Much talk has been given to the question: is Michael Bay the death of true cinema? In my humble opinion, he is and he isn’t. On one hand, he has no reservations about the continuous retardation of audiences, and seems to be a prime contributor (see <i>Pearl Harbor</I> for the greatest evidence). But in the other, you can’t deny that sometimes you find yourself completely blown away by his movies. You’ll be thoroughly entertained, but never enthralled (and Michael McClennan is right about saying that Bay’s film are VERY boring without the nuts and bolts of the action scenes). Having said this, I really wanted to enjoy this movie, and I even put aside what Bay-bias I have; but this movie just doesn’t work. And it should have. I’m no diehard Transformer fanboy, in fact, as a youth I only had a few of the toys (mostly the Dinobots being a big dinosaur fan) but I understand that there is a very detailed and original mythology to these characters that’s been established for over twenty years. In fact, on many searches, I found that the thing practically wrote itself. I was worried that first and foremost, Bay’s movie was going to be about 75% human plot, and about 25% robot plot. In many ways, I was right. In the right hands - actually, the right imagination - these Cybertronian archetypes could’ve become living, breathing characters; and ILM does the best at trying to convey that with their mesmerizing effects (of note: ILM is and will always be the best VFX company in existence). The problem lies with the writers, as they seem so intent on giving us a very typical and boring gaggle of human subplots that the robots’ motivation gets buried in a pile of cliche. The villians (Decepticons), primed (pun not intended) for Shakespearian and Machiavellian conflicts, lack any type of driving force. They just exist as plot ciphers, killing machines with no real conflict. The Autobots are given more room to develop; well, their leader Optimus Prime is given time and pace to develop. The rest are character-less interchangeable mechanical faces. Shall I forget the walking minstrel show known as Jazz (“Sup, bitches?!” is officially the worst written introductions for any character, human or android). As I will instill later in this post, imagination is everything. With better writers and a more capable director, these characters WOULD’VE worked. As I said before, the conflicts write themselves. I’ve subsequently described this film as one of the most exciting event movies I’ve seen in some time (when the robots are on-screen and allowed to interact with each other and humanity) and one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen (any and everytime a human is on-screen fumbling through heavy-handed plot devices and bits of humor that are uncalled for). The human characters seem to derive from a standard screenwriting software. Insert character names and specifics, and *BAM* automatic plot and dialog. In fact, nearly every Michael Bay film seems to be written with this software. The one bright spot of oppurtunity lies in Shia LeBeuf’s Sam character. In a better world, he would’ve been the only major human character in the film. As Spielberg once described him, a boy and his first car. We’re given about ten minutes of what could’ve been wonderfully orchestrated character dynamic, and then it’s all thrown away in favor of the lesser characters (worst of which being the blonde computer “expert” and Anthony Anderson, the Middle East fighters, and Jon Voight in the worst performance of his career). Only John Turturro shows up to provide the film with a needed dose of hammy class. In a summer of wasted oppurtunities, this seems to be the most devastating of them all.

Old Infopop Software by UBB