It's true what they say about Shia LaBeouf. He's going to be the next great actor. Yes. He's a combination of Will Smith and Tom Hanks. He's that good, and I can see it all. His performance in Transformers is the most genuine teenage kid I've seen since the very first American Pie. The good news is that he's a bit more wholesome.
As for the movie, it's way better than the Fantastic Four by a longshot, and there are couple interesting surprises too.
First of all, this is one of the first action/monster flicks in a long time where the real humans have a chance at a human scale. Starting with Independence Day and Godzilla, we've been accustomed to seeing the entire human race made to look foolish and puny until some superhuman brain (usually the star) comes up with a one in a million shot to overcome the odds. During the course of such movies, you generally see gratuitous swipes at the US Armed Forces. You'll get the loudmouth stupid general, or the cowardly President, or the duplicitous intelligence agency. In Transformers you get some real serious squad-based action in which soldiers make a difference. It's so damned refreshing and new for Hollywood movies that half the audience will be thinking they are suspending disbelief when they see a platoon that actually fights and wins. In fact, in the Transformers movie, I'd say some of the best action is seeing how the Army coordinates attacks on the alien nasties. This is the first new Army movie in decades.
Secondly, and it bears repeating, Shia Labeouf is fantastic kid actor. He's funny. He runs like an action hero. He's expressive. He's smart and he's quirky and witty too. I've heard before I saw this movie that Spielberg sees a great future for the kid, I see it too. He's got the thing, and he brought all kinds of character to a movie that only had Bay's effects and action going for it.
As for the babeage, the female lead was horribly miscast for this movie. I can't see any reason at all to get a chick so juicy and delicious to play a high school chick other than to make LaBeouf look primed for romantic comedy flicks. From the POV of a middle schooler or highschool boy who might want to see this flick, I suppose the casting is right, as is the new Camaro which completes the fantasy. Still.
Oh yeah, Megatron & Optimus Prime. Uh.. They're cool robots? The fights between the robots are long and fast. It looks quite different from everything else we've seen. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. There isn't a lot of good baseline material for robotic fight choreography outside of I Robot which I think did a very fine job. So when the Autobots go at it with the Decepticons it's sometimes like watching Katamari Damacy on speed, there are often just two giant balls of junk going at each other and you never know when the equivalent of a kick to the groin has happened. I really think Bay should have stuck a bit more slo-mo simulcast action into some of the robot fight sequences. I think that will make the difference next time around.
On the other hand, the human vs robot fighting is done very well, most especially the desert standoffs and the hogtie scene in the LA River. Speaking of which, the location continuity on this film sucked big time. It could have been done better, but for kids, who cares. For action film guys like me, it was a problem.
The film did fill out its 2 and a half hour shell fairly nicely but I don't think it will stand up well to a second viewing. I give this one 83%.
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