Movie Review: Transformers

Movie Title: Transformers
Starring: Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro and Jon Voigt
Directed by: Michael Bay
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi/Comic-based
My Rating: 7/10

Great special effects, clichéd storyline, strong supporting cast and 144 minutes in length would best summarize this movie. The love story starts when a high school geek (LeBeouf) tries to impress his class-mate hottie (Fox) and buys a car within his miserly daddy's budget, the car starts playing herbie for the first half of the movie at least. The action starts when a U.S. Military base in Qatar (which is in the Middle East for those who don't know, a U.S. friendly nation near Saudi Arabia) is attacked by a huge machine with a brain of its own and acquires intel from the servers there. Valiant survivors of this attack (Duhamel, Gibson) decide to take the probe of this attack into their own hands when they return home.

These brained-machines are a species from another galaxy's planet and are called auto-bots or transformers as humans like to call them. There are bad auto-bots on earth since their planet was destroyed, so the good ones arrive as well to protect human-kind, in good faith.

How does the kid get involved in this? His car is not just a love-bug, but also an auto-bot itself assigned to protect him and his family. His ancestor was one of the first to find an auto-bot on earth in the Arctic ice. So now it's more than just the car that impresses the hottie.. Hmm...

Despite the special effects, the fights between the good and bad auto-bots are sometimes too fast for live-action, and would have been better when animated. CGI can't always make everything real and visually appealing. The supporting cast carried the movie throughout. Rachael Taylor, the young Australian actress, impressed as a Department of Defense intern who finds the code and assesses the intent of the bots. The accent was definitely a plus.

Otherwise, I would have probably enjoyed the movie better if I was 15. I did enjoy the cartoons around that age and before. Despite the PG-13 rating, I felt too old to appreciate the movie too much, even thought I haven't hit 30 yet!

7/10. Maybe 8/10 on DVD, or if you take your kids/nephews/nieces.