..Movie Reviews..

Let's dispense with the fact that it's a movie based on a toy. So what? We've had a movie based on a theme park ride and we all know how that one turned out.

Let's also dispense with the expectation that this should be any kind of a serious movie. It's about cars (and other stuff) that transform into robots. We're in 9-year-old boy territory here, not Citizen Kane. With that mindset, this movie was absolutely amazing. Best blow-stuff-up popcorn summer movie I've seen in a long time. I was actually giddy when Bumblebee (the yellow Camaro, for those asleep) and Barricade (Mustang cop car--as I told my Dad, GM got the product placement so Ford is the bad guy, literally) charged at each other as cars and then dove into the air while transforming and smashed together in one big robot smack down.

Let's count the ways this movie rocked:

• I'm not one for gushing about CGI, but this was pretty cool. From the trailers I thought it looked kind of lame, but on screen it rocked. At times things were moving too fast to tell what was happening, but that was the intent and I quickly got over it.
  
• Obeying the laws of physics: A car traveling at 60 mph that transforms into a robot is still going 60 mph and when it hits the pavement that road will require some resurfacing.
  
• The big long product placement for the U.S. military. Since 9/11 and the prominence of the U.S. military might from Afghanistan to Iraq I have not seen a movie that adequately portrays the current military muscle of the United States. We're talking F-22s, laser-guided weapons and gun ships. Did you see that gun ship raining hell down on a Decepticon robot with U.S. troops within spitting distance and not getting hit? Crazy. Too bad we're in all these complex conflicts where you can't just blow everything up.
  
• Did you see the complete lack of a love story? Yeah, there was a hot girl. And an awkward guy. And there were some sparks and some moments, but we never had to watch any schmaltz.
  
• Subtle, self-deprecating nods to the original cartoon series.
  
• Explosions.
  
• Fast cars.
  
• Giant robots fighting.

What more do you need?

OK, so a coherent plot would have been nice. When the explosions cleared and I calmed down a little I realized how stupid the movie was. What was that whole Sector 7 government conspiracy thing? Too Terminator meets Independence Day. And the whole hacker subplot? Who were those people? If they'd given enough screen time to Andrew from Buffy (Tom Lenk) I'd be cool with it, but they didn't. And don't even ask me what that cube thing was all about. Great concept with some incredible set up, but the plot just started to get goofy as the movie went on. Thankfully stuff started exploding, so you didn't notice too much.

But it's a Michael Bay movie, what do you expect? For a fun summer action movie it just plain rocked. Enjoy the ride and don't ask questions.