The Energon Pub

[Spoon]

Soooo yeah, I saw this movie. So where do I begin?
Well, lets just get out of the way that I started watching this movie with an openmind and zero expectations. This way there is nothing to disappointed about. I must also add that I watched this movie at home. Part of the left side and the bottom of the screen was cut off and the quality will win no awards. Alas after a minute I was completely used to this and it didn't impaired my watching experience much at all. I could even say that this allowed me to watch the movie for what it is.

Let's do the conclusion first mkay? That way you can just skip the part below if you don't feel like reading
In one word: Medicore.
Just like what is about to follow, I can't write reviews for jack crap

In more words:
Well first off, the acting was overal pretty good. The dialouge was overal enjoyable though near the end of the movie it was starting to get slightly on my nerves. I mean, what the frak is up with everybody screaming "NO..Nononononono"? Did the script writers ran out of ideas? That sector 7 leader person sucked though. He was a joke, in a none funny kind of way.

Moving on to what Should have been the most prominent and important part of the whole movie: The alien robots. Oh wait, they are called Transformers. I almost forgot about that detail after watching this movie.
The designs... suck. No really, I hate em. It's like they took a piece of sh!t then put metal parts on them at random and used vomit to color them. Everyone of them look like a metal mess. But hey, I guess otherwise the viewers wouldn't get the idea that they are "alien robots from outerspace" right? Yeah, I guess that's also why you should let them make all those clicking, roaring and other mentally retarded noises. It annoyed the living daylight out of me.
The autobot voices are all well done. I liked it. Cullen was still the win and awesome he always was. Too bad his voice had to come from that hideous face. Serious, what was wrong with the good old face plate?

Prime: The design is one of the less retarded looking ones. Also, prime without a trailer in truck mode just doesn't cut it for me. He just looks so damn naked.
As for personality, this movie prime doesn't hold a candle to the G1 prime. He is no longer the strong father like leader. Instead he is "one of the boys", constantly making should be witty comments. I mean, he was actually getting annoyed because sam couldn't find the glasses fast enough...
Fail.
The only thing that salvaged him was Cullen's voice.

Rachet: The medic that didn't do anything worth noting, aside from tripping over an electricity wire. Yeeaaah...

Ironhide: Big guns, he used them. Too bad his overal design is just as damn messy as the rest of them. I kinda liked him though.

Rubberducky: Well... what can we really say? I kinda liked what they did with his personality but well... it was short lived (arr arr I be making a pun). Like all transformers. Should have given him more screen time instead of bringing the focus on the awesomeness that is the american army (sigh)
He was part of the single most awesome part of the movie though "Do you want a piece of me?!" "No, I want TWO pieces of you." Yoink.

Bumblebee: I'll be one of the first to admit that I absolutly hated the G1 version of him. He was mostly small, useless and a device to bring more focus on humans. The last part still holds true for this movie variation. But overal I liked this Bumble more. Though his face is just so damn hideous.

Now the Decepticons... I can keep this short because well... there is nothing too tell.
Frosty: His voice was kinda cool, His design is not. He died on a retarded way and that's all I really have to say about it.

Monkeyscream: Oh come on... You look like absolute crap. Sure you had like a second of glory by taking down those F-22's but that's all. Like all bayformers you didn't had any personality so well... yeah... that is all, dismissed.

Claw: "BARF I DIED"
/care

Tank: "BARF I DIED"
/care

'Frenzy': Not funny just annoying.

Barricade: "BARF I DIED ONLY THEY DIDN'T EVEN GAVE MY NOT SO HERIOC DEAD ANY SCREEN TIME"


Blackout: Sure, his face was just as generic and ugly as the rest of them but he took part in the most awesome scene of the movie. The attack on the airbase in Qatar. Alas I have to admit that the only reason I found this scene to be awesome is that in my mind I kept screaming "Omigod this would be Such an awesome scene if you replace that alien robot with a Battletech Madcat and make that American airbase a Innersphere airbase". But then he got killed by humans "Barf my inards!". Yeah, a crotch shot from below is apparantly deadly for transformers these days. I guess that's what they are asking for with all their internal organs displaying like that éh?

Scorpy: "Barf humans killed me! How awesome the american army is!" /sigh

I guess that sums it up for the bayformer part.
Now for the story/plot.
Wait...
I guess I must have missed it. Did it had any?
The whole flow of the movie felt like it was made of no coherent scenes that all led to 'xplosions. This is also why this movie just failed to draw me in. It just didn't felt like it was a story. Just random scenes with shooting and some nerds babbling about some signal eventually followed by scrapheaps battling it out in cgi. Only until Barricade started talking and got his seconds of glory was I starting to get slighly excited. "Perhaps... this movie could start to get good after all!" was what I was thinking at that point. Alas then it just all faded again. Shaky cam was used, I started screaming at the screen "Keep it steady you dumbnut! I have no idea what's going on right now! Oh what... that's it? Barricade just died? oh screw it..." and the movie fell back into random scenes with forced humour again.

So yeah. That 'sums' it up for me. It didn't felt like Transformers at all to me. Just a general Meh.

Edit: Oh and I forgot to mention. Why the f*** did random objects just started transforming and shooting stuff for no reason because "THE CUBE™" passed by? That was an other unneeded scene that added nothing to the already non existing story. So what, those little super aggresive bots hellbend on destroying humanity (oh yeah, that was totally what transformers was all about!) just vanish after getting 2 seconds of screen time?
And random scenes like this just make up the whole movie. Things that add nothing to the whole.

[roy_flagg00]

to start, the thing i was most worried about was bay not giving the robots personalities, and of course, that is exactly what happened. the scene outside of spikes bedroom should have been just jazz and bumblebee, not all of the autobots acting like the three stooges. maybe then we would have given a crap about jazz dying.

The decepticons had no character development. they showed up, shot some things, and died.

It did not make sense that the cube made only mallicious transformers.

Too many humans.

Visualy confusing robot designs and transformations.
I'll bet that very few people can describe exacly how most of the characters transform through words only.

I wanted to see big robots fighting, but not from 2 feet away! the did this with the lightsabre duels in the last starwars movie, and you couldn't see what the heck was going on!

finally, on a personal note, it takes a lot of balls to call the original series/movie "one big advertisement for stupid kid toys" and then make the movie one big advertisement for eveything.
If there was no original source material to judge this against, I would say it was a great movie, but there is, and so I cannot say that this movie is good.
You can't crap all over the source material and then take bits and pieces of it to use in your movie to say that you are trying to "stay true" to that same material.
BTW, the bits and pieces bay used were questionable at best.

As a non fan, it was an okay movie, but as a fan, it really rubbed me the wrong way.

BTW, for that whole scene in the begining with the VW bug, I hope Bay gets the ass cancer.

[Spoon]

to start, the thing i was most worried about was bay not giving the robots personalities, and of course, that is exactly what happened. the scene outside of spikes bedroom should have been just jazz and bumblebee, not all of the autobots acting like the three stooges. maybe then we would have given a crap about jazz dying.

The decepticons had no character development. they showed up, shot some things, and died.

It did not make sense that the cube made only mallicious transformers.

Too many humans.

Visualy confusing robot designs and transformations.
I'll bet that very few people can describe exacly how most of the characters transform through words only.

I wanted to see big robots fighting, but not from 2 feet away! the did this with the lightsabre duels in the last starwars movie, and you couldn't see what the heck was going on!

finally, on a personal note, it takes a lot of balls to call the original series/movie "one big advertisement for stupid kid toys" and then make the movie one big advertisement for eveything.
If there was no original source material to judge this against, I would say it was a great movie, but there is, and so I cannot say that this movie is good.
You can't crap all over the source material and then take bits and pieces of it to use in your movie to say that you are trying to "stay true" to that same material.
BTW, the bits and pieces bay used were questionable at best.

