Transformers

Michael Bay's reputation for non-stop action flicks that involve multiple explosions has given me pause in the past. I mean, too many high concept films have been ruined by this sort of lowest common denominator pandering, and when Transformers came out...

Wait a minute, what am I saying? Non-stop action flick? Check. Multiple explosions? Check! Big budget special effects? CHECK. Peter Cullen, the original voice actor of Optimus Prime in the cartoon series, playing Optimus Prime in the movie? OMG I AM SO THERE!!1!1!

Sorry, sorry, I reverted to my inner twelve-year-old. Screw high concept films, I wanna see giant robots beating the mechanical crap out of each other! I wanna see the military firing bazookas at said giant robots and then running in terror! I wanna see giant robots transform in all their mechanical, impossible glory and I wanna see them duke it out in the middle of a crowded street!

Transformers delivers like you wouldn't believe. What I didn't expect is how patriotic the film is. It's essentially a war movie, filmed with realistic shaky-cam effects from puny human point of view. It's like that first scene in Spielberg's War of the Worlds, when the tripods pop up out of the city street, only that's the whole movie. It's like the promise that Independence Day was going to be a blockbuster, patriotic movie, only Transformers actually delivers on that promise and doesn't make you feel like an idiot for getting a little misty when our troops fight back against all odds.

Or maybe that was just me.

Anyway, if you love Transformers, it's all here: the Allspark cube (I think it was called the Energon cube or something in the cartoon), Optimus Prime, Jazz, Bumblebee (not a VW Bug, but there's a reason for that), Megatron, Starscream, and a bunch of other Transformers nobody cares about. Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) is here, Scorponok is here...there's so much here that my head threatens to explode from the Transformerery goodness of it all. It's Transformers, written for fans who remember the series, with a deadly serious take on an invasion of giant transforming robots.

But of course, all this must be rationalized for modern audiences. So Megatron takes the place of Roswell, and true to conspiracy theories, a shadowy agency (Sector 7, instead of Majestic 12) led by President Hoover keeps Megatron locked up. And just like in conspiracy theories, all of our futuristic technology is derived from captured Decepticon technology. The Transformers project holograms of pilots and drivers to fool humans, and they've been among us for awhile, watching, waiting, for the right moment to retrieve the doohickey from the government and turn EVERYTHING into a Transformer. It's robotic terrorism at its finest!

Throughout, Transformers finds plenty of humor with the foibles of the humans the Autobots are assigned to protect. Be it the awkward dance between Sam and the lust of his life (Megan Fox), a hacker (Anthony Anderson) and his smoking hot Australian NSA gal pal (Rachael Taylor), or a military team struggling to survive in the desert (led by Josh Duhamel), Transformers is more than just giant robots and special effects. It's giant robots, special effects, and really hot chicks. This movie is rated PG-13 and aimed for those who remember when they were thirteen.

Transformers wants you to really, really like it. Some of the scenes, noticeably the "thing" (that's a lot like John Carpenter's The Thing) that I presume was Shockwave, are a little over the top. But then I remembered that this is a movie about giant transforming flying robots from outer space, and promptly gained some perspective.

From its breathtaking shots of desert combat, reverent scenes of our military in action, to an entire shootout on Air Force One, Transformers is truly a movie made for modern audiences. And it was a perfect film to watch on Fourth of July.