Transformers

In the Middle East an American army base is under a surprise attack by a large robot. Or, what those in the know call it, a Decepticon. It totally wipes out the base, except for a few soldiers who make it out, then it starts to read the hard drive. The base is able to cut the line before it can access the information it wants however.

We then move to some high school filled with mid twenty actors that are supposed to be teenagers and the most pathetic of all high school teacher.  Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is doing a presentation on his grandfather, some explorer of the north pole that went crazy after he came back. It's dull and he's given a B for trying to hock his grandfather's equipment. Sam convinces the teacher to give him an A so his dad will help his buy his first car.  After a long and pointless (yet funny) scene, Sam buys a beat up Camero.  Turns out that he didn't buy a car, Sam bought an Autobot, Bumblebee (Mark Ryan), who was sent to Earth to protect Sam from the Decepticons.

You see many years ago the Allspark, the giant cube that gave the life to the robotic life forms (Autobots and Decepticons), was lost and landed on Earth. The leader of the Decepticons, Megatron (Hugo Weaving), came to Earth and found the Allspark, but was frozen before he could get it. Sam's grandfather found Megatron and accidentally got the coordinates to the Allspark imprinted on his glasses. Glasses that are now in Sam's possession.

While the government is trying to figure out what the Decepticons are, what they are after and how to destroy them, Bumblebee calls for the rest of the Autobots to come to Earth. And Sam is trying to impress Mikaela (Megan Fox). Then the Sector 7 shows up to complicate things. They apparently found both Megatron and the Allspark using them to reverse engineer all of the modern day electronics. Both the Autobots and the Decepticons reach the Allspark at about the same around the same time the army does and there's an all out war. Long story short the Autobots wins. Yay!

Okay,  now I loved the original Transformers cartoon. I watched it religiously when I was younger. This movie has the same kind of feel to it, only more up to date, and yet there was something missing that stopped me from enjoying it.  Not missing, added. In the original carton its all about the Autobots and the Decepticon, with just some humans running around. In this movie it was about the humans with the Transformers in the background. Just really big in the background.  There were so many story lines about the human characters that took away from the movie and just slowed down the action. I didn't care about Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel)'s wife (Samatha Smith).  I didn't care about Maggie (Rachael Taylor)  or Glen (Anthony Anderson). I sure as hell didn't care about Mikaela or the fact that her father's in prison, or that she had a juvie record. I could be biased with her because I didn't like her acting. Every time she tried to act tough she failed miserably.  But how they hell do you get a juvie record from turning in your dad? I don't think that's what the writers meant but that's sure as hell the way it sounded.

Speaking about writting, the dialog was terrible, especially from Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), but then again he always made me want to stuff a Dodge Dart down his throat so he would shut up. Some parts, though, were long and rambling. Also the plot was a bit sketchy with a bit of leaning towards the not plausible. I have one question though, why did the Allspark only make evil robots once it got to Earth? It made the Autobots didn't it? Why did it just randomly create robots from everyday electronics that suddenly go all homicidal?

Maybe I just expected too much from the movie going in and I was disappointed when it wasn't as good as I thought. I know Coral loved it. She's already shotgunned the DVD when it comes out.

Grade: 7/10