TRANSFORMERS!!!!!

As we were walking out of the theater after almost two and a half hours that is the new Transformers movie, one of my friends asked me what I thought.

"Well?"

I stood there slightly dazed, and half-whispered "I'm overwhelmed."

And I was. After 2 hours and 23 minutes of nearly non-stop action that was constructed out of a million small, quick edits, I was exhausted. Transformers knocked the wind outta me, and left me needing a moist towelette and a 2 hour nap. Indeed, considering the action sequences and the CGI in general, Transformers may very well have set a new sort of standard, and Michael Bay should be applauded. Words cannot describe the look of this film, and of course the Autobots and Decepticons in particular. Add to that langoring scenes of lush, warm landscapes of rusty orange sunsets, mixed with plenty of extreme close-ups of beautiful, professional teeth (hi, Megan Fox), it's hard to argue with the cinematography either.

As for the story, well, you either accept the mythology as layed out by Optimus Prime in one of the movies few narrative parts, or you don't, and even if you don't, you really ought to be seeing this on the big screen anyways, on account of all the visual mindfuckery I just mentioned.

And you gotta understand, I'm telling you this as a bit of a film snob, since I generally do not like these kinds of big, dumb popcorn action pictures...Most sci-fi films leave me cold, and the action hero genre are typically laughable to me, especially from a dialogue, character development perspective. You see - I believe that there is absolutely no reason why the "big, dumb popcorn action pictures" actually have to be dumb.

Which brings me to my misgivings about the Transformers movie.

Shia LaBeouf plays Sam Witwicky, a weird teenager that is equal parts geek and douchebag. What I mean is, this kid isn't very likeable, especially in the first half of the film, and if you see the movie, you'll know exactly what I mean. One minute he's tongue-tied, the next he's verbally burning somebody, or sweet-talking his way outta trouble with his parents, and all along the way LaBeouf plays him with this caffeinated awkwardness that just didn't work for me, but then, I'm not the 16 year old bundle of teen angst that this character is made for.

Megan Fox plays Michaela Banes, the object of Sam Witwicky's affections. She's beautiful, of course, with a dark family history and the ability to fix automobile engines. When Michaela and Sam are together, there isn't a whole ton of chemistry, and plenty of that is due to the completely cheesy dialogue...Or maybe I've just forgotten how stupid high school romance can be...

Of course, Sam and Michaela aren't the only ones delivering maudlin sentiments and hackneyed one-liners. They're sprinkled liberally everywhere throughout the film, and once again, just because Transformers is big, doesn't mean it had to be dumb. It's plenty dumb. Dumb all over, even when it's coming out of the mouth of John Turturro, who acts the hell outta alot of dumb words.

Which is why, after staggering out the Star Cinema Theaters yesterday afternoon, and thinking about the film on and off ever since, I can only give Transformers a score of 4 out of 5.

Oh, to be honest, this film deserves a resounding 5 out of 5 based on the action and special effects alone, but I gotta remain true to myself, and withhold that fifth star because of all those cheese factors I've mentioned, and a few more I know I've forgotten. Oh, and I'm pretty sure General Motors funded a decent chunk of this movie, so points off for that as well...

For the general population, I say this is MUST SEE entertainment that exceeds the hype, and out-performs the other big dumb action flick I saw this summer, Spiderman 3.

Just remember the moist towelettes and prepare room on yr schedule afterwords for a healthy nap. This film is long, and loud, and mostly lightning quick, and fatigue sets in about halfway through. My friend sitting next to me fell asleep a half hour from the end, and I wasn't really surprised.

93 out of 100

Hotcha! Hank