A Clunky Hunk of Machinery This Ain't

Michael Bay delivers one of the best excuses to sit in a dark room for three hours on July 4th and that excuse is titled Transformers. I’ve always considered Michael Bay to be one of the best directors of “disposable cinema,” that is, movies that you don’t need to see more than once. But this one just may end up changing my mind. You can’t help but enjoy a movie that dishes out not just the most incredible special effects ever seen, but also takes the time for characters to utter hilariously ‘80s-style dialogue like “You protect the weak. That is why you lose!”

The dialogue belongs to the sinister Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving, who is required by law to appear in every Hollywood blockbuster), and the character he is directing the statement towards is the noble Optimus Prime, voiced by Peter Cullen, who has been voicing the giant Autobot ever since I was born, a casting choice I commend the filmmakers for making. He’s the only guy I can take seriously with lines like “Before time began, there was... the cube.” Oh, that’s right; the reason all this mayhem starts in the first place is ‘cause there’s this cube called the Allspark and…you know what? It really doesn’t matter.

What does matter are the utterly mind-boggling special effects that take place within Transformers’ generous 144-minute running time. All of the transformers are given well-animated human characteristics, and their comedic value is put to good use in a sequence where lead actor Shia LeBeouf makes the Autobots hide in his backyard to keep his parents from seeing them. Robots transform seamlessly into various forms of Chevy vehicles, GPX boomboxes, Nokia cellphones, and even a Mountain Dew machine. As you can surmise, the only thing that is more prominent than the special effects is the product placement. I'd hate to ask Julian Casablancas how much he and the guys shelled out to have LeBeouf wear a Strokes t-shirt for most of the film’s first half.

But while the film’s generous screentime to car companies and cellphone manufacturers does make good fodder for critics to poke fun at, it hardly takes away from the entertainment value of this movie. All of the actors, LeBeouf especially, deliver quality performances, something of a challenge when you’re constantly being upstaged by giant machinery. The action flows pretty evenly throughout the film, and for the most part, Bay does a good job spacing the intense battle scenes with comic relief courtesy of Bernie Mac (as a used car salesman), Anthony Anderson (as a hyperactive computer geek), and John Turturro (as the eccentric head of the top-secret government organization Sector Seven). It all adds up to a great time at the movies and one killer sci-fi epic that will surely set the standard for all that come after it.

P.S.: I have to give J.J. Abrams credit for creating a trailer that almost upstages the movie it precedes. The trailer for his new film should be considered one of the best examples on how to whet the appetite of an audience without giving away any information, not even a freakin' title!