Welshrogue

Evil alien robots try to take over the world by finding a cube from their home planet. Luckily there are good alien robots who would prefer that it didn’t happen. Caught up in the middle is a teenager with a car that is actually a good alien robot and a girl with stunning eyes and ermm…..

I personally believe that this movie doesn’t even get talked about being made if it wasn’t for that iconic Citroen commercial in the 90s where one of their cars becomes a robot and starts dancing. You can easily see the similarities between the alien robots (both good and bad) and the Citroen!

This is a fun movie, full of explosions, action, and slow mo shots that remind you of every other Michael Bay movie, which generally contain explosions, action and erm slow mo shots. The lead actors are good without being outstanding although it must be said that Megan Fox is a very distinctive and lovely young lady. The alien robots (more fun to say than Transformers which make me think of boxes plugged into the wall) are well done although they almost have too much detail in the end. Its hard to focus on the ‘facial’ expressions of Optimus Prime when you have to first work out where his face actually is. The humour and personalities that the good alien robots exhibit surprised and impressed me, they were generally funny without taking away the menace of giant alien robots.

I do have a couple of ‘issues’ with the movie though. Yes, this is a Michael Bay movie but when you become known for a certain style of shot, when you use it in one movie after displaying it in another it distracts from the movie you are watching. There is a scene when the delightful Ms Fox is getting up from the floor after an explosion that is filmed in slow mo as the camera moves around her. This is identical from a scene with another distinctively eyed beauty (Tea Leoni) in Bad Boys 1 (directed by… wait for it… Michael Bay). If that wasn’t bad enough, there is the shoot out under Hoover Dam between the secretary of defense, and some other people, against a bad alien robot that made Jar Jar Binks sound like Tom Hanks. While the shoot out is happening the camera spins around the action, capturing events from both sides, just as it did in Bad Boys 2 (which was… yeah you know the rest). In their respective movies, the scenes workedwell because one hadn’tbeen seen before and the other was used to good effect. In Transformers, it just reminded you of Bad Boys 1 & 2.

I understand product placement but it makes it hard to focus on a movie when ever single vehicle you see appears to have been made by General Motors. Not only were the good alien robots all GM cars and trucks, but any vehicle that might have been seen in a close up was either a Cadillac or another part of the GM corporation. Its a little too unbelievable but I guess thats how movies get made these days.

I had the same problem when you had the prominent product placement of a Mountain Dew dispenser, a Microsoft X Box being carried down the street for some unknown reason and an aforementioned Cadillac Escalade all become dangerous creatures! I understand that nearly every computer you see in movies these days are Macs because they do look better than PC’s but if movies were reality, owning an iBook would instantly mean your life would become endangered by evil alien robots, spys, or mad killers.

Another ‘if real life was like the movies’ moment. If you are an alien robot called Butterfly, or something nice, you will become a good alien robot, but if your name is something like Skullcrusher, Dreadnaught or Deathbringer, chances are you are going to grow up as a evil alien robot.

As the Animals once sang, Please don’t let me be misunderstood, I liked Transformers a lot, and it had a lot going for it. I loved the way Bumblebee communicated at the start of the movie, even if the old, and I do mean old, car stereo managed to pick up XM Radio (product placement) when he finally tries to talk to the humans. A lot of when the good alien robots are acting like humans is funny and enjoyable. The action scenes while a little hectic are well done, and Josh Duhamel is almost convincing as a soldier if it wasn’t for watching Las Vegas every week.

I know my 2 1/2 yr old will love it as it has both a Camaro and robots, two of his favourite things and I did enjoy it, its just not as good as I hoped it would be!