Today, I am a traitor to the cause. Today, I like a Michael Bay movie. I was really, really expecting not to. I was expecting to walk into that theater only to have a diesel-powered 50-horse Ballsy Supercock with spinning blade tip attachment rammed up my ass with the force of a freight train slamming into a wall of pudding, with the result being visually much the same. Instead, I laughed, and clapped, and cheered, and was fairly awesomed by it.
Ages ago, a mysterious cube known as the Allspark created the planet Cybertron, and the lifeforms which inhabited it…the Autobots. All was peaceful for many generations, until Megatron led a pack of defectors known as Decepticons in a battle that destroyed the planet. The surviving factions of Autobots and Decepticons have followed the Allspark’s signal to planet Earth to resume their battle.
A Decepticon disguised as a Sikorsky Pave Low helicopter called Blackout, teamed with the insanely cool Scorponok, attack a military base in Quatar, blasting the holy living shit out of everything and hacking into government networks looking for a top secret file.
Back in the states, Sam Witwicky, great-grandson of Arctic explorer Archibald Witwicky, buys a yellow 1980 Camaro with black racing stripes, which seems to practically force itself on him. He hopes the spiffy car will impress Mikaela Banes. He’s chased by Barricade and Frenzy (so where’s Rumble, Ratbat, Ravage, and Soundwave?), who want his great grandfather’s glasses, which have burned into them a code revealing the location of the Allspark. After Bumblebee reveals himself, soundly thrashes Barricade, and gives himself a makeover into a 2009 Camaro (which, by the way, holy fucking goddamn does that rule), he summons the other Autobots to Earth.
Sam, Mikaela, and Bumblebee are all kidnapped by Sector Seven. S7 is a secret government agency who has been following the Autobots, Decepticons, and the Allspark since the Hoover Dam was built to shield the Allspark’s energy signature. Sam’s great-granddad discovered Megatron buried in the Arctic ice. Seems he had followed the Allspark to Earth before the Autobots, but crash-landed and was frozen and stole Skyfire’s story arc.
The troops from Quatar are flown in, and everyone winds up at the Hoover Dam, where the Decepticons attack and knock out the coolers keeping Megatron frozen. All hell breaks out, and the Allspark is retracted to a nearby city (I’ll be honest with you, I don’t remember where they take it – Vegas makes sense, but I want to say Los Angeles, but who the hell cares, it gets smashed to shit), which the Autobots and Decepticons thrash until Megatron gets melted by the Allspark, and Sam and Mikaela make out on top of Bumblebee’s hood while the other Autobots watch. I would feel a bit weird making out on top of a car who knew what I was doing.
Yes, that description was all over the map, and so is this movie. They crammed a bit much into the 144-minute runtime, but it laid the groundwork for the sequel (which was greenlit before the movie came out, by the way), which I’m sure will have less talky talky and more explodey explodey.
There’s a lot to like, there’s very little to not like. Let’s take care of the latter first. The Allspark turning an Xbox and a Mountain Dew machine, among other things, into killer robots at the end was stupid (although the preceeding bit with a living Nokia was fucking hilarious). Let’s just be thankful that the bit in the original script where a truckload of Furbys gets Transformed was wisely removed. It doesn’t make much sense because the Allspark created Cybertron, which was inherently peaceful until Megatron came along. I guess Earth’s electronics are intrinsically evil and just waiting to be unleashed to destroy their enslavers.
My only other beef was that the robots are seriously shortchanged as characters. At least in the cartoon they had a majority of the dialogue. Most of them are practically mute, here. I think Starscream only has one line, telling Megatron he lives to serve. Didn’t even sound sarcastic, either. But the important line, “One shall stand, one shall fall”, was said, so that’s okay. But why make Ironhide British? And if you have to make him British, at least make him Cockney so he sounds like a fighter instead of an investment banker. And why only pay lipservice to the transformation noise? Blackout is the only one who gets to use it, and then only once.
I know a lot of people are going to complain about the broad, slapstickey comedy, perpetrated by both Autobot and human alike. To those people I say, what, are you offended that this movie didn’t carry on the tradition of stark Shakespearean drama which began with the Transformer name in 1984 and marched on up until today? Are you forgetting how many awful one-liners are in the animated movie? Are you forgetting the fucking abomination that is Wheelie? I don’t care what you say, Bumblebee pissing coolant on the head agent of S7 was funny.
Now, on to the thing everyone is here to see anyway – the Transformers themselves. The redesigns are, for the most part, pretty cool. I can understand why they opted to update them the way they did – especially in the face. The more I think about it, the more I realize that if they tried to be totally true to the original designs, the Transformers would all end up looking like Kryten from Red Dwarf in live action. No one wants to hear Megatron tell Starscream he has a head shaped like a novelty condom. Okay, so maybe I do want to hear that…
The biggest problem is that they all have about six billion CGI-animated moving parts. When they’re in the middle of a super-fast action scene, the robots become a total blur, confusing the eye and making the scene a muddled mess. If the designers had stuck closer to the traditional, blockier body designs, I think the movie would require a few less Dramamine before a viewing.
Optimus doesn’t need lips, guys. He’s fine with just the Shredder mask. Other than that, he’s pretty cool, if not quite as glorious as his former self. Megatron has sharp teeth, which put me off at first, but I now think is pretty cool. Starscream looks like a gorilla. Meh. Blackout rocks, Brawl (referred to mistakenly in the movie as Devastator, shame on you, subtitle guys!) rocks, Scorponok rocks, Megatron rocks. Barricade and Bumblebee are as cool as any of them who were cars were back in the day (c’mon, you know the ones who were tanks and jets and construction equipment were always the cool ones). Ratchet and Ironhide look like they have a bit of mechanical down-syndrome. Frenzy didn’t even need to be referred to as Frenzy. He looks nothing like himself, and I think the reference was just that, a reference. I don’t care if they redesign them, but the Twins need to have their piledriver arms. And I hate Jazz, and I’m glad Megatron rips him in half, and I don’t care if I just ruined that for you. They could have put any of the cooler Autobots in there, and they used Jazz.
Bottom line is, unless you’re a supergeek fanboy who is absolutely incensed that they dare take liberties with your beloved robots and are determined to hate this no matter what, you’re probably going to enjoy it. Well, you have to have an appreciation for 30-foot-tall shape shifting robots beating the shit out of each other, but if you’re reading this site, then chances are you do so we can make that assumption safely. All I’m saying, is there better be Soundwave and some motherfucking Dinobots in the sequel.
The Moral of the Story: Whether you’re flesh or mechanical, if you’re token and black you’re eventually going to get ripped in half by a giant evil robot.
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
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