As a non fan, it was an okay movie, but as a fan, it really rubbed me the wrong way.

BTW, for that whole scene in the begining with the VW bug, I hope Bay gets the ass cancer.

lol quoted for truth. Especially the bolded part

[XeroSyphon]

So much source material, so many Transformers universes. Who knew they would pull elements from many of this sources, and create yet another, of many, alternate universes for the franchise?

[Riotflea]

So much source material, so many Transformers universes. Who knew they would pull elements from many of this sources, and create yet another, of many, alternate universes for the franchise?

I like milk.
I like orange juice.
But never in the same cup.

Hey, anyone else think it was not very credible that his dad's getting him his first car, but buys it without the dealership even having the title to it?
So, he like gave him $4000 and drove off the lot with a possibly stolen car?!?

[XeroSyphon]

Milk and orange juice aren't cartoons and comics.

[Autobobby1]

Soooo yeah, I saw this movie. So where do I begin?
Well, lets just get out of the way that I started watching this movie with an openmind and zero expectations. This way there is nothing to disappointed about. I must also add that I watched this movie at home. Part of the left side and the bottom of the screen was cut off and the quality will win no awards. Alas after a minute I was completely used to this and it didn't impaired my watching experience much at all. I could even say that this allowed me to watch the movie for what it is.

Let's do the conclusion first mkay? That way you can just skip the part below if you don't feel like reading
In one word: Medicore.
Just like what is about to follow, I can't write reviews for jack crap

In more words:
Well first off, the acting was overal pretty good. The dialouge was overal enjoyable though near the end of the movie it was starting to get slightly on my nerves. I mean, what the frak is up with everybody screaming "NO..Nononononono"? Did the script writers ran out of ideas? That sector 7 leader person sucked though. He was a joke, in a none funny kind of way.

Moving on to what Should have been the most prominent and important part of the whole movie: The alien robots. Oh wait, they are called Transformers. I almost forgot about that detail after watching this movie.
The designs... suck. No really, I hate em. It's like they took a piece of sh!t then put metal parts on them at random and used vomit to color them. Everyone of them look like a metal mess. But hey, I guess otherwise the viewers wouldn't get the idea that they are "alien robots from outerspace" right? Yeah, I guess that's also why you should let them make all those clicking, roaring and other mentally retarded noises. It annoyed the living daylight out of me.
The autobot voices are all well done. I liked it. Cullen was still the win and awesome he always was. Too bad his voice had to come from that hideous face. Serious, what was wrong with the good old face plate?

Prime: The design is one of the less retarded looking ones. Also, prime without a trailer in truck mode just doesn't cut it for me. He just looks so damn naked.
As for personality, this movie prime doesn't hold a candle to the G1 prime. He is no longer the strong father like leader. Instead he is "one of the boys", constantly making should be witty comments. I mean, he was actually getting annoyed because sam couldn't find the glasses fast enough...
Fail.
The only thing that salvaged him was Cullen's voice.

Rachet: The medic that didn't do anything worth noting, aside from tripping over an electricity wire. Yeeaaah...

Ironhide: Big guns, he used them. Too bad his overal design is just as damn messy as the rest of them. I kinda liked him though.

Rubberducky: Well... what can we really say? I kinda liked what they did with his personality but well... it was short lived (arr arr I be making a pun). Like all transformers. Should have given him more screen time instead of bringing the focus on the awesomeness that is the american army (sigh)
He was part of the single most awesome part of the movie though "Do you want a piece of me?!" "No, I want TWO pieces of you." Yoink.

Bumblebee: I'll be one of the first to admit that I absolutly hated the G1 version of him. He was mostly small, useless and a device to bring more focus on humans. The last part still holds true for this movie variation. But overal I liked this Bumble more. Though his face is just so damn hideous.

Now the Decepticons... I can keep this short because well... there is nothing too tell.
Frosty: His voice was kinda cool, His design is not. He died on a retarded way and that's all I really have to say about it.

Monkeyscream: Oh come on... You look like absolute crap. Sure you had like a second of glory by taking down those F-22's but that's all. Like all bayformers you didn't had any personality so well... yeah... that is all, dismissed.

Claw: "BARF I DIED"
/care

Tank: "BARF I DIED"
/care

'Frenzy': Not funny just annoying.

Barricade: "BARF I DIED ONLY THEY DIDN'T EVEN GAVE MY NOT SO HERIOC DEAD ANY SCREEN TIME"


Blackout: Sure, his face was just as generic and ugly as the rest of them but he took part in the most awesome scene of the movie. The attack on the airbase in Qatar. Alas I have to admit that the only reason I found this scene to be awesome is that in my mind I kept screaming "Omigod this would be Such an awesome scene if you replace that alien robot with a Battletech Madcat and make that American airbase a Innersphere airbase". But then he got killed by humans "Barf my inards!". Yeah, a crotch shot from below is apparantly deadly for transformers these days. I guess that's what they are asking for with all their internal organs displaying like that éh?

Scorpy: "Barf humans killed me! How awesome the american army is!" /sigh

I guess that sums it up for the bayformer part.
Now for the story/plot.
Wait...
I guess I must have missed it. Did it had any?
The whole flow of the movie felt like it was made of no coherent scenes that all led to 'xplosions. This is also why this movie just failed to draw me in. It just didn't felt like it was a story. Just random scenes with shooting and some nerds babbling about some signal eventually followed by scrapheaps battling it out in cgi. Only until Barricade started talking and got his seconds of glory was I starting to get slighly excited. "Perhaps... this movie could start to get good after all!" was what I was thinking at that point. Alas then it just all faded again. Shaky cam was used, I started screaming at the screen "Keep it steady you dumbnut! I have no idea what's going on right now! Oh what... that's it? Barricade just died? oh screw it..." and the movie fell back into random scenes with forced humour again.

So yeah. That 'sums' it up for me. It didn't felt like Transformers at all to me. Just a general Meh.

Edit: Oh and I forgot to mention. Why the f*** did random objects just started transforming and shooting stuff for no reason because "THE CUBE™" passed by? That was an other unneeded scene that added nothing to the already non existing story. So what, those little super aggresive bots hellbend on destroying humanity (oh yeah, that was totally what transformers was all about!) just vanish after getting 2 seconds of screen time?
And random scenes like this just make up the whole movie. Things that add nothing to the whole.

Did you and I see the same movie? 'Cuz the one I saw was WAAAYY better than your pirated (yaarrr) version. See the bold.

Honestly, it sounds to me like you expected to see a perfected G1 in live action film form. And the designs were better than you gave credit for. Would it please you if they used G1 IDW designs? Did you want it to be another crappy G1 ripoff?

[Riotflea]

Soooo yeah, I saw this movie. So where do I begin?
Well, lets just get out of the way that I started watching this movie with an openmind and zero expectations. This way there is nothing to disappointed about. I must also add that I watched this movie at home. Part of the left side and the bottom of the screen was cut off and the quality will win no awards. Alas after a minute I was completely used to this and it didn't impaired my watching experience much at all. I could even say that this allowed me to watch the movie for what it is.

Let's do the conclusion first mkay? That way you can just skip the part below if you don't feel like reading
In one word: Medicore.
Just like what is about to follow, I can't write reviews for jack crap

In more words:
Well first off, the acting was overal pretty good. The dialouge was overal enjoyable though near the end of the movie it was starting to get slightly on my nerves. I mean, what the frak is up with everybody screaming "NO..Nononononono"? Did the script writers ran out of ideas? That sector 7 leader person sucked though. He was a joke, in a none funny kind of way.

