As I've written before, I hold Jurassic Park to be the quintessential blockbuster of my generation. The sense of pure awe you get from seeing those dinosaurs brought to life on the big screen for the first time is something that has not been matched by any film since. Sure, some have tried (Independence Day, War of the Worlds), but none were able to equal the level of utter wonder of Spielberg's dinosaur film. Until now. While I think Transformers has some deeply flawed elements, it is nonetheless the most jaw-dropping summer blockbuster to be released in the 14 years since Jurassic Park upped the ante on cinematic wonderment.The story is largely an excuse to find a way to present giant robots fighting each other. Eons ago there were two factions of Transformers: the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, and the Decepticons, led by Megatron. The source of power on their home world of Cybertron was a cube called the Allspark. When Megatron tried to take the Allspark for himself, Prime launched it into space. It eventually found its way to Earth, with the Autobots and Decepticons in pursuit. The only person who holds the key to locating it is Sam (Shia LaBeouf), and both sides race to find him before the other. There are subplots including a love story between Sam and Mikaela (Megan Fox), and a search for the source of an attack on an Iraq base. But really, it's all a set up for the final 30 minute free for all.
I want to get out of the way my two biggest complaints first. One is a problem any casual film goer would probably notice, while the other is something that is from more of a fan perspective (I grew up with the cartoon and toys, although I have only vague memories of most of the story). The problem that should have destroyed the film is the script, which has to be one of the dumbest put to screen in recent memory. When we first meet all the Autobots, we are told they learned how to talk by reading the Internet. The same must be true for whoever wrote the screenplay as not a single character seems to know how normal people speak. The jokes are often painfully bad, more in the vain of inducing groaning than laughter. And did these writers only ever meet one black man in their life? How else to explain that two different black characters treat their mothers/grandmothers in derogatory ways? Yet the film seems almost to be Michael Bay's thesis that in the right hands, the script is completely unimportant. And you know, he provides a strong argument.
The other problem is one that I think a lot of fans feared when Bay said he's the best man to direct this film because he thinks the idea of transforming robots is stupid (this is the same director who gave us such thinking man's films as Armageddon and The Island). As a result, the Transformers take a back seat to the humans. Optimus Prime's first appearance is not for an hour, while Megatron shows up only for the final battle. My own personal problem was the lack of Starscream, the one part of the original Transformers that I strongly remembered and loved. Starscream was Megatron's right hand "man" but always had aspirations for overthrowing Megatron, something he eventually accomplished. Here he shows up only at the end, and has just one line of dialogue. While the film alludes to the tenuous relationship between the two Decepticons, it is not really notable. And really, that is one example of how all the Transformers are treated: we just don't get to know any of them, they are never more than just giant robots. Still, Bay made up for Starscream's lack of presence by giving him the most bad ass moment in the film, as well as leaving open the possibility for a much larger role in the inevitable sequel.
Really, though, everything else works very well. The acting is good, and I am now convinced that Shia LaBeouf will become one of the biggest actors of his generation. He has an undeniable charm, and a real screen presence. The true star, though, is the special effects. Wow. Much like with Gollum or King Kong in recent years, the CG characters become real as the film progresses. And to see multiple CG robots battling it out is truly impressive. Anyone who played with Transformers as a kid will probably remember taking two action figures and smashing them into each other, playing out what in their minds was the most epic battle ever imagined. There is no other way to describe the final 30 minute battle than as Michael Bay transporting our 8 year old imaginations with those toys onto the big screen. And while I was highly skeptical of Bay's decision to focus so strongly on humans over Transformers, it paid off in spades. While I really didn't care about the characters, it gave the film a sense of hugeness, as we saw these robots from human perspectives. When you first see a Transformer transform, it's a jaw dropping experience in part because the characters witnessing it are so amazed. It really is the equivalent to the first time the dinosaurs appeared in Jurassic Park.
I suspect that had it not been so dumb and poorly written, Transformers would be widely considered to be one of the few elite popcorn movies, in the same category as Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Still, it is the closest to that kind of pure entertainment we've had in more than a decade, and my mouth was hanging open for large portions of the run time. Perhaps the biggest sign of this film's place in history was the looks on the kids' faces around me as I left the theater: their eyes were wide open with awe, and as they walked past, one kid said to another "We're watching that again." I got the feeling they saw the same thing I saw when the T-Rex attacked those two cars so many years ago.
