Transformers

What a bizarre, mess of a movie. Transformers is perhaps the most unusual film of the year (or any year for that matter); a sci-fi epic that is gloriously over-the-top, hardly makes a lick of sense (I doubt even the human characters are from Planet Earth), and ends with the most bombastic and chaotic action scene I have ever seen.

As the final credit rolled I couldn't tell if Michael Bay had just directed the most brilliant B-movie of all time, or a colossally misguided clunker. Regardless, or perhaps because of its schizophrenic nature, I enjoyed the film, although often for reasons that I'm sure were unintentional.

Everything actually starts out quite well. There's an impressive action scene involving a group of American soldiers in Qatar who are attacked by a helicopter Transformer. Then, the action cuts to the story of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), a nerdy teen, who is looking forward to buying his first car so he'll have better luck with the ladies. LaBeouf is surprisingly good in the role, and the early scenes involving the purchase of his Transformer car are pretty funny.

Then Bay introduces the female love interest played by Megan Fox, and the warning light starts flashing. I get that the movie is made for teenage boys, so I'm not expecting a deep relationship, but Fox is clearly window dressing, a complete and utter male fantasy who Michael Bay shoots with a fetishistic glee that would be more at home on Skinemax. You see, she's hot, but deep down she just wants to be around guys who appreciate her true talents, like the fact that she knows everything about cars (clearly something most guys would find unattractive and repulsive).

Then the movie just starts introducing an abundance of random characters on top of Sam, and the soldiers we met in the opening scene. Jon Voight shows up as the defense secretary, and there's a whole bunch of attractive code breakers. Suddenly, the script's subplots start mounting, and it becomes painfully clear that the movie is turning into a jumbled mess.

The central concept of a boy buying a car with special powers, while potentially interesting, is never really developed. Bay is too interested getting into the meaty robot action scenes to spend any considerable time with the characters.

At this point I have to admit I was worried. I didn't really care about anyone in the movie, aside from Sam (LaBeouf really should be commended for his gusto), too much was happening that I could care less about (those code breakers kept coming back with other, wackier code breakers), and the humour was becoming stale. But, just as I was giving up hope, an interesting thing started to happen. The heroic Transformers arrived from outer space and suddenly the movie decided that logic, and tone were unimportant.

There is a sequence halfway through the movie where the Transformers want to get some historical eye-glasses from Sam (long story) and they hide out in his yard, while Sam's parents start to become suspicious that something weird is going on. This section of the movie could quite literally be from an episode of Three's Company with Sam's parents as the Ropers, and the Transformers as the beautiful women Jack Tripper (Sam) is trying to prevent them from seeing. The fifty foot Transformers hide behind trees, under trellises, and in the bushes, all while Sam's parents (who must have lost their vision and hearing since the beginning of the movie) believe Sam is up to some independent sexual exploration in his room. The scene goes on and on, getting worse and worse, yet oddly hilarious, with each passing second. It's a train wreck of a scene, and just when I didn't think it could get any more ridiculous, John Turturro knocks on Sam's front door.

Now I like John Turturro, but someone seems to have forgotten to tell him that Transformers was not being directed by the Coen Brothers. Turturro enters the movie in full-on Barton Fink bat-ass crazy mode.

All of the plot threads converge oh so conveniently at the Hoover Dam subterranean alien laboratory (where it is finally revealed that aside from Sam's story, the other plots are utterly useless and were indeed just a waste of time), and it doesn't take long for Megatron, the evil alien robot, to cause some havoc with the heroic Transformers, who pass time by sitting on top of Griffith Observatory like it's a park bench.

The grand finale; a half hour robot smackdown in the streets of Los Angeles is, unfortunately not very imaginative (although there are some clever moments), but Bay seems to cover up his lack of ideas by blowing up every single thing known to mankind. It's messy chaos. Half the time I couldn't tell which robots were fighting, and the action is so busy, that it is difficult to follow what is even happening. The army guys yell a lot and shoot their guns. Sam runs a lot. Sam's hot girlfriend finally does something useful involving a tow truck (remember she's really knowledgeable about cars). Basically, it's just a whole lot of insanity, with an ending that I still don't really understand.

Yet, despite how bad it all is, it's so goofy, and entertaining that I couldn't stop laughing. Every year I usually nominate a tongue-in-cheek B-movie that is ten times more fun than it has every right to be (movies like Deep Blue Sea or The Core). I have to say that despite it's huge budget, big name pedigree, and the fact that I'm not sure if it was trying to be tongue-in-cheek, Transformers is my top nomination for the year. For those still on the fence I will refer you to the scene where Turturro takes on a mini-transformer with a flame thrower while Jon Voight dutifully backs him up with a shotgun. It may not be high art, but a moment like that is some form of cinematic bliss.

Star Rating **1/2 out of 4