Transformers - Review

Director: Michael Bay
Writers: Alex Kurtzman/Roberto Orci
Starring: Shia LaBeouf/Jon Voight
Runtime: 2 hr. 20 minutes

It took me a moment to figure out why I didn’t like Transformers. Then it occurred to me that the filmmakers didn’t give me a chance to care about the characters it's named after.

Transformers opens with a nifty monologue from Peter Cullen. You might recognize his booming voice from the hundreds of animated shows that he’s done, including the Transformers from 20 years ago. It’s the kind of voice that could read the phone book and sound good, and it makes you look forward to hearing more of it in the movie. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen until you’re an hour into the film and wondering, “Where is everybody?”

The Transformers, that is. In the first hour of the film we meet an evil scorpion Transformer that wrecks havoc in the desert and gives the army fits trying to destroy it. We meet an evil police car Transformer that chases around the Teenage Hero and his babe. And we meet a Chevy Camaro Transformer, who belongs to the Teenage Hero, but can’t talk to him because the Camaro Transformer is broken (wounded?) and cannot speak.

I guess director Michael Bay and the producers of the film never bothered to watch the original animated adventures of these organic robots. If they had, they would know that the Transformers are the heroes and villains, while the humans are runners-up.

Not here. The film follows the tedious routine of all hi-tech adventure sagas: Teenage Hero (Sam Witwicky, played by rising star Shia LaBeouf) is a loser. He meets Hot Babe, who is tired of touchdowns and suddenly likes losers. The US military and Pentagon staff are idiots, so Video Game Geek -- surprise, surprise, he's an unemployed slob that lives with his mom -- must decipher the cryptic codes for them. Car chase, car chase, crash-bang. Roll credits.

The film tips its hat to American culture in two ways. One, it takes a shot at Bush by showing a President lounging on Air Force One’s bed while the world is under attack. We only see his socks, and they are red (get it, get it?). The President drawls his one line, “Can you rustle me up some ding dongs?” to the stewardess, and then he disappears from the film. From that moment on, the Defence Secretary (Jon Voight) is running the show.

Later in the film, we meet the Transformer Jazz. He’s a throwback who talks like an ‘80s breakdancer and does a quick dance move to prove it. It is out of touch in the extreme: not one kid today will know what he’s doing or why he’s talking like that. It was hip and funny in the ‘80s cartoon, but now it just sounds lame. It doesn’t matter, though, because we never hear him speak again. And there’s Ratchet, the Transformer medic. He says a line about fixing the Camaro Transformer’s voice box, and then we never hear him speak again, either.

And that’s my problem with Transformers. You don’t get to know a single one of them. The head honcho evil Transformer (Megatron, voiced by The Matrix's Hugo Weaving) doesn’t get any screentime until the last fifteen minutes of the film. He’s been cryogenically frozen for a hundred years, and the filmmakers were obviously content to leave him that way. Had it not been for the humans goofing up and stumbling across him in a secret military base (the scene is a rip-off of Independence Day) he wouldn’t have made it into the film at all.

As for Optimus Prime, not much there, either. He’s the main guy I remember from my childhood, and I was disappointed to see that he makes a very late entrance and is completely underused.

The effects in Transformers are often very good. The audience is cheated by a lot of close-up, ultra-fast photography during the fight scenes, making it difficult to tell who’s hitting whom, but the effects are still impressive. Unfortunately, watching Transformers actually transform is a one-trick pony. Without story and character to back them up, why should you care if they can change in the blink of an eye?

Example: in the final battle scene, one of the good guy (called Autobots) Transformers is completely ripped in two. He’s dead. And you’re not going to care, because you didn’t get to know the guy. It could be any of them or all of them, and it won’t make any difference on an emotional level. Besides, if the good guy Autobots are supposed to care so much about humans, why do they drag the final fight away from the Arizona desert and into the heart of a city? Half the place gets trashed and buildings fall down for no other reason than that it looks cool on screen.

The musical score of the film is very Michael Bay. It has been the same soundtrack since The Rock and Armageddon. Bay has cooled it on the amount of American flags in his films. Maybe he's voting Democrat next year. If you liked the use of flares in The Rock's finale, then you'll like Transformers, too. Bay still likes his use of slow motion and close-ups, and teenage boys will not be upset to see that most of the innocent bystanders in the film have plunging necklines and wonderful breasts.

So why gripe? Indeed, a friend asked me as much, reminding me of the film’s target demographic. True. Yet it’s been twenty years since I last saw a Transformers cartoon, and I can still remember Optimus almost dying but coming out on top, and Megatron screaming ‘Avenge me!’ at the end of a particularly violent episode. These guys were the leaders of two gangs, one good, one evil. They were at each other’s throats, and more importantly, I knew why they were at each other’s throats. I cared about the outcome. Those cartoons and their stories had an impact that I can still see and feel today.

This film does not.