Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 1

“Transformers” heavy on action, light on story

Longtime fans of the “Transformers” toy and cartoon series were outraged when it was announced that Michael Bay would direct the live action adaptation. Those fans had no need to worry. After seeing his vision of “Transformers,” it is obvious that no one but Bay could have made this movie work.

The cartoon series always had the simplest of plots, so animators could cut to the big fight scenes and allow kids to hurry out and make their parents buy the toys. It’s only fitting that a faithful adaptation of a cartoon would feature a thin plot heavy on action and adrenaline-pumping excitement but light on actual plot. “Transformers” fit the description of a Michael Bay film perfectly before it was even made.

Bay has a talent for crafting visually vibrant action sequences, almost always at the expense of character development (see “The Rock” for a best-case example and “Pearl Harbor” for a worst-case example). With this film, Bay gets to show off his skills at getting gigantic computer-generated robots to smash into each other. Every trick in his book-overdone explosions, heavily reliance on slow motion, quick edits-is on display here. Again, the plot in his film is a meager formality; for Bay, he earns his money on the action sequences, and with “Transformers,” he earned himself a big payday.

The plot focuses on the civil war between two races of living robots from the planet Cybertron. The beings from the planet get into a huge fight over control of a cube called the “Allspark,” which is composed of pure energy. The destructive Decepticons, led by the evil Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving) want to use it for nefarious purposes, while the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen) want its power for good.

The war causes Cybertron to be destroyed and the allspark to be thrown across the universe. The transformers track the cube to Earth. The Decepticons arrive first and attack U.S. troops stationed in Qatar in order to infiltrate military software and discover the cube’s whereabouts.

Meanwhile, a nerdy teenager named Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) discovers that the beat-up old Camaro he just bought seems to be coming to life. It is actually the Autobot Bumblebee (voiced by Mark Ryan). Bumblebee is on a mission to locate Sam, whose grandfather first encountered the cube in 1895. Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and the Autobots must now find the cube and destroy it before the