Review of Transformers (2007) by James W — 29 Jun 2014

Seven years since this was released and we've had a decent sequel and an even better third movie, yet looking back at the first Transformers not a lot has changed and that's for the better. Bay is sticking to his big scale action and use of jaw dropping visuals, ignoring the critics and pretty much saying kiss my ass and good for him, Bay has fun and so do I with his movies.

The special effects created by Industrial Light And Magic are undeniably some of the best I've ever seen, no one can say they suck because they are genuinely groundbreaking, watching these vehicles turn into enormous talking robots sounds cheesy in words but seeing it unfold is breathtaking. When Sam Witwicky unknowingly buys a car that is actually the Transformer Bumblebee, he becomes entangled in a plot that could destroy life on Earth, but when Optimus Prime and fellow Autobots arrive on Earth looking for The Cube, they realise Sam has the key to it's location.

Shia Labeouf is very funny as this rather dumb teenage character, he does tend to sulk and moan a lot but he's still likeable, however during the city based finale he springs into instant action guy managing to avoid robot destruction that even for me who ignores logic I found this part unrealistic yet entertaining. Michael Bay's camerawork is a dream, technically sound and huge in scale Transformers is larger than life science fiction storytelling. The action scenes are a marvel, the scorpion desert attack is my favourite, the moment the alien leaps out the sand whilst army guys run in terror in slow motion my jaw dropped and from then on it's literally an onslaught of gunfire and the odd bit of humour thrown in. You could argue that the story could've solely been focused on the military characters, as they would be more believable in conflict instead of Sam Witwicky but Bay settled on Sam and that's where the human side of the story comes in. Thrown into this monster of a movie is the stunning Megan Fox who plays Sam's love interest Mikaela, a beauty with brains who can fix up cars, Fox' first big movie role and she's brilliant, she doesn't fall beneath the scale and brings humour and grit to her character. Transformers is a must watch movie, turn up the speakers, grab a drink and prepare to be immersed.