Transformers: Less Than Meets the Eye

Those of you who were fans of the animated series could end up just as disappointed as I was by Michael Bay's live-action version of Transformers. It wasn't necessarily a bad film but it certainly wasn't as great as all the hype made it out to be.

The story takes place on earth as two alien clans, the Autobots and the Deceptacons, are continually fighting in a war for the Allspark (as if I had to retell a tale like this). This whole story SHOULD have been the main focus in the movie but NO!!!

Of course Hollywood has to downgrade an epic story like this, just like they did with X-Men. (Rogue, one of the strongest X-Men is a weakling? But I'll save X-Men for a future rant.) The movie did not water-down the series so much, but like every movie that has such a large fan base, it's hard to tell what could have, would have, and should have happened.

What Worked: The cinematic fight sequences weren't as memorable as I had hoped. Of course, the design of the all of the bots was amazing. We didn't see everyone's weapons and only a limited use of Optimus Prime's sword.

The storyline between Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBouf), Optimus and Bumblebee was one of the highlights. If the movie would have focused more on them it would have been way more entertaining, especially during a two on two fight with Optimus and Bumblebee v.s. two Decepticons.

Also, I love that they kept the sound when the bots transform.

The movie was funny, and of course entertaining. Look for a great cameo by Bernie Mac.

Still, the best and only fight scene that I loved was when Optimus uses his sword.

What Didn't Work: The integration of a love storyline with Megan Fox (though she is hot) was not recessary. Josh Duhmel's back story (WTF?) also seemed to drag the movie down, as did Tyresse Gibson's bad acting.

Worst of all was the excessive amount of in-movie advertising for General Motors. Practically every vehicle in the movie was in some way connected to GM! The commercial marketing, and not exploring more characters and weapons really prevented this movie from reaching its awesome potential.

Verdict: I love Trasnformers......the animated series, not the movie. While I don't hate Bay's work, and I don't hate the movie, I feel that, with a franchise that has been around for decades, there's no excuse to make an OK movie. It should be great. And you should never commercialize a franchise just to make more profit.

Final Score: 3 out of 5