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Fits and starts define 'Transformers'

Christian Toto
July 2, 2007

For a good hour, there's finally more than meets the eye to a Michael Bay film.

So the director — whose numbing progeny includes "Armageddon" and "The Rock"— packs the 1980s favorite "Transformers" (opening tomorrow) with fine action, lovable characters and even a plot that holds together despite its primitive source material.

But the much-derided filmmaker just can't help himself. Soon, the Bay formula snaps into place. Take a respected actor — here, it's John Turturro — and introduce him in such a buffoonish manner that the entire picture stalls. Then, jam the screen with so much action, smoke and razzmatazz that it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, er, robots.

That's when the leaden, worse-than-a-kiddie-cartoon, dialogue comes in to update the scoreboard.

What? No paint-by-numbers kit for every ticket holder?

Ah, but for a while it's as if Mr. Bay's penchant for excess finally works in our favor.

Young Sam Witwicky (current "it" boy Shia LaBeouf) cowers in the shadow cast by the cool jocks and cheerleaders at school. He gets a break when his dad buys him a used Camaro, and he leverages it to woo his high school crush, Mikaela (Megan Fox, so stunning here she must be a special effect). Meanwhile, a U.S. Army base in Qatar is attacked by a powerful robot trying to steal military secrets, sending the government led by the secretary of defense (Oscar winner Jon Voight) into war mode. Turns out Sam's great-grandfather discovered the first evidence of a robot alien civilization, which eventually leads both the good and bad robots to Sam's door.

At this point, Mr. Bay is pushing our pleasure buttons like Liberace working a room full of blue-haired ladies. We've got Bernie Mac riffing as a used car salesman (there's a movie we'd like to see), a brave Chihuahua with a broken leg and Mr. LaBeouf proving he's worthy of all the hype. Screenwriters Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman even pull off a fine bit poking fun at the Transformers tagline, more than meets the eye.

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