainly successful at achieving that goal. The special effects are outstanding, with completely convincing shots of the robots interacting with the humans. Also, Bay seems more confident this time around, allowing shots to run for much longer than he usually does, which will certainly nix the huge increase in sales for Tylenol that usually accompanies his films. For the first time in a Bay film, you can actually follow the various players in each action sequence.

Unfortunately, the film runs into problems with a lazy script. The Allspark serves as a good plot device, but when it starts getting explained in detail becomes extremely silly. Midway through the film, there is a clumsy explanation of how the device can be destroyed, obviously setting things up for later in the movie. Unfortunately, this presents some moral problems with the actions of the Autobots, who argue that human life is worth preserving even when it would be necessary to kill one in order to rescue a comrade. If they really believe this, then the movie should have ended a bit earlier than it does because there was an obvious solution. How many humans had to die because Optimus Prime didn’t have the courage to do what he could’ve done much earlier in the film?

Transformers has a heavy reliance on comic relief. It’s always good to have some of that in an action film, but Bay completely loses control with this one. Anthony Anderson shows up in a pointless role just to deliver random one-liners. John Turturro inhabits much of the 2nd half of the film with a bizarre character that seems to have wandered in from an X-Files repeat. The absolute worst part is an extended sequence at Sam’s home as the Transformers hide in his backyard while he tries to dodge questioning from his parents and recover the glasses. What starts off as a mildly amusing joke soon falls to the level of an awful family sitcom (complete with an awkward masturbation joke!) and the scene just keeps going and going for what seems like an eternity. Since the film already had a pretty long running time at two and a half hours, there’s no reason large portions of this scene could not have been excised from the film.

Only Shia Labeouf is able to rise above the screenplay with a strong performance at the center, utilizing his everyman appeal with an offbeat line delivery to create an interesting character. In fact, he’s the only character worth caring about. As the defense secretary, Jon Voight sleepwalks through a role that he’s played countless times before. Megan Fox tries to invest some humanity into the typical hot girl love interest, but all attempts at giving her a third dimension are wrecked by a director and screenwriter clearly interested in something else. Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson show up as military men that battle the Decepticons, but they have nothing to do other than fire guns and yell generic military dialogue. Finally, the worst character is Rachael Taylor (not her fault, though) as the typical hacker that knows all the answers but no one will listen to. The movie tries to sell her as being smart, but then later she’s too stupid to cover her tracks after copying confidential files.

Without much to care for in terms of character, dialogue, or story, the action sequences feel repetitive and dull, no matter how well they’re conceived. Of course, there is little doubt that most audiences don’t really care about the flaws I’ve pointed out. Bay and the studio know their target audience and have hit it well. As a nostalgic fan of the original animated series, even I can’t deny the pure visceral thrill of seeing the live action version of Optimus Prime transform for the first time. It’s just too bad that it wasn’t in service of a more interesting and consistent story.