Review of Transformers (2007) by Jack G — 27 Jul 2014

I have to admit, over the past few years their has been a glut in the quality of films, which is mainly down to one thing.. making money. Producers have realised that they can make far more money from films by using the simple techniques of CGI instead of costly props, and by toning the age certificate to 12's so that all the family can watch it (Remember Terminator 3?... shocking...).

So when I saw Transformers, ready to be released, I thought "Here we ago, another CGI movie, released as a 12, and just 4 months after it's cinema release". But actually, from point of view, it turned out to be a really great film. Not just great... fantastic!

It's just good fun I guess. Afterall, it holds many of the things that make a great family movie - action, humour, romance, a bit of cheese, and super effects. To get the weaknesses over first however, it should be said the plot feels a bit rushed - that being that the humanity on earth relies upon 'a cube'. We don't get told much about this cube, we only get to see it, so perhaps the writers could have wrote in the story a bit more.

So what role does this cube play? Well it has the power to generate the 'transformers', as we call them, using huge amounts of radiation, hence they are able to mutate into various objects. With this power, the 'evil' side of the Transformers (it should be mentioned at this point that they come from outer space, and have names that I can't pronounce right now!) want to gain control of earth and destroy all the inhabitants.

Luckily, some nice robots live in outer space too. Hooray! Our first saviour is seen as a classic, but run down yello 'Chevvy', which is bought by a young boy as his first car. As the car comes to life, its fitting that they can speak English after 'studying our planet for a long time' (they obviously get bored!) which is just as well because the language they speak when it's subtitled crosses double-dutch with Chinese... no '0's and '1's for these guys!

The effects from start to finish are supreme - i'll admit, these days we do take CGI for granted because we've become de-sensitised to it, due to it's overuse. However, if you just disengage your brain for a couple of hours, you'll realise the effects present are stunningly good, and prove we're living in a time when it's surely possible to just re-create anything via a computer.

Acting wise, theirs nothing special present; i'd be lucky saying they were over-acting on purpose at times, I guess it's just in the nature of the film. Afterall, I have no idea how i'd react if my car came to life and talked to me. I'd most probably make a mess of myself before recording it on my phone...

Their have been a few interesting films released between 2006/07, but this was to me the highlight of the summer. These days we don't often get movies were the money is well spent, but this is a rare case were we have a real Blockbuster!