Moving on to what Should have been the most prominent and important part of the whole movie: The alien robots. Oh wait, they are called Transformers. I almost forgot about that detail after watching this movie.
The designs... suck. No really, I hate em. It's like they took a piece of sh!t then put metal parts on them at random and used vomit to color them. Everyone of them look like a metal mess. But hey, I guess otherwise the viewers wouldn't get the idea that they are "alien robots from outerspace" right? Yeah, I guess that's also why you should let them make all those clicking, roaring and other mentally retarded noises. It annoyed the living daylight out of me.
The autobot voices are all well done. I liked it. Cullen was still the win and awesome he always was. Too bad his voice had to come from that hideous face. Serious, what was wrong with the good old face plate?

Prime: The design is one of the less retarded looking ones. Also, prime without a trailer in truck mode just doesn't cut it for me. He just looks so damn naked.
As for personality, this movie prime doesn't hold a candle to the G1 prime. He is no longer the strong father like leader. Instead he is "one of the boys", constantly making should be witty comments. I mean, he was actually getting annoyed because sam couldn't find the glasses fast enough...
Fail.
The only thing that salvaged him was Cullen's voice.

Rachet: The medic that didn't do anything worth noting, aside from tripping over an electricity wire. Yeeaaah...

Ironhide: Big guns, he used them. Too bad his overal design is just as damn messy as the rest of them. I kinda liked him though.

Rubberducky: Well... what can we really say? I kinda liked what they did with his personality but well... it was short lived (arr arr I be making a pun). Like all transformers. Should have given him more screen time instead of bringing the focus on the awesomeness that is the american army (sigh)
He was part of the single most awesome part of the movie though "Do you want a piece of me?!" "No, I want TWO pieces of you." Yoink.

Bumblebee: I'll be one of the first to admit that I absolutly hated the G1 version of him. He was mostly small, useless and a device to bring more focus on humans. The last part still holds true for this movie variation. But overal I liked this Bumble more. Though his face is just so damn hideous.

Now the Decepticons... I can keep this short because well... there is nothing too tell.
Frosty: His voice was kinda cool, His design is not. He died on a retarded way and that's all I really have to say about it.

Monkeyscream: Oh come on... You look like absolute crap. Sure you had like a second of glory by taking down those F-22's but that's all. Like all bayformers you didn't had any personality so well... yeah... that is all, dismissed.

Claw: "BARF I DIED"
/care

Tank: "BARF I DIED"
/care

'Frenzy': Not funny just annoying.

Barricade: "BARF I DIED ONLY THEY DIDN'T EVEN GAVE MY NOT SO HERIOC DEAD ANY SCREEN TIME"


Blackout: Sure, his face was just as generic and ugly as the rest of them but he took part in the most awesome scene of the movie. The attack on the airbase in Qatar. Alas I have to admit that the only reason I found this scene to be awesome is that in my mind I kept screaming "Omigod this would be Such an awesome scene if you replace that alien robot with a Battletech Madcat and make that American airbase a Innersphere airbase". But then he got killed by humans "Barf my inards!". Yeah, a crotch shot from below is apparantly deadly for transformers these days. I guess that's what they are asking for with all their internal organs displaying like that éh?

Scorpy: "Barf humans killed me! How awesome the american army is!" /sigh

I guess that sums it up for the bayformer part.
Now for the story/plot.
Wait...
I guess I must have missed it. Did it had any?
The whole flow of the movie felt like it was made of no coherent scenes that all led to 'xplosions. This is also why this movie just failed to draw me in. It just didn't felt like it was a story. Just random scenes with shooting and some nerds babbling about some signal eventually followed by scrapheaps battling it out in cgi. Only until Barricade started talking and got his seconds of glory was I starting to get slighly excited. "Perhaps... this movie could start to get good after all!" was what I was thinking at that point. Alas then it just all faded again. Shaky cam was used, I started screaming at the screen "Keep it steady you dumbnut! I have no idea what's going on right now! Oh what... that's it? Barricade just died? oh screw it..." and the movie fell back into random scenes with forced humour again.

So yeah. That 'sums' it up for me. It didn't felt like Transformers at all to me. Just a general Meh.

Edit: Oh and I forgot to mention. Why the f*** did random objects just started transforming and shooting stuff for no reason because "THE CUBE™" passed by? That was an other unneeded scene that added nothing to the already non existing story. So what, those little super aggresive bots hellbend on destroying humanity (oh yeah, that was totally what transformers was all about!) just vanish after getting 2 seconds of screen time?
And random scenes like this just make up the whole movie. Things that add nothing to the whole.

Did you and I see the same movie? 'Cuz the one I saw was WAAAYY better than your pirated (yaarrr) version. See the bold.

Honestly, it sounds to me like you expected to see a perfected G1 in live action film form. And the designs were better than you gave credit for. Would it please you if they used G1 IDW designs? Did you want it to be another crappy G1 ripoff?

Why aren't we allowed to simply want a cool hybrid instead of, as you put it, another crappy G1 ripoff?

Despite strong ticket sales, there was an immense amount of potential for true awesomeness here.

As for his appraisal of the movie, alot of his points are not cries for G1, but avoidance of "cheap" movie cliche's.

[Spoon]

Did you and I see the same movie? 'Cuz the one I saw was WAAAYY better than your pirated (yaarrr) version. See the bold.

Honestly, it sounds to me like you expected to see a perfected G1 in live action film form. And the designs were better than you gave credit for. Would it please you if they used G1 IDW designs? Did you want it to be another crappy G1 ripoff?

We are going in circles here. Endless repeating circles. I tell you why I didn't liked the movie, you tell me then I wanted to see a remake of G1. I tell you why this isn't the case. You fail to understand why not everybody shares your opinion about this movie and write me off as a whining fanboy. Repeat. (applies to everyone, not just you personally autobobo)

I'm not even going to bother anymore. It's futile. You all told me to come back and give my opinion After I saw the movie. So I did. No it sucked, no I didn't liked it. That's it. Repeating your opinion time after time won't change mine.

[Versa]

delete. posted below.

[NOBODY LOVES WHEELIE]

I could give a long ass review, but every post before me has said it already

Awesome!

[doserDdosiest]

I just saw the movie and I would like to say it was a good Michael Bay movie.I tried to connect myself to the transformers but instead connected myself to Tyrese-"Bring the rain baby!" They should've called this movie The Army Rangers and The attack of them transfigure thingamajiggies.This was nice advertisement for the Army.Join them now so you can laser target giant ugly transforming sentient beings because we have the right to blow them up for being clumsy targets.Man, how cool were them Rangers...

[decepticon4life]

almost all of my likes and gripes have been voiced already so here are my ratings:

i wasn't expecting much and was still dissappointed

if u are a tf fan: 6

if u are a casual movie go'er and like bucketfulls of action with poor plot and character development: 9

i see why bay insisted on the "realistic" robot designs, so they could cut corners(probably to pay the actor's and spielberg's salaries) in the fight scenes with metallic meshes and shaky cameras 4 feet away from the action.

summary: minus the good acters, i think the sci-fi channel could have made a comparable movie.

[Transtopias Rodimus Prime]

I'll start with P&C first, then elaborate if need be.

Pros:

Acting: Top notch. Funny, touching, over the top (which is a good thing), and human. (Even from the robots themselves. Which is a major selling point.)

Visuals: Wow. The TFs were so realistic, it was insane. Trying to wrap my brain around it was just...I couldn't do it.

Characters:

Barricade: Freaky lookin' fella, with a hell of an attitude. One of the best new characters to come along. Made me love his figure version even more.

Blackout: ...TOTAL BAD ASS. (You don't f*ck with this guy and make it out unscathed. He simply pwns.)

Bonecrusher: Friggin' insane and loves every moment of it. You can't not love him either, he was one of the greats.

Brawl/Devastator: Just one massive machine of death. He didn't give a sh*t and that was what made him cool.

Bumblebee: The most human of the Autobots (with Prime a very, very close second.) Gentle as a summer breeze, yet deadly and accurate at a moment's notice. Great sense of humor (loved to f*ck with Sam...a lot.)

