Release Date: 28 June 2007

Synopsis :

Dueling alien races, the Autobots and the Decepticons, bring their battle to Earth, leaving the future of humankind hanging in the balance. The feature is being directed by Michael Bay with Steven Spielberg acting as the executive producer.

Movie Review:

Debates has been battling over the originality of the redefination of the live action sci-fi film, Transformers. Comments were bombarded around claiming the robots were too ugly, Optimus Prime flashy colours were too loud, and helming a small protest among true fans of the indifference. I too felt the saddened disparity of such change but who are we kidding? If the robots were to look like they were back in the 80s, this flick will be a laughing stock. Now with the backing of Industrial Light & Magic's CGI team, every time one those cars transform, you can't help but bring a tear to your eyes and realised that you're 8 again, sitting with your mouth wide open at the awe and spectacle of the visual feast.

With no time wasted, Transformers starts off with a loud sonic boom, diving into the thick of the action as U.S. soldiers in Qatar are attacked by a helicopter that transformed itself, destroying everything in its path to downloads top-secret files from the computers, hacking into the National Security's database. All these to find an all-powerful cube called the Allspark that was crashed in the Arctic a millennia ago along with evil Megatron during a ravaging civil war between the good Autobots and the evil Decepticons on planet Cybertron. Boy do these names bring memories.

With so much sequels dominating the cinemas of the summer blockbuster frenzy, the one much anticipiated original show turns out to be a much simpler form ever imaginable. No twist or turn. No confusing plots. In a nutshell, the movie can be summariesed in less then 15 words. And in that aspect, i beleive that Bay and screenwriters truely understands that people are simply here to see giant robots thrash the hell out of both each other and city surroundings - thus don't bother spending time with much preamble. The result is a 140 minute movie with over an hour of it devoted to truly hardcore action - and on that front Bay shines as always.

A definite nod to Michael Bay for always notching up the heat in every action-pack blockbuster ever made. And this one is no different. The realism was an eye opener as soon as the 1st robots apeared and it never lets down the expectation despite having ILM's truly jaw-dropping effects suspending going on too long at times during much of the last hour in one giant series of sequences which sees downtown LA ripped apart.

Even though at would seem that the human elements were merely toppings, character building were substandardly of borderline making it just beleivable for the plot to go through. Shia LaBeouf, who plays Sam, is enjoyably rootable as the sympathetic awkward teen who befriends the autobots. The women especially were just mere eye-candies - Rachael Taylor as a hot Australian computer geek does well but struggles with such little material, whilst Megan Fox shows off little more than her torso and pouty mouth. She's the female lead, yet given a character development that blew a fuse so fast that you seem to forget about it as soon as the action starts. Such a pity Bay had to rush through all these little gems which could have made a much creative evolution of story development. Lacking in the natural instincts that Spielberg has as a storyteller, Bay doesn't quite have the ability to connect in a direct, deeply emotional mode with the viewers through seemingly simple yarns about quintessentially American families and children.

While the young members of the cast act in a sincere, straightforward manner, the veteran ones, such as Torturro and Jon Voight play their parts more broadly, in tune with the cartoonish nature of the source material. Along with the actors, voices were also well chosen. Peter Cullen, the original voice behind the cartoon, offers the narration by Transformer Optimus Primus, while Hugo Weaving (Matrix, Lord of the Ring) voices the evil Megatron.

A total Bayhem feature, Michael destroys, wrecks, blows up and demolishes anything that stands or rolls in pursuit of a noisy and flashy action movie to satisfy the imaginations of a young audience and injects plenty of adolescent humour (as cheesy as the film's tone) to ensure that silliness dampens the violence. Depite having a presidential smack in the face towards the end, one can't deny that much actually resembles how the original cartoon would have flowed by. In terms of sheer spectacle, "Transformers" is a hard film to beat and certainly it looks like every single dollar spent can be seen on screen and definately spent well. Ultimately, Transformers was designed to be a major thrill ride this summer that is more than meets the eye.

Movie Rating:

(You'll never see a car the same again.)

Review by Lokman B S