More Than Meets the Eye

Of course I was going to go see Transformers. I mean, what were you expecting? Truth is, I did not know what I was expecting. I guess I was just hoping the movie wouldn't be too bad. As it turned out, I liked it, but it wasn't an extraordinary film.

The story was mostly an excuse to have big robots on screen, and it definitely didn't need two hours and twenty-three minutes to unfold. Therefore, I thought the movie was too long, and it could have been streamlined to make it shorter. The acting was good -okay, at least-, and Shia LaBeouf was a great choice. After seeing him in Disturbia and Transformers, I'm sure he's going to be wonderful in the new Indiana Jones movie. He was also funny, but so was much of the movie: I sure wasn't expecting to laugh as much as I did; even the Autobots crack wise occasionally! And let's not forget John Turturro: he owns his FBI agent, and he is hilarious.

The robots (and other special effects) look good and very realistic (or as realistic as those huge piles of metal could look, I guess), they have distinct (if slightly stereotypical) personalities, and I'm glad they had Jazz in the movie (as a fan, I wished they would have also had Wheeljack, Grimlock and Blaster, but that's okay).

But the robots weren't the only eye candy in the movie. I spent the whole film trying to decide if Megan Fox looked better than Rachael Taylor, or if it was the other way around. I guess it doesn't matter because, in the end, I didn't really have to choose: I could love them both, hahaha.

The action was cool, but Michael Bay's trademark bumpy, blurry camera got in the way sometimes, and it was kind of hard to enjoy -hell, to figure out- what was going on. I understand this might seem a somewhat realistic approach, because if you had big-ass robots fighting downtown, the debris and the utter chaos would make things difficult to see, but still. However, and even though I was supposed to be rooting for the Autobots since they're the good guys and had their personalities more developed than their enemies', but the truth is that I didn't find the conflict very compelling. The whole thing felt rather cold, and I found myself thinking that McClane's adventures had been way more engrossing than the robotic mayhem. Maybe I like humans better than machines, because I think I liked the human component in the movie (LaBeouf mainly) better than the robots. Or maybe I'm just weird.

To sum it up, the movie is entertaining if a bit too long, and it's just fun to watch and little else. So get some popcorn and have a good time.