Frenzy: I don't care what anyone thinks, and they can complain about it all they want, but his selling point for me was....how adorable he was. He was cute as a button and equally deadly. That's partly what made him work, he was cute enough to get your attention, and that's all he needed to get the job done.

Ironhide: Pissy, pissy, pissy. Got the "old man" routine down just fine. His love for his weapons was a nice touch, and his initial interaction with the humans was nothing short of hilarious.

Jazz: He was a chuckleworthy character. "'Sup lil' bitches?" had me rollin'.

Lennox: An excellent portrayal. Human and knows it, but willing to stand up like he too, was made of metal. Strong, confident and with a sense of humor to boot.

Megatron: While his screen time was short, he DOMINATED the final act. He was absolutely incredible. Nothing short of WOW. He was humorous, violent, and pure evil. He just flat out worked.

Mikaela: To borrow a cheesy line from the film, there truly was more than meets the eye to this girl. She's not only beautiful, but intelligent, and she can kick some ass.

Prime: Stern, a little pushy, but kind (very), and even sweet. (His interaction with the kids was what got me misty eyed.)

Ratchet: Just what I thought he'd be...a no nonsense, but gentle country doctor. The kind we all want taking care of us.

Sam: Oh what Spike wishes he could've been. Spike was never good enough to even be the sh*t on Sam's shoes. Genuine, awkward, tough as nails, and a true hero.

Sam's parents: ...I so want to hang out with his family. His dad was one funny sonuvabitch, and his mom was just hardcore cool. "You're cheap, you know that?" "You hurt my dog, and I'll kick your ass!"

Scorponok: Creepy bastard, but he lived up to his hype and then some. So glad I bought his figure now...

Starscream: The same old, sneaky bastard he's always been. Do a little damage, run from the fight. Physically and personality wise, captured perfectly.

Dialog: While some may consider it childish or hollow or exaggerated, I found it to be spot on perfect for the material. Excellent one liners, memorable quotes, and all handled expertly and deftly by each of the actors.

Running Time: PERFECT. It wasn't too long, wasn't too short, and had enough oomph to drive it (and at 70 MPH no less) the entire time. Not once did I find myself bored or wishing for an exit. I just became more and more engrossed in it.

----------------------------------

Cons:

Character usage:

All of the TransFormers were underused. In fact, the entire cast (humans included) was underused. There was so much they could've done with the Sam/Mikaela issue and milked even more comedy out of it.

Ratchet got shafted, but none of them got shafted like Barricade, Brawl, and Bonecrusher. (Brawl was the biggest victim of this terrible faux pas) Hell, does anyone even know what the hell happened to Barricade? He just...disappeared!

Loose ends: As stated with Barricade, there were too many holes left open (which is good in a way, SEQUEL!) but the government cover up at the end was just too far out there. I mean, how the hell do you cover up that many humans dying, and the fact that 15-35 foot tall machines were smashing the sh*t out of themselves and the downtown of a major city? That's got to be one hell of a spin doctor. He's well worth his weight in gold if he can pull that one off. Dumping their bodies in the ocean? Whoopity friggin' doo. Starscream survived for sure, so what's to stop him from diving into the ocean, retrieving the parts, and rebuilding the army? Seriously...

Cut scenes: After the movie was over, all I could think of...right off the bat was "Wow. That friggin' rocked, but WTF?!" (NOTE: I might be incorrect in some of these, but I do know some were missing, and I watched intently)

1.) Glen at the computer "The killer robot is very annoying!" why would you cut that?!

2.) Lennox seeing and holding his baby for the first time, again...WHY?

3.) Starscream leaping into the air, tfing, and blowing Ratchet off his feet

4.) Fig's death, Lennox holding his hand as he fades away. (this was one of the better parts of the leaked script and it should've stayed in.)

5.) Megatron bitching at Prime for using the human language (it was showed even more, how much he hated us "insects")

etc...plenty of scenes cut, and they should've stayed in.

Camera work: Bay was the correct director for this, he did an excellent job...except with the shaky cam parts. You missed so much good stuff while trying to keep up with the jitters, not to mention...it was a tad nauseating.

Overall, the film was excellent. It was better than I expected, and well worth innumerable viewings, but quite a few things that could've been worked on and tweaked.

No jittery camera crap, more character development, and less of the Decepticons getting the shaft screenwise...it would've been flat out perfect. I kid you not, it would've become my favorite movie...period.

Starscream, while captured perfectly, was pathetically used. Could've been tremendous, yet they just had him sit on the sidelines, save for a few pieces of destruction.

Megatron didn't have enough screen time, however...his performance was so good, it was entirely forgivable. (Hugo Weaving btw...was absolutely the perfect choice. No offense to Welker, who is a childhood hero, but he just couldn't have evoked the same "WHOA!" factor that Weaving did.)

Bonecrusher was just a ridiculous fiasco. Getting his head lopped off without causing any tremendous damage was just...well...sad. Yeah, the way he tossed the cars and the bus explosion was captured nicely, plus the fact that he was a pain in the ass for Prime, but to die that quickly was a terrible misuse of him. Though I did love how his eyes popped out when he was punched. I chittered like a rabid spider monkey during that segment.

Barricade just disappears with no explanation, just...gone.

Brawl...I can't even find the words...his treatment in the movie (time, plus no defining scene) was absolutely despicable. Spending the time rendering him was a waste of money because the poor guy wasn't even there long enough to even really see. (I think I saw his face once, I kid you not...once.)

Blackout had his shining moment, so I can't really complain too much...

I didn't care for the foul language, or the "almost" instances of it.

The bitches line didn't bother me.
Frenzy dying with "Aw ****" had me chuckling.
The rest of the language didn't bother me either, except for when they tried to work f*ck in there. "Motherf..." and the like. Granted, they never actually said the word, but it wasn't necessary to either. That was just one element of the film that wasn't required to make it work. I'm sorry, I might be old fashioned, but it shouldn't even be a thought when making this film. Yes, kids have foul mouths these days and what not, but should we really be encouraging that? People would say "Well the violence should be your main concern". No. It was too outlandish and cartoony for the kids to believe, but to hear a good guy drop the f-bomb..."Well they said it, must be alright for me to do so as well." Call me a whiner, but it just wasn't needed.

All in all, it was an excellent movie going experience, and I can't wait to see it again. It had a nice ending with Prime's voice over, I loved that part, but the shaky cam has to go, and more character development.

I do recommend it, I do believe it'll make a convert out of those who don't give a damn initially, and I give it a solid 8.5 out of 10.

...and the TransFormers designs were nothing short of fantastic. They will completely wow you the moment you see them.

After posting a short opinion last night I decided I would elaborate a bit more on how the movie made me feel. Then I read this post and it says it just how I feel. Yes I had to quote the whole damn thing. Thanks Autobot032. Everyone who doesn't agree must be mad because the Decepticons lost again. Autobots rule!

[padfoo]

I saw the movie today with my 5yr old and here are my views. The movie was what I expected from Bay and his team, a mediocre and haphazard piece of work.

This is not a good movie for kids there is a lot of cursing, the action is hard to follow and the human scenes really drag (boring senseless development) and seem to lead to nowhere.

Speaking of humans there are allot of characters (too many) and while there are some good comic relief moments they don’t help the movie seem more real ( I am sorry, but I think the Air Force Captain should have gotten stepped on at the end of his motorcycle scene). These are some really kick ass humans; they can go almost toe to toe with 30 ft tall armed to the teeth Decepticons. The code cracking subplot, was completely unnecessary, it could have been rewritten and explained in a minute….

