MOVIE REVIEW: TRANSFORMERS

Finally... it happened. Michael Bay made a movie that didn't suck. He did it. I credit a lot of that to Steven Spielberg's guidance, of course.

I just got back from the 9:00 PM show tonight (7/2/2007), and I cannot stop talking about what I just witnessed. Transformers is easily one of the best movies I have watched in the past decade. Is it Oscar worthy? Maybe not. But these things are for sure: the characters were believable, the special effects were unreal, the plot line was absolutely solid, and you will have a BLAST watching it. Those in charge of this movie stayed true to the original Transformers cartoons and made adjustments where they had to (e.g. - giving Optimus Prime lips). I am not one for overdosing on CGI, but this movie proved that it really can make a huge impact when done correctly. The CG was just perfect (what do you expect with ILM?), with incredible detail on the Autobots and Decepticons.

Fox and LaBeouf have fantastic on-screen chemistry, both were very convincing in this movie

The eye candy in this movie was abundant, yet not overdone (Megan Fox is a knockout). I was extremely worried going in that Michael Bay was going to butcher the movie by sticking in a love story that was forced on the audience. Not the case in this movie, which was a HUGE relief. The on-screen romance was a nice undertone and played out very well. There were a couple corny parts in the movie, but even those were extremely bearable. The soundtrack was pretty decent, but the score was incredible... one of the better scores I have heard in a long time. Most movies nowadays have product placement throughout, this one was no exception. Obviously GM paid some money to get their new vehicles in the flick (2009 Camaro (bumblebee), H2 (ratchet), Solstice (Jazz), etc...), but it wasn't so blatant as to take away from the experience. Also, Megatron doesn't turn into a gun because, let's be honest, how were they going to pull that off?

The makers of the movie obviously left the movie wide open for a number of sequels. Hopefully the movies following this one can measure up to its originality and genuine fun it provides.

I will be back in the theater to watch this movie again, bet on it.

FINAL GRADE: A-