Much More Than Meets The Eye.

So, last Friday I went and saw it: Transformers. Luckily, Mr. RobotsandAngels gave me a good heads up and let me know that I should make sure I walk into this thing as a 15 year-old kid. That wasn’t really a problem—I think I walk into just about any flick like a 15 year-old kid. So this is what I have to say about this movie. Michael Bay should only ever may this type of flick, because it was good fun. Did you catch that little disclaimer? Realize I didn’t really say it was ‘good’, I said it was ‘good fun’.

First and foremost, this flick did a fantastic job of making you wish your car was somehow, someway your very own Transformer. The Bumblebee scenes were awesome. There was a great and very appropriate allusion to the old fashion VW Bug, and to top it off the Bumblebee/Barricade chase scene was as cool and exciting as any classic car chase I can think of. I guarantee that the new Camaro’s top selling color will undoubtedly be yellow.

I was nervous about the robots. From the previews and production photos I totally thought the bots looked way too techie. Seeing them in motion, they just looked cool. They moved right, they transformed right, and they fought right. I still think they brought way too much tech to their faces and expressions—they were just too complicated—but this was pretty forgivable in the grand scheme of things. Bottom line, the animation and effects rocked the house down.

The stand out feature of the entire flick was the performance of Shia LaBeouf. Dude, where did this kid come from? I mean I’m pretty sure he showed up in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, but other than that—this kid came outta nowhere. And he was awesome. I’d say that just about every other character’s dialog was chee-zee, but Shia on the other hand pulled out all the stops. He as witty, convincing, seriously funny, and most importantly there was this perfect amount of tongue-and- cheekiness about his performance. It was almost like he was winking at the camera, like: “Yeah, I know I’m in a Michael Bay flick, but it’s freaking Transformers!”

So I’ve decided not to critique this thing too much, I guess I’ve sort of decided that I’m just gonna like this movie. I’ll admit all the NSA nerd scenes were useless and confusing—why is some young, Aussie babe floating around the Pentagon anyway, I mean, c’mon! But still I’ll tell you right now, this very well could be the first Michael Bay movie that I’ll ever own on DVD, and if you saw my ridiculously clichéd, snobby collection, you’d know that actually means something.