TRANSFOMERS or TRANSFOMER ???

        Transformers

  director Michael Bay has done the impossible. He’s created a wholly modern, action extravaganza while staying completely true to all the things that have ever been good about the Transformers. Alright maybe Optimus Prime didn’t need to have flames painted on him, but that’s such a minor detail in a movie with characters that are quite literally so big. Transformers is astoundingly goofy, but it knows it’s goofy and simply doesn’t care, which is why Bay’s film is so much giant freaking robot fun. There’s no attempt to be serious. That’s not to say the movie doesn’t try to be as real as it can be, after all the goal here is to take giant transforming robots and put them believably in our world. It attempts to seem real, but never at the expense of the essence of what the Transformers have always been.   The film absolutely revels in how completely looney this premise is, and is all the better for it.

For a man, there are few things more powerful than the relationship he has with his first automobile, and it’s no different for Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf).

Once Bay wisely satiates our lust for effects sequences, he gets right to the heart of his story by taking us along with Sam and his dad as they go car shopping. Sam has worked and saved to afford a car, and is disappointed to discover that he can’t afford any better than a clunker. The film takes the same formula that has worked so well in other car movies, and applies it to Sam and Bumbelee. Sam’s relationship with his car is brilliantly written, even better directed, and it’s the super glue that holds this gigantic summer blockbuster tightly together when things go mad in a flurry of one-liners and special effects.

Because this is a Michael Bay film, Transformers mixes in the parallel storylines of other characters embroiled in Earth’s sudden alien robot problem. The film cuts between stories, one minute we’re following Sam as his car gets him caught up in a battle that’s way over his head, the next it’s a group of government geeks trying to decode a strange alien signal, the next a group of soldiers under attack from an unknown and evil, alien force of mechanical beings with the ability to disguise themselves as everyday items. Eventually everything collides together and the film’s three separate factions join up with the Autobots, an alien robot force for good, to kick some Decepticon butt. Still, the film is smart enough to ensure that Sam’s story remains at the center and heart of the film no matter how big it gets.

Transformers says screw that and gives you Optimus Prime and his friends hanging out, talking, and fighting the good fight to defend mankind. Occasionally fight sequences suffer but Transformers knows you’re here to see robots thrash the hell out of each other and never shies away from laying that on thick. Bay shows his robots in perfect hero poses with blinding sunlight streaming over their shoulders and Optimus talks about loyalty, duty, and freedom like he’s just stepped off an Autobot recruiting poster. In another movie it would be ridiculous, in Transformers it’s the sort of thing you’ll feel welling up in the pit of your stomach.