Transformers
2007
**
Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Rachael Taylor, Anthony Anderson, John Turturro, Jon Voight, Peter Cullen, Hugo Weaving
Transformers are shape-shifting robots from outer space. Since the destruction of their home planet Cybertron, the Autobots (the good ones) and the Decepticons (the bad ones) have pursued the AllSpark, and now they end up fighting for it on planet Earth. We're almost halfway to this long long film until the central plotline is actually laid out. The first hour is a goofy but unfunny comedy about a hapless teenager who comes to play a role in the latter part of the story. From the opening narration onwards, however, this world is just too silly. These gigantic scary robots threaten to destroy humanity, but don't seem to kill anyone with a speaking part. The more serious Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, sounds with his growled-out platitudes, the more I found myself laughing. Michael Bay stages a noisy, flashy and fetishistic action film with an incomprehensible climactic battle. As if Bay wasn't full of himself already, one of the cameo characters references his earlier "masterpiece", Armageddon. The characters are based on a toyline and they made their first appearance on screen in the 1980s in an animated film and television series. Followed by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