My next problem with the movie is that the transformers seem like dumb alien robots, which are barely able to survive against the humans; (so much for advance alien life forms) who are protecting who here. Ex. “Bumblebee, hop on” I will drive backwards at 75mph you shoot or how about, all the Transformers getting shot when they could have used their pulse weapons (which they demonstrated in earlier scenes to knock out everything. Blackout takes out an entire military base in the beginning of the movie, he tossed 60 ton tanks as if they were pebbles, yet he cannot even stop a platoon of humans with there supposed high temp armor piercing rounds ( talk about contradictory ). I could list another ten scenes like this.

Bay you wanted to get away from blocky looking boxes of the G1 transformers, but this is a step in the wrong direction. I said it from the first time I saw them. Bay’s trash pile Transmorphors look really bad on screen. There are so many elements making up each Transformer that they are very difficult to discern and see properly onscreen. Adding to the confusing are the shaking camera movements and close-up when the camera should have zoomed out.

Another element that bothered me about the movie was how childlike the transformers were when they first landed, I thought I was watching the Teenange Mutant Ninja
Turtles.

There are so many bad points and holes in this movie. Dumb ass writers just a question, why would transformers have weak armor underneath they are killing machines, they have been doing this for millions of years, WTF, oh wait its so humans can shoot them in there balls. Oh by the way why do transformers die when you behead themif there spark is in there chest, oh but Frenzy did not die his is in his head? I give up, let me move on to the good points.

The good points of the movie are:
The humor, lots of laughs.
Optimus Prime he is good (except for the flames) In fact, Optimus is so tough compared to the other transformers, you have to wonder if they are from the same planet.
You get your money’s worth (this is a long movie)

I would have to give this movie 6 out of 10 stars and I am being generous because I love Transformers.

[tile_mcgillus]

I did not like this movie...at all. Here are a few of the things that made my head explode...
-The attack on Qatar where only one soldier fired back. A full Military base is destroyed in that scene, but later 5 guys take out that same transformer...
-Car blows out all the windows and they decide to stay and sign the title over....insane

-Frenzy's Escapade was so ridiculous I dont even know what to say

-The Phone call to the Pentagon to call an air strike...?

-The cops arresting Sam and interogating him for getting his car stolen...made no sense.

-The Bumblebee Barricade fight is cut away from to watch Frenzy crawl all over Sam until he is killed by a small saw...after he just demolished 5 Secret Service guys. Then his head lives on alone, I guess?

-Jazz's offensive and just **** scary dialogue...wow

-The ENTIRE Backyard sequence is so lousy, ridiculous and just **** retarded...I am speechless.

-Sector Seven. Horribly bad. Then Sam Judging Mikeala for stealing cars when she was younger. Then the Autobots dismantling the 4 S7 cars. Then the autobots running scared from 4 more cars.

-Anything involving the girl hacker, her friends and Anthony Anderson was so bad and just pathetic. He deciphered their language in seconds. ABSOLUTELY **** UNNECCESSARY.

-Sam asking for **** to just tell them what he knows. Even though, he has no leverage at that point and they could just torture him...etc.

-The whole of Sector Seven made no sense. It seemed like it wasn't thought out at all.

-The soldiers turning on Sector Seven...

-Sector Seven just letting Megatron wake up. Bumblebee condensing the allspark (I thought there was no mass shifting Don Murphy?) and not destroying it there.

-Where does Barricade go? He is in the rolling convoy but just disappears.

-The plan by the autobots and the military to take the cube high and onto a helicopter when the decepticons are controlling the air with Blackout, Megatron and Starscream...

-The human beings just coming out on the street as explosions and giant robots kill each other

-Megatron being right on Sam's tail and Sam looking up 30 stories to climb and then they cut back to see Sam now on the roof.

-Optimus Prime being a **** pussy while fighting Megatron. Then begging Sam to kill him so Megatron can just go **** nuts and kill all the humans.

-Bumblebee suddenly being able to talk?

-Saying that they covered up the whole thing...

-SAM AND MIKAELA MAKING OUT ON TOP OF BUMBLEBEE AFTER THEY KNOW HE IS A SENTIENT BEING...while the rest of the Autobots watch...

I don't think these are nitpicky things but HUGE gapping holes in logic. The film was so poorly constructed, edited, filmed, and written...I almost thought it was a dadaist movie. I bet Duchamp and Tzara would get a kick out of this. NOTHING made sense. I will give this movie a one word review: Incomprehensible.

[Rolling Thunder]

Yeah nothing really to add so...

I give it a 8.5 or a borderline Just Prime
Going to go see it again this weekend most likely if not sooner.

[PRIMEinHD]

Just got back from seeing the movie with a couple of my friends. I have to say I really enjoyed the film and kudos goes out to the special effects people at ILM, they did an amazing job. Everything about this movie was top notch and Peter Cullen as Prime was flawless. Even Hugo Weaving doing Megatron I thought was very good. The only gripe I have with it is that I think Bay underutilized some of the transformers in the movie, i.e. Starscream. Other than that I loved it. I'd give the movie a solid B+ to an A-, leaning more towards the latter. As far as special effects and CGI go, A+ all the way. Highly reccommend it.

[Starscreams bad comedy]

Ok, well here is my take on this thing.


My biggest problem with the movie was they spent way too much time on the humans and not the bots. Its
one thing dealing with Sam and his quest to win the “hot chick” who of course never even noticed his existence, but did we really need all the other hangers on? We get the soldiers and their stock back stories (I just want to see my new baby), the nerdy hackers, the Sector 7 drones, and the shady defense secretary, all characters we have seen from other movies and done much better. Between all these
characters there not much screen time left to the bots, who one would think, would be the stars of the film. And when they did get their time it was mostly while rolling around with each other/battling to make up for all the time spent building up what little plot and or back story that the humans had. Every time when I started to get into the bots and their struggles it cuts away to something that the humans are doing: hacking, looking for the glasses, trying to get the chick, etc. I could really care less about the soldier and his wife and kid, who I saw all of 3 minutes, give me more time with Blackout! I want to see how he got there, what his motivation is, beyond that of he is the bad guy making things go boom. I don’t know why Bay felt the need to focus so much time with these humans, the acting done by Cullen and the other bots would have been sufficient. In fact I would say it was better than and more interesting than what the humans brought to the table. Of course with a few cheezy lines its hard to imagine that they could carry the movie. But then again look at LOTR, it had gollum, a completely CG character who was convincing. Given the right dialogue and proper animation they could have done the same in Transformers.



The second biggest problem, which is related to the first one, is the treatment of the Decepticons. Why were they turned into basically cannon fodder? Starcream had like two lines that gave us no insight to him or any homage to his already established character. Megatron was alright, but they really should have gotten Welker to do the voice, I don’t see why they couldn’t. Also some times it was kinda hard to make out what he was saying, I felt like Weavings performance was too restrained, I miss that raspy almost high pitched voice of the old Megatron. Barricade was done much better than I expected and wish he had more lines and screen time. The cybertronian speak was alright but I really felt it was more convincing and spoke more too them being sentient when they spoke English as opposed to making metallic growling sounds. I felt frenzy was way over the top to the point of being annoying. You would think that with all the spastic noises he was making that it would draw more attention than it did. Not exactly the idea bot you want to send on a secret mission to gather intelligence. As for the rest of the Decepticons again, why the cannon fodder approach? Bonecrusher was somewhat cool, for the whopping 3 min of screen time that he got. Brawl could have been awesome but I cant tell because he basically was target practice for a bunch of F-22’s and guys with grenade launchers.


