Transformers? More Like Star Kid

For the past few months I’ve been avoiding Transformers, it was only until my post yesterday that I realized I needed to see it pronto. I’ll be honest, I’m pretty critical of Michael Bay and his films. Even though I have an unfavorable bias against his work, I think being a fan of the old Transformers cartoon offsets it more than enough to compensate. As I was watching the movie I felt like I was watching something more along the lines of Star Kid. The two really aren’t so different besides the most obvious factor; the Transformers series is widely known and definitely more interesting. But it’s where the two are alike that makes me anemic.

Before I dive into the film’s problems I should probably ease into the story a bit. The Transformers universe follows two groups, the Autobots (aka the good guys) and the Decepticons (aka the bad guys). These two factions are both fighting for something known as the All Spark — a device that would allow one group to either save the universe or destroy it.

The present day is somewhat more…nontraditional. It begins with a young high school kid named Sam (Shia LaBouf) who’s shopping for his first vehicle. He finally decides on buying a Transformer (who is aptly disguised as 1977 Chevy Camaro) and tries to win over a girl at school who is typically referred to as “stuck up.” Meanwhile, an army base is attacked by the Decepticons to obtain the whereabouts of Megatron, their leader. Another integral part of the story is Sam’s great-great-granddad, Captain Archibald Witwicky. He’s an explorer who first discovers Megatron’s body and mistakenly turns on his inertial navigation system (leaving a mark on his glasses that imprints the All Spark’s location).

Maybe relating Transformers to Star Kid is a bit critical but, for starters, both have an annoying love narrative going on when all you want to do is see some robots pound each other. I questioned Michael Bay’s ability to create an effective action movie after seeing Armageddon (which he shamelessly promotes during the film) but Transformers makes you wonder if he knows how to capture real emotion. In the land of Transformers only two emotions exist, happy and angry. How he’s able to group people into two categories is beyond me. This inability to give his characters a soul severely harms the love story that occurs between Sam and Mikaela (Megan Fox). He introduces all of these conflicts, including a dispute over Mikaela’s GTA fueled father, but fails to properly end any of them.

Another example of Bay wandering around aimlessly is a subplot about a group of hackers that are trying to figure out the Decepticons’ hacking frequency. Bay indulges us at first by introducing several promising characters, including a Secretary of Defense played by Jon Voight. Then quickly changes his mind, deciding none of that is critical to the story anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I was cheering when he gave up on it. Maggie (Rachael Taylor) is a hacker who seems to magically guess exactly what the Transformers are before she’s even seen one. For something so advanced she seems to have a pretty good understanding of how they work already. Then there’s Glen, the worldest smartest hacker, who can make anything anywhere no matter what. I’m perfectly ok with stretching reality in movies but breaking it so inconsiderately is beyond troublesome.

Before seeing Transformers I was told that, if nothing else, I would be able to appreciate it from a technical standpoint. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t impressive at times and even cool looking. But Bay’s directorial touch also mess with the best part of the film. He resorts to using slow motion sequences constantly in order to showcase the best parts of a particular battle. It manages to disrupt the octane level and take it down a notch.

I liked it more than I thought I would, but I still can’t say I really enjoyed myself. There are plenty of other problems I could have touched on, including one of the worst anti-Bush administration themes I’ve seen in a film, a story that feels more like an advertisement for eBay, and horrible dialog. The only upside is that Bay, despite all these slip ups, is improving as a director. That isn’t saying much.