Transformers – Review

This was the best action movie I’ve seen in a long time.

I was not a fan of the Transformers TV series (or comic book, or toy line), so I can’t tell you if the movie is faithful to the franchise. From what I understand, the mythos is pretty confused and has changed many times, so the movie probably isn’t far off from whatever Transformers fans are expecting.

In the first few minutes of the Transformers movie (I’m not revealing anything that’s not in the trailer) an evil Decepticon attacks an American airbase in Qatar. It shows up looking like a helicopter, but then it does that crazy transforming thing and becomes a giant robot, which immediately starts blowing stuff up.

Handled poorly, a scene like that could have been pretty dumb, but the movie treats it perfectly. The transformer is big and fast and loud, a dangerously advanced war machine dealing out overwhelming violence in order to accomplish its mission.

In a way, the filmmakers faced the same challenges as the makers of the 1998 American version of Godzilla: Take a silly but familiar concept and make it real. Godzilla accomplished that for the first 20 minutes and then squandered its credibility with ridiculous action scenes and unnecessary subplots.

Transformers never falters that way. The robots could have been too brightly colored and toy-like, or they could have been too gritty and violent, but the filmmakers managed a fine balancing act. The Autobots may have quirky personalities and disguise themselves as General Motors products, but they are filmed so magnificently and their battles are so incredible that they’ve earned the right to be a little ridiculous. When Optimus Prime talks about “the right of all sentient life to be free,” my first reaction was not to think it was corny, but to be thankful his personal philosophy kept him on our side.

I was pleasantly surprised that this movie was made with a good grasp of modern warfare. I’m sure the details are wrong, but the concepts seem right. In Godzilla the good guys tried to kill the giant monster by shooting Sidewinder anti-aircraft missiles at it. Nobody makes a mistake like that in this movie.

For an even worse example of bad military sci-fi, there’s 1997’s Starship Troopers. Its soldiers postured endlessly about being brave and tough and facing death, no doubt because they had to—they’d been sent on a mission to attack their insectoid enemy without weapons powerful enough to kill a bug, armor tough enough to stop a bug, or any vehicles for escaping from the bugs. Also, they had to defend a bunker that looked like an old frontier fortress, with no firing slits and no roof to prevent the enemy from climbing in. They were supposed to be science fiction soldiers of the future, but any modern army could have swept them from the battlefield with little effort…or just ignored them.

The soldiers in Transformers, on the other hand, are fighting according to something resembling modern combined arms doctrine. They may be desperate and caught up in a battle that they weren’t prepared for, but when they encounter a superior enemy force, they do the right thing and call for air support.

Most of the characters feel like part of the larger mythos of the series, but the movie thankfully doesn’t waste much time filling in the details. You find out everything about the characters that you need to know, and the rest is story.

Acting in a big-budget action flick is often a thankless task, but there are a few notable performances. John Turturro and Jon Voight turn in great performances as Agent Simmons and Defense Secretary John Keller, but that’s no surprise. Josh Duhamel plays Sergeant Lennox with a captivating cool intensity—he may be this generation’s Michael Biehn.

Shia LaBeouf resists playing Sam Witwicky, the teenage boy at the heart of it all, as an outrageous mega-nerd and settles for a more rounded portrayal of a teenager who is often uncool but sometimes also brave. Kevin Dunn and Julie White are hilarious as his parents.

The leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime, is voiced by Peter Cullen, who has been the voice of Optimus Prime since the 1980’s. He’s also the voice of Eeyore in all the recent Pooh movies and he’s been in about 100 other things. He was the voice of K.A.R.R. (if you don’t know, I’m not explaining), and I think he did the voice of the alien in the original Predator.

This is an exhilarating movie about a fun idea. I’ll be seeing it again real soon.