The other problem with this movie was the “randomness” of the plot and characters. First there was the little arab kid running around on the base, somehow I don’t see that happening especially on a military base in the middle east. You got Blackout going ape **** on the military base, but then in the city he apparently isnt the same Blackout as he gets punked buy a few humans and some 40mm grenade shells. Which seems wierd that it would take untill the near end of the movie to off him as the soldiers had all kinds of tanks and other weapons at their disposal at the base, why not take him down then? Then there is the hacker chick and her team, after they find the code/signal, poof, they must have taken an extended bathroom break cause they are never seen again. You also got Barricade and his, now you seen him now you dont, fight with Bumblebee, I guess he just decided to take a nap after getting his ass kicked, then again I dont know if he actually did or just threw the fight as they didnt show it. Then there is the black hacker dude, who just happens to apparently live across town from where ever it is that all the military and hackers were working at. And of course when there is a serious threat looming and you call in a bunch of hackers to help break the code you just loose track of them long enough for one of them to catch a cab and drive across town to their friends house. Frenzy somehow was just chilling out on airforce one, how the hell did he get in there? After Frenzy relays the location of the allspark, poof, instant Decepticon army roll call. What the hell were Starscream, Brawl, and Bonechrusher doing for the first half of the film? Maybe they were busy traveling though space, landing, scanning vehicles while being undetected, of course I will never know that as they didn’t show it. Starcream arrives at the dam and starts attacking the power station, then poof, we dont see him until Megaton wakes up. And just how did Megatron fly out of the dam? Did they have a convenient giant robot sized door way for him figured into the blueprints of Hoover dam? And where did Starscreram, Scorpinock, and Barricade go after the dust settled?




Other problems that I had with it are as follows:


Too much comedy at the wrong times. I would rather what little tension there is in a supposed giant robot action flick not keep getting doused with corny attempts at humor.

Lame Bush parody. Keep that crap out of the film. Stuff like that only serves to ground the film to a specific time and come a few years from now when he is no longer in office it will just be even more lame.

At no point did I ever feel like there was any real threat going on. Maybe it was all the humor or the fact that the Decepticons were cardboard villains.

The allspark generating unintelligent spazoid robots. Why would their first impulse be to attack and destroy? Doesnt this run counter to Primes little speech about humans not being evolved enough and needing looking after?

Not enough lazer/cool space age weapons used by the bots. If they are so advanced why would they feel the need to use primitive earth weapons that put them at a disadvantage or at the best on a level playing field as the humans?

Frenzy just sauntering off the tarmac after there has been a major security breech aboard airforce one.

Barricade just rolling up to the tarmac of airforce one.

Prime not being the one to actually finish off Megatron. They could have at least had Sam throw it to him instead of just having him run underneath him and holding it up. That whole ending just seemed so anti-climatic.

The fact that the soldier guys felt the best course of action was to take the one thing that the Decepticons were looking for back into the city and put countless citizens lifes in danger.

Frenzy was too silver looking. Given that he was spazing out the whole time it was kinda hard to get a good look at him. He just came off looking like a jumble of metal.

Close ups during actions scenes made it hard to actually see the action.

Car windows randomly exploding, but never mind that, lets just sell this one car that isnt scratched.

Bumblebee cant talk but yet can play random music and movie effects. Why couldnt he splice together said sounds into full sentences?





I came into this movie with low expectation and I would say that those expectations were pretty much met. While the action scenes and CG were pretty good I dont feel that they are enough to make up for all the other flaws. At no point during this movie was I totally blown away by the fight scenes or felt a sense of wonder seeing the Transformers in a realistic light on the big screen. As I already said any momentum that I felt was quickly squashed by the back and forth cutting to the boring Humans and the comedy. The special effects were good, but were ruined a bit by the close up camera work. I suspect though that if this is viewed on the small screen it wont be so bad as it wont take up your whole field of vision. Over ll I would say this is a barely decent "summer action movie", nothing super great but worth a weekend matinee if your got a couple hours to kill. As a Transformers movie though I dont think it will hold up well over time and there is a lot lacking. The potential was all there but fell well short of what could have been.



My rating:

Dumb summer action movie: 6/10

Transformers movie: 4.5/10

[Versa]

So here goes mine...

Long time Transformers fan since G1 and mainly a G1 guy. Don't follow Armada or the other stuff that doesn't really float my boat...

I truly thought from the first trailer I saw that this movie was going to really suck horribly. The latest big trailer turned that around for me a lot. So I was expecting this to be cool.

I've read some die-hard fan reviews here with people not liking alot of thing about it, but I have to say I was completely blown away by this movie. The characters were great and I really felt the emotional attachment between Sam and Bumblebee (BEE-OTCH!)

The theater I was at (Cinerama in Downtown Seattle, seats 800) were going nuts! People were cheering and at the end everyone applauded. I actually do embrace a lot of the changes they made with the robots. The 2005 of the 80's had very 80's vehicles as compared to the actual cars of 2005, though that's not to say they could have put themselves into more vintage vehicles . I was pleasantly surprised with everything and was glad they kept the humor going on it. After being extremely angry over the initial look of everything and the dismal previews I first saw, I am amazed to say it was one of the best movies I have ever seen. On a factor of keeping it engaging and entertaining and a good plot (not too complex by any means, but why do you need one all the time?).

My few big gripes were some of the fights were too closeup to the camera and then the metal music playing during one of the battles was a bit annoying, but I don't have a great deal else to say that I really disliked about this film. Sure we would have liked the updated VW Bug for Bumblebee, but last I heard they couldn't get permission to use that car, so it was a nice play on things to have the Camaro poke at the bug. I personally think VW was stupid to not give permission, but who knows. Maybe we'll see that in the second film with the success this first film should bring in.

On the note of Decepticons having no character development... I don't think I found that delving into personalities of the bad guys would have been the best idea for this film. They are meant to be cold and uncaring creatures. Them showing nothing, but brutality made them that much more evil to me and spending a bit more time to latch on to the good guys make me care more about them whether they got hurt or not. As far as Hugo Weaving... That voice was so synthesized I dunno why they went specifically with him, hahah! That didn't sound much like Weaving to me, so I wasn't very sour about it after the fact.

I give it an A. It shattered my expectations and hope the movies continue and I'd invite the autobots to chill in backyard any day.

Hoping for Soundwave next time round! I loved it. And that's my personal opinion, but really that's all that matters to me is if I like it and not what 12 or 20 others might feel differently.

Look forward to an extended Criterion Collection DVD (HD) in the future!

[Autobot032]

I think the human/robots ratio was just fine. The problem was, the entire cast was completely underused. For the running time it had, there could've been more character development, even if it was goofy.

I'd like to see the parents interact with Bumblebee in the sequel, something like:

1.) Sam doesn't know that they know (but I'm sure they do, considering the clip in the credits) and he finds out through some embarrassingly clip. (This kind of humor *DID* work in the film, too many people are just way too uptight.)

or

2.) Some scene involving Bumblebee (in robot mode, and at night mind you...) and Sam coming home and hearing his dad whine about the grass again. "Look, you're welcome to stay here, but are you gonna pay for the grass? Cuz...well...you've got really big feet and you've already ruined the fountain and the path." another "my bad" segment. Just like he's one of the family. (which is how it should be)

Now granted, I realize it wasn't a perfect movie (and none are, you can tell me 'til you're blue in the face, but no...nothing on this planet is perfect. Nothing.) and I realize some didn't like it at all, but can you honestly tell me you derived no pleasure from it all? Didn't even laugh one bit at some of the comedic parts? If so, then I feel bad for you. I thought I was uptight, I can see I was wrong.

One thing about the movie that's been bugging me to no end, and I realize it probably won't be answered much, if at all...but Ratchet shined a laser on Bumblebee's throat, pointing out the damage, and saying how he can't talk. Yet at the end, he speaks perfectly and it's never explained, not even one bit.

Oh and I got terribly misty eyed at that point, when he said "I wish to stay with the boy", I about lost it. That was the scene that really, really got to me.

I realize they're machines, and people would like them to stay that way, but I'm so glad that they were somewhat humanized. Because of their humanity, they were much easier to make a connection with. (This is the part where you can see Spielberg's hand in it, kept the E.T. minded sentimentality to it. Which is a good thing.)

