Autobots Waged Their Battle To Destroy the Evil Forces of Michael Bay

As he mentioned yesterday, The Uncommon Wife allowed The Common Man to indulge his inner eight year old, and went with him to see Transformers on the 4th. Careful readers will remember that The Common Man was all atwitter five months ago in anticipation of this film, when he wrote, "The Common Man prays that this film will be good, for it holds the unfulfilled dreams of his childhood in its hands." So how did it stack up? Was The Common Man's childhood reduced to robot-pummeled rubble by Michael Bay or was he magically transported back to 1986, in his parents' basement, making the familiar chkee-chkoh-chkoh-chkoh-kuh-kuh-kuh-kuh noises of his Transformers transforming?

The movie requires a significant suspension of disbelief (even more than you'd probably expect for a movie about giant transforming robots from outer space) and will require you to turn off your inner logic-detector (one is forced to continuously wonder whether Optimus Prime's extreme selflessness is a sign of stupidity, for instance, and why Megatron is the only Decepticon who speaks English when he's been frozen for 4,000 years and his minions have been living here for some time).

Also, some of the characterization of the Autobots was disappointing. Jazz and Ironhide, in particular, come off as petty and annoying. Bumblebee, for some reason, can't talk and speaks almost entirely in movie and song clips. Also, Bumblebee turns out to be a total bad-ass, which is ridiculous given how wussy he was in the TV show. And Ratchet may as well not even be there.

On a somewhat related note, The Uncommon Wife and The Common Man are in agreement on this point, there were far too many people involved in this movie, and not nearly enough giant transforming robots from outer space, or at least not enough time spent developing those giant transforming robots from outer space who were in it. The movie (and TV show, and cartoon, and the other movie, and the comic books, etc.) were called Transformers, not Some Kid and His Giant Transforming Robot Friends. But the inclusion of Shia Labeouf as Sam Witwicky is at least understandable, given that Spike Witwicky was a main fixture of the original. And the inclusion of his love interest (Megan Fox) is fine because it gives the kid something to do and because she's hot. But spending time with all the computer hackers, with a group of random soldiers (only one of whom is even decently developed) is totally unnecessary. Likewise, the inclusion of a government conspiracy subplot only made what should have been a fun sci-fi ride seem ludicrous (even for a movie about giant transforming robots from outer space).

Finally, there are long sections of the movie that are essentially motionless, allowing Bay to channel Charley Chaplin and do some physical comedy with his CGI robots. It's largely unnecessary (The Common Man really didn't care that Ironhide wanted to "eliminate the parents" or that he will rust after getting peed on by a dog. And as funny as it was to watch giant transforming robots from outer space try to hide around a back yard, it took away from the action. Also, some of the humor was inappropriate for a movie targeted toward a younger audience and suggests that Michael Bay is incapable of subtlety of any kind, given that characters openly and directly discuss masturbation (The COmmon Man imagines that an email exchange with Michael Bay would go something like this: Q: Did you enjoy making Transformers? A: YES, I ENJOYED MAKING TRANSFORMERS A GREAT DEAL. IT PLEASED ME AND I CAN'T WAIT TO DO IT AGAIN. I ONLY WISH THAT I HAD THE TIME TO INCLUDE MORE UNCOMFORTABLE SEXUAL REFERENCES SO AS TO DISTRACT YOU FROM THE FACT THAT 40 FOOT TALL ROBOTS ARE FAR COOLER THAN ANY IDEA FOR A MOVIE I COULD POSSIBLY COME UP WITH ON MY OWN.)

But Michael Bay's lack of subtlety does help the movie where it really counts. If Michael Bay knows how to do one thing, it's make things explode, and it turns out that, in a movie about giant transforming robots from outer space, explosions are pretty damn important. And cool. Very, very cool. It turns out that, once you turn off your brain, the movie is a hell of a thing.

The voice acting of Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and Megatron (Hugo Weaving) are excellent, as Megatron has never seemed more menacing and Prime has never seemed more like Prime (Peter Cullen needs to read The Common Man's eulogy as Prime; he doesn't care how old Cullen is, they can pre-record it).

And the Transformers themselves, the main attraction, are excellently rendered. Their fight scenes are fast but intricately detailed. In all, they are very cool. Which is why, of course, The Common Man wanted more of them. And more robots fighting. Perhaps in the inevitable sequel, The Common Man will get all the robot-on-robot violence he so desperately needs and the film can rid itself of those meddlesome fleshlings. Until then, The Common Man has gotten his fix, and actually enjoyed it a great deal. All things considered, The Common Man had an excellent time at the theater, watching his Transformers, but it's more because of how awesome the Transformers were than anything else about the movie (particularly the script and director). He recommends the film to any fans of the old school toys, though he's quite certain that it's not going to mean much to you if you never cared for Optimus the way The Common Man did and, sadly, still does.