Out and Back: Transformers

Understand this before anything else, friends: There's a decent chance that I'm the biggest Transformers nit you know. The original cartoon was appointment television for me as a kid. (4 o'clock, Channel 29.) I've got over 100 Generation 1 figures in a box somewhere. I saw the 1986 animated movie in the theater when I was 11. I had a subscription to the comic book, for crying out loud. So when word got out that a live-action Transformers movie was actually being made, it got my attention. Then when the news came that Michael Bay was directing it ... well, I was expecting the worst.

Well, what a nice surprise this turned out to be.

The story is typical of a summer blockbuster, which means you can call it "uncomplicated" and "utterly preposterous" at best. It's less important in these comic book/video game/toy line adaptations, where the main sticking point is getting the origin and the characters right. We'll get to the characters later, but there are enough nods to the original canon back story (and an obvious but appropriately-timed callback to the animated film) that old-schooler me found Perfectly Acceptable.

I don't claim to be any kind of judge of acting talent, but Shia LeBouf's Sam stood out among some mostly unremarkable performances otherwise. (Nit Alert: It's Spike. WTF with this 'Sam' business.) Getting Peter Cullen on board to do Optimus Prime's voice was vital. (Apparently he got a standing ovation when he did his character intro at an advance screening.) That voice is so tied to that character that having someone else do it would have been tough to get past. It's not unlike a security blanket. I'm dead serious. Also, you've seen bits and pieces of them in the trailers, but the full transformations and effects are awesome.

However, it takes too long to get to the meat of the story. In fact, this movie manages to simultaneously be about 15 minutes too long and have a scene or two missing, which is no mean feat. Pacing's never been one of Bay's strong suits.

My biggest worry was that the movie would focus too much on the humans and not enough on the robots, since it's the robots' story that's being told. And sure enough, that's what we got. We really didn't get enough time to get to know the other Autobots. It was probably done that way because most of this movie's target audience is Transformers fans, and the assumption is that they already know the robots' characters and already have their own emotional investments in them as a result. But they still aren't developed enough, which leads to something that happens near the end of the film having a much, much smaller impact than it should. Also, I called the ending about 20 minutes before it happened.

It's not quite as good as the gushing reviews it's gotten, but it certainly isn't as bad as a lot of people like me feared it would be when the details started coming out. It's an enjoyable time-waste if nothing else.