Collegiate Times

“Transformers” is a film that knows it’s a superficial summer blockbuster, and is OK with it — and for that, it should be applauded. It is genuinely funny, action packed and filled to the brim with mind-blowing special effects. Ignore the slightly clichéd human subplots and shameless promotional agreement with GMC automotives, this film is massively entertaining.

The story begins when young Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) buys his first car for the express purpose of wooing his high school love interest Mikaela (Megan Fox). Little did he know that the banged up Camero he bought for $4,000 would change his life. Once his Camero reveals itself to be fully automated and capable of transforming into a heavily armed robot, Sam begins a bizarre journey in which the fate of Earth will ultimately fall in his hands. Sam states it best later in the film when talking to a government official: “I bought a car. Turned out to be an alien robot … who knew?”

It turns out Sam’s Camero is really a being from another planet that had been placed on earth as a scout for the “Autobots,” a technologically-advanced alien race at war with the evil “Decepticons.” For those audience members who are unfamiliar with the popular Transformer franchise from the 1980s, the two sides have been raging an inter-planetary war for decades. When it became evident that the war would spill onto Earth both sides sent soldiers to our planet, some came to protect us and the others to dominate us. Smack dab in the middle of it all are Sam, Mikaela and the unbelievably futile U.S. military (a.k.a. cannon fodder for the Decepticons).

The first third of the film is spent introducing the audience to the Autobots, and includes scene after scene where the producers had a field day with the notion of intelligent automobiles that could mess with unassuming humans — resulting in warm, comical breaks from the action. If Director Michael Bay is gifted at anything, it is splicing together riotous dialogue with intense action sequences (see Bad Boys, The Rock). Most of the film’s humor comes from the talented Shia LaBeouf, who obviously wasn’t cast as the lead in this film for his rugged masculinity. Sam and Mikaela’s budding relationship develops slowly as the film progresses, but LaBeouf’s jittery, awkward demeanor never ceases to keep the audience laughing.

Teenage angst never looked so funny, and 20 year old Megan Fox never looked so attractive. Her character lacks depth (and dialogue), but judging from her wardrobe and frequent close ups on certain body parts; one gets the notion that Michael Bay did not cast her for her subtle nuances on screen.

Sam’s parents, played by Kevin Dunn and Julie White, steal scenes with their frequent encounters with Sam, each more awkward and hilarious than the last. They perfected the role of typical embarrassing parents, as evidenced in a scene where Sam’s mother forces a conversation with him about self-gratification, or “Sam’s happy time” as she calls it. Much of the film comments on the generation gap between parents and children in the 21st century, and his parents provide plenty of humorous scenes that also help break up the action.

Now to what makes this film great, because it sure isn’t the acting or the seemingly forced love story between Sam and Mikaela.

I’m not sure if the enormous budget for “Transformers” came from deals with General Motors, the lack of any real star power, or Steven Spielberg’s personal bank account — but it is very clear where most of it ended up. “Transformers” utilizes some of the best special effects to ever go into a film, and utilizes them well. The action scenes are immaculately choreographed, frequent enough to keep the audience thrilled but paced evenly enough to help the film flow naturally.

I defy anyone, familiar with Transformers or not, to be un-entertained when a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor transforms into a robot the size of a small building and throws down with the U.S. Military.

Or when an 88-foot-long Sikorsky MH-53 Blackhawk helicopter stands up and uses its main rotor blades as claymores to do battle with a Hummer H2 armed with rockets and a chain gun. That’s just plain fun to watch.

And with the development in CGI (computer generated images) over the past few years it all looks unbelievably real. CGI characters mesh seamlessly with real world actors, concrete buildings, and soon-to-be-destroyed cars (and busses, and jets, and tanks). A serious concern for me going into the film would be that all the best action shots were used in the very long and very impressive trailer. This simply isn’t so; in fact some of the most jaw dropping action sequences occur unexpectedly and are completely original. The effects used to transform the robots to and from their vehicle forms is done early and often, and utilized in unexpected ways during combat.

The final battle scene, which lasts a solid 40 minutes, is quite simply the best large-scale action sequence I have ever seen in a film.

It is unlike anything ever before attempted in cinema — the sheer scale of the battle is mind boggling. A showdown between the two warring sides takes place within six city blocks of a downtown metropolis and features big explosions, falling buildings, clashing 60 foot robots, air strikes, and rouge rockets — all of which consequently lead to more big explosions. It is a scene that brings out the 15 year-old-kid in all of us, and is that really a bad thing?

“Transformers” is never going to win an Oscar for Best Picture, nor should it. It is not a film designed to comment on the human condition or change the world in any way. It is at its very root escapist material, a movie made to provide the audience with a two hour respite from the drama and complications of the real world. That being said, the film achieves precisely what it set out to do, and is so entertaining that it acts as a reminder to us all of the very meaning of “summer fun at the movies.”