Be sure to have some Panados handy when you go see Transformers. While it may not necessarily be the best action movie of the year, it is definitely the loudest and you're sure to walk out of the cinemas with a throbbing headache . . .
The last 20–30 minutes of the movie is particularly loud: a frenetic drawn-out climax that has giant metal robots pummelling each other whilst destroying a good part of downtown Los Angeles in the process. While it is all extremely well done with fantastic special effects and spectacular sound design, this sequence also pretty much pummels the audience into believing that what they're watching is exciting and thrilling.
Except it's not really. Labouring under the mistaken belief that “more is more” Transformers director Michael Bay prefers to bludgeon audiences over the heads with sheer noise and CGI spectacle. It may blow Bay's cerebral cortex to hear this, but less is actually more. The first time you see a giant robot transforming into a yellow sports car or SUV, it is a pretty impressive special effect. However, you'd be yawning by the don't know how many-th time you've seen the same special effect repeated.
Bay's action scenes also play with all the realism of a computer game: our young teenager hero (Shia LaBeouf) effortlessly dashes up endless flights of stairs without having to pause to catch his breath once. If Die Hard has taught us anything it is that it helps to have our heroes human even while they're performing superhuman feats. Michael Bay 's action scenes are all edited and geared for spectacle, not tension.
You should know the plot by now. The “transformers” of the movie's title are a race of alien robots that can metamorphose into everyday Earth objects such as cars, trucks, helicopters, jet planes, you name it. (One smaller model actually turns into a ghetto blaster!) There are two warring factions namely the Autobots and the Decepticons and, in case you didn't deduce it from their names, the Decepticons are the bad guys.
The leader of the Decepticons is called Megatron (yeah, I know) and has been accidentally frozen since the beginning of the previous century. Megatron wants control of a mystical cube that will allow him to make all Earth technology "evil" and ultimately conquer the universe. One can see that Megatron has been frozen since the 1910s because it is clear that he has never heard of stuff like Windows XP and thus unaware that most technology is probably already evil . . .
Not many movies are inspired by a range of toys, but this one is. Transformers is a range of toys by the Hasbro corporation which has spread out to other mediums such as animated TV shows, computer games and comic books. It was only inevitable that another big screen Transformers movie be made (there was a full-length animated movie produced in the 1980s which featured the voice talents of Orson Welles - yes, you read that right), especially with all the recent advances in CGI effects.
And make no mistake: Transformers is pretty impressive. It should be seen on the big screen with a great sound system to be fully appreciated for what it is. However, it is too long (even though at 144 minutes it is still shorter than both Spider-man 3 and Pirates 3). Still, twenty minutes could easily have been hacked from the running time, especially a subplot involving covert government consultants which pretty much go nowhere.
Ultimately, the movie's many action scenes will no doubt have small boys of an impressionable age literally pee in their pants from sheer excitement and teens thirteen years and older will appreciate our hero's American Pie-lite teenage travails involving zits, his first car and accusatory parents. Anyone wanting a movie with giant robots slugging it out won't be disappointed either. If you're desirous of a quieter time at the cinema then it is suggested that you check out something else instead . . .