I'm not sure why people want an overly violent, completely cold, humanless TransFormer movie...how the hell are we supposed to connect with them? How is Optimus Prime supposed to remain our hero if we can't sense his humane side? His humanity? He had it in G1 and we had no problems. He's had it in every incarnation from G1 to the present, yet movie Optimus is quite possibly the best portrayal of them all (imperfect, which makes the *BEST* heroes) and people just bitch, bitch, bitch.

...does anyone else see what I'm saying? Doesn't it confuse you as well?

"My bad" Optimus FTW.

[Pauliepaul81]

Here's the review I did for IMDB and my myspace site (http://www.myspace.com/pmvdesign).

So here it is. I spent the better part of Sunday just lying on the couch, exhausted by what I saw at the cinema. Currently watching my Ed Wood box- how's that for a total 180?

First and foremost, people should keep in mind that this movie is made to entertain. It's not high art, it's not though-provoking in any sense, and I see that some critics take themselves way too serious when reviewing this film. It's a thrilling and lovingly crafted popcorn ride from begin to end. I'm a massive movie fan who enjoys Almodóvar, Truffaut and Welles (wait a minute, that's Unicron!) as much as the next person, yet enjoy the movie for what it is: a totally over-the-top, humor-littered action flick based on a line of toys.

I initially had my reservations when I heard that this flick was to be directed by Michael Bay. However, now I can see that Mr. Spielberg wasn't talking total PR- babble when he said that Bay was the ideal director for Transformers. Yes, the action sometimes is overblown and it's often difficult to make out what is going on (especially with the admittedly spectacular one-on-one robot fights), but here Bay's bloated style totally fits. And his signature car chase sequence is stirring stuff.

As for the characters: even though there's little room for character development here with all the action, what is actually there is handled very well. The robots remain fairly underdeveloped when compared to the human characters, but that's more due to the nature of the introductory storyline. I'm sure that the inevitable sequels will give the robots (and hopefully the Decepticons and Starscream in particular) a little more screen time. Even so, it has to be said that the Autobots' personalities are handled very respectfully in regard to their original incarnations.

In the end, what we have here is a very engaging action film that establishes its core cast well enough to make a genuine emotional connection, and sets the door wide open for a sequel. Its shortcomings lie in its simple plot and its lack of background explanation- although a prequel novel and comic do a reasonable job of providing a bit more depth. A roller-coaster ride that looks and sounds spectacular and thankfully doesn't take itself too serious. Hopefully its audience follows suit.

4.5 out of 5 stars- big, loud and stupid, but you'll be having too much fun to bother. I do hope that this film will be a success, it deserves to be. I also hope that for the sequel, they spend a little more time on adding some depth. Think "Empire Strikes Back" as opposed to the first Star Wars film.

[Autobot032]

Here's the review I did for IMDB and my myspace site (http://www.myspace.com/pmvdesign).

So here it is. I spent the better part of Sunday just lying on the couch, exhausted by what I saw at the cinema. Currently watching my Ed Wood box- how's that for a total 180?

First and foremost, people should keep in mind that this movie is made to entertain. It's not high art, it's not though-provoking in any sense, and I see that some critics take themselves way too serious when reviewing this film. It's a thrilling and lovingly crafted popcorn ride from begin to end. I'm a massive movie fan who enjoys Almodóvar, Truffaut and Welles (wait a minute, that's Unicron!) as much as the next person, yet enjoy the movie for what it is: a totally over-the-top, humor-littered action flick based on a line of toys.

I initially had my reservations when I heard that this flick was to be directed by Michael Bay. However, now I can see that Mr. Spielberg wasn't talking total PR- babble when he said that Bay was the ideal director for Transformers. Yes, the action sometimes is overblown and it's often difficult to make out what is going on (especially with the admittedly spectacular one-on-one robot fights), but here Bay's bloated style totally fits. And his signature car chase sequence is stirring stuff.

As for the characters: even though there's little room for character development here with all the action, what is actually there is handled very well. The robots remain fairly underdeveloped when compared to the human characters, but that's more due to the nature of the introductory storyline. I'm sure that the inevitable sequels will give the robots (and hopefully the Decepticons and Starscream in particular) a little more screen time. Even so, it has to be said that the Autobots' personalities are handled very respectfully in regard to their original incarnations.

In the end, what we have here is a very engaging action film that establishes its core cast well enough to make a genuine emotional connection, and sets the door wide open for a sequel. Its shortcomings lie in its simple plot and its lack of background explanation- although a prequel novel and comic do a reasonable job of providing a bit more depth. A roller-coaster ride that looks and sounds spectacular and thankfully doesn't take itself too serious. Hopefully its audience follows suit.

4.5 out of 5 stars- big, loud and stupid, but you'll be having too much fun to bother. I do hope that this film will be a success, it deserves to be. I also hope that for the sequel, they spend a little more time on adding some depth. Think "Empire Strikes Back" as opposed to the first Star Wars film.

BING-F*CKIN'-O! YES!

BTW...I have a question for everyone here...

In terms of depth, and how "stupid" this film is...

Has anyone actually read the Dreamwave comics? Even though they were canceled, I tried to read them all and I just couldn't. I stopped. Why? Because it was exasperating, and downtrodden. If that's the kind of depth you want in these movies, then count me out. I want something that will entertain and have some heft to it, but please nothing like Dreamwave. It was just one unending battle (convoluted I might add) after another. It got ridiculous and boring and I couldn't take it anymore.

2.5 hours of that on the big screen? No thanks.

Depth is fine, Dreamwave (or I should say ocean depth) is too much. Don't get so into it that we see all the nuts and bolts because you not only take away the wow factor, but you see there's really nothing exciting at the core, just some plain old nuts and bolts.

[YouFearGalvatron]

I did not like this movie...at all. Here are a few of the things that made my head explode...
-The attack on Qatar where only one soldier fired back. A full Military base is destroyed in that scene, but later 5 guys take out that same transformer...
-Car blows out all the windows and they decide to stay and sign the title over....insane

-Frenzy's Escapade was so ridiculous I dont even know what to say

-The Phone call to the Pentagon to call an air strike...?

-The cops arresting Sam and interogating him for getting his car stolen...made no sense.

-The Bumblebee Barricade fight is cut away from to watch Frenzy crawl all over Sam until he is killed by a small saw...after he just demolished 5 Secret Service guys. Then his head lives on alone, I guess?

-Jazz's offensive and just **** scary dialogue...wow

-The ENTIRE Backyard sequence is so lousy, ridiculous and just **** retarded...I am speechless.

-Sector Seven. Horribly bad. Then Sam Judging Mikeala for stealing cars when she was younger. Then the Autobots dismantling the 4 S7 cars. Then the autobots running scared from 4 more cars.

-Anything involving the girl hacker, her friends and Anthony Anderson was so bad and just pathetic. He deciphered their language in seconds. ABSOLUTELY **** UNNECCESSARY.

-Sam asking for **** to just tell them what he knows. Even though, he has no leverage at that point and they could just torture him...etc.

-The whole of Sector Seven made no sense. It seemed like it wasn't thought out at all.

-The soldiers turning on Sector Seven...

-Sector Seven just letting Megatron wake up. Bumblebee condensing the allspark (I thought there was no mass shifting Don Murphy?) and not destroying it there.

-Where does Barricade go? He is in the rolling convoy but just disappears.

-The plan by the autobots and the military to take the cube high and onto a helicopter when the decepticons are controlling the air with Blackout, Megatron and Starscream...

-The human beings just coming out on the street as explosions and giant robots kill each other

-Megatron being right on Sam's tail and Sam looking up 30 stories to climb and then they cut back to see Sam now on the roof.

-Optimus Prime being a **** pussy while fighting Megatron. Then begging Sam to kill him so Megatron can just go **** nuts and kill all the humans.

-Bumblebee suddenly being able to talk?

