Transformers (2007)

Since the 1980s the Transformers franchise has been a craze in childhood. Toys, t-shirts, television series of various generations, and even a movie of 1986, have been a favourite to children of all ages. There were animations, from hand-drawn to CGI, so it was time to blend live action and CGI. So here we have it, Michael Bay's Transformers (2007).

On a mega budget of $150m, the robots in disguise make their appearance in our world and interact with humans. It is a marvellous sight on-screen to watch the heroic Autobots wage war against their foes the Decepticons. What is the cause of the war? As stated in the prologue, it is The Allspark--the power to turn ordinary technology into transforming robots. The Autobots want to use it to rebuild their ravaged home planet; the Decepticons want to use it to build an army, and dominate the universe. The Allspark crashes into earth and is discovered by mankind before the transformers.

With advanced computers and graphics, the robots are blended into the screen so that they appear to be as real as the human characters themselves. However, many of our well-known characters are much different to their incarnations of previous generations, including Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Jazz, Ratchet, Ironhide, Megatron, Starscream and Frenzy; new Decepticons include Barricade, Warpath, Bonecrusher and Blackout. Many of them have undergone radical alterations in their patterns of transformation, like a Rubik's cube rather than that pattern from any of the animated series. But it must be noted that a great deal of computer work has been as intricate as possible to give the robots a distinctive look, so that even without their respective insigniae we can tell an Autobot from a Decepticon. If you recall the animated series of previous generations (More Than Meets The Eye, Cybertron, Armada, Energon, Robots In Disguise), you will recall that the Autobots and Decepticons look so much alike that they would need their insignias to stand out. Thus a lot of care was taken in this movie to make the Decepticons look far too intimidating and nightmarish to be mistaken for Autobots.

A problem with this movie is the large chunk of running time focused on the human characters in this film, particularly on Shia LaBeouf's character Sam Witwicky. For a movie titled Transformers, we expected this movie to focus on the titular characters. Many of the fans could care less about the human characters and more about the alien robots. Besides, nobody wants to watch some kid continually stammer on the screen and scream like a sissy. One other thing, Sam's parents truly do not help matters at all, especially not Julie Witwicky.

So Michael Bay brings our robots to life; thank you for the computer animation, action, the humour and the plot. But we are not pleased with some of the human characters that take up too much screen time and spill crudeness onto us with their unwatchable acting and delivery. Work on the script so that excessive destruction to property will be averted; shorten the movie by giving less time to the human characters and focus more on the titular characters instead.