Transformers

I remember a time, many years ago, when I use to steal my brother’s Transformer toys because I wanted to play with them. He would never let me play with them becuase I was a girl, but I thought that they were very cool. I went into see the Transformers movie with this same nostalgic feeling that I had as a little girl, and I was not disappointed.

I was very impressed with the special effects, sound, and the look of the Transformers, but the story left me wanting more. I thought that there were many scenes that were unnecessary to the storyline. In fact they dragged the movie out some. The movie comes in at just over two and a half hours, and if some of these scenes were left out then it would have been a little bit shorter.

The story begins with one of the Decepticons attacking a military base in Qatar trying to retrieve top secret information. This opening sequence is amazing and watching Blackout transform from a military helicopter to his transformer shape is awesome. My heart was pounding and I felt an overwhelming need to cheer, and this appeared to be the same for the rest of the audience. The first Autobot to appear is Bumblebee as a yellow Camaro that is guarding and protecting Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) from the Decepticons.

The main aspect of the storyline is that Sam’s Great-Grandfather discovered Megatron in the Arctic Circle in the late 1800’s. Sam ends up with some of his belongings that show where the All Spark is, which all of the Transformers are trying to find. The Decepticons want it so that they can take over the machines on Earth and the Autobots want it to destroy so that they can protect the humans. This leads to a battle on Earth that involves both humans and Transformers. Different characters that help the Autobots include Sergeant Lennox (Josh Duhamel), Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson), Defense Secretary John Keller (Jon Voight) and computer specialists Maggie Madsen (Rachael Taylor) and Glen Whitmann (Anthony Anderson). Megan Fox plays Mikaela Banes who becomes the love interest of Sam. I loved the fact that the main focus was on the action of the story and not the love story.

There were many pluses about the movie including the different aspects of the action sequences. Watching the Autobots appear on Earth and take their shapes was a great sequence and the audience cheered as Optimus Prime turned into an 18 Wheeler. The battle scenes, especially the final one, were very well done. I think that this is one of the best and most original action movies that I have seen in a long time.

The only minus I have is some of the mindless things that are part of the storyline.

Recommendation: See it with a large audience in a sold out show. The audience reaction to this movie really helps to pull everyone more into the experience and it makes them share it more. It is very much a part of the nostalgia.