-Saying that they covered up the whole thing...

-SAM AND MIKAELA MAKING OUT ON TOP OF BUMBLEBEE AFTER THEY KNOW HE IS A SENTIENT BEING...while the rest of the Autobots watch...

I don't think these are nitpicky things but HUGE gapping holes in logic. The film was so poorly constructed, edited, filmed, and written...I almost thought it was a dadaist movie. I bet Duchamp and Tzara would get a kick out of this. NOTHING made sense. I will give this movie a one word review: Incomprehensible.

I agree with ALL of this review. I saw the film last night, and it was such a HUGE letdown, I was going in psyched, really, really psyched. I should have known better, it IS a Michael Bay film. Just so dumb...

To expound on what tile_mcgillus said:

The acting, ALL OF IT was utter s***.

The humor, ALL OF IT, was very crude and low-brow, not family-friendly at all. YES, I know it was PG-13, but lots of kids drug there parents along. NOT ETHICAL AND NOT FUNNY!

Mass-shifting? What mass shifting? Bumblebee is like 40 feet tall, and the car is 1/3rd that size. I call BULLS***.

Sector 7 is INCOMPETENT, and very clumsy.

Humans take out most of the Decepticons...W...T...F?!?!

The faces, oh my Lord, the faces! What acid where they taking?!

Megatron gets like, what 10 minutes?!!!

Starscream gets, less than 15 minutes?!!!

Less than two lines of dialogue per charachter on average?!

Michael Bay: "Charachterization? What is that?"

If the TFs can scan ANYTHING and change into it in MOMENTS...why not scan a damned rocket, go off to space with the ALLSPARK, and throw it into the f***ing sun?! Pretty big plot holes, and suspension of logic/belief if you ask me.

Bumblebee...gets his legs blown off, yet the car door windows are NEVER BROKEN OFF?! That must be some pretty strong f***ing door glass there, Mr. Bay!

After battle, they are damaged visibly, then they transform back to car modes, yet, NO SCRATCHES?! Not ONE?! ALL the cars still look showroom new?!

Frenzy...oh, the humanity....ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Wheelie 2.0!!!

Too many f***ing fleshlings! Their screentime robs the TFs of their roles, damnit!!!

I could go on forever, but the post quoted above covers ALL I WAS FEELING WHEN I LEFT THE THEATER.

The good: The action was great, esp. PRIME'S scenes. And Prime was no wimp in this film!!! But he should have used his hand/arm energon blade to take out Megatron like he did Bonecrusher!!!!!!!!!

I left the movie yesterday...and I felt let down. I felt NOTHING.

F*** you, Michael Bay. Really, f*** you.

And like Spoon stated above me, you all said, "Wait and see it!!!"

I have, and I feel so sick.

And you can't change my mind!

[Autobot032]

I did not like this movie...at all. Here are a few of the things that made my head explode...
-The attack on Qatar where only one soldier fired back. A full Military base is destroyed in that scene, but later 5 guys take out that same transformer...
-Car blows out all the windows and they decide to stay and sign the title over....insane

-Frenzy's Escapade was so ridiculous I dont even know what to say

-The Phone call to the Pentagon to call an air strike...?

-The cops arresting Sam and interogating him for getting his car stolen...made no sense.

-The Bumblebee Barricade fight is cut away from to watch Frenzy crawl all over Sam until he is killed by a small saw...after he just demolished 5 Secret Service guys. Then his head lives on alone, I guess?

-Jazz's offensive and just **** scary dialogue...wow

-The ENTIRE Backyard sequence is so lousy, ridiculous and just **** retarded...I am speechless.

-Sector Seven. Horribly bad. Then Sam Judging Mikeala for stealing cars when she was younger. Then the Autobots dismantling the 4 S7 cars. Then the autobots running scared from 4 more cars.

-Anything involving the girl hacker, her friends and Anthony Anderson was so bad and just pathetic. He deciphered their language in seconds. ABSOLUTELY **** UNNECCESSARY.

-Sam asking for **** to just tell them what he knows. Even though, he has no leverage at that point and they could just torture him...etc.

-The whole of Sector Seven made no sense. It seemed like it wasn't thought out at all.

-The soldiers turning on Sector Seven...

-Sector Seven just letting Megatron wake up. Bumblebee condensing the allspark (I thought there was no mass shifting Don Murphy?) and not destroying it there.

-Where does Barricade go? He is in the rolling convoy but just disappears.

-The plan by the autobots and the military to take the cube high and onto a helicopter when the decepticons are controlling the air with Blackout, Megatron and Starscream...

-The human beings just coming out on the street as explosions and giant robots kill each other

-Megatron being right on Sam's tail and Sam looking up 30 stories to climb and then they cut back to see Sam now on the roof.

-Optimus Prime being a **** pussy while fighting Megatron. Then begging Sam to kill him so Megatron can just go **** nuts and kill all the humans.

-Bumblebee suddenly being able to talk?

-Saying that they covered up the whole thing...

-SAM AND MIKAELA MAKING OUT ON TOP OF BUMBLEBEE AFTER THEY KNOW HE IS A SENTIENT BEING...while the rest of the Autobots watch...

I don't think these are nitpicky things but HUGE gapping holes in logic. The film was so poorly constructed, edited, filmed, and written...I almost thought it was a dadaist movie. I bet Duchamp and Tzara would get a kick out of this. NOTHING made sense. I will give this movie a one word review: Incomprehensible.

I agree with ALL of this review. I saw the film last night, and it was such a HUGE letdown, I was going in psyched, really, really psyched. I should have known better, it IS a Michael Bay film. Just so dumb...

To expound on what tile_mcgillus said:

The acting, ALL OF IT was utter s***.

The humor, ALL OF IT, was very crude and low-brow, not family-friendly at all. YES, I know it was PG-13, but lots of kids drug there parents along. NOT ETHICAL AND NOT FUNNY!

Mass-shifting? What mass shifting? Bumblebee is like 40 feet tall, and the car is 1/3rd that size. I call BULLS***.

Sector 7 is INCOMPETENT, and very clumsy.

Humans take out most of the Decepticons...W...T...F?!?!

The faces, oh my Lord, the faces! What acid where they taking?!

Megatron gets like, what 10 minutes?!!!

Starscream gets, less than 15 minutes?!!!

Less than two lines of dialogue per charachter on average?!

Michael Bay: "Charachterization? What is that?"

If the TFs can scan ANYTHING and change into it in MOMENTS...why not scan a damned rocket, go off to space with the ALLSPARK, and throw it into the f***ing sun?! Pretty big plot holes, and suspension of logic/belief if you ask me.

Bumblebee...gets his legs blown off, yet the car door windows are NEVER BROKEN OFF?! That must be some pretty strong f***ing door glass there, Mr. Bay!

After battle, they are damaged visibly, then they transform back to car modes, yet, NO SCRATCHES?! Not ONE?! ALL the cars still look showroom new?!

Frenzy...oh, the humanity....ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Wheelie 2.0!!!

Too many f***ing fleshlings! Their screentime robs the TFs of their roles, damnit!!!

I could go on forever, but the post quoted above covers ALL I WAS FEELING WHEN I LEFT THE THEATER.

The good: The action was great, esp. PRIME'S scenes. And Prime was no wimp in this film!!! But he should have used his hand/arm energon blade to take out Megatron like he did Bonecrusher!!!!!!!!!

I left the movie yesterday...and I felt let down. I felt NOTHING.

F*** you, Michael Bay. Really, f*** you.

And like Spoon stated above me, you all said, "Wait and see it!!!"

I have, and I feel so sick.

And you can't change my mind!

Well, you're entitled to your opinion. You didn't like it, you didn't like it. Simple as that.

I will say this, I've been told that it fares better under repeat viewings, so....

But hey, that leaves one seat open for someone who might enjoy it, so no complaints here.