Transformers

Rating: M for "More than meets the eye" (yeah, it's gonna be that kind of review)
Important to know: Loud, some shocking but not gruesome death-by-throwing blades, probably not good for little kids
For the Gamer Chicks: If you loved the Transformers when you were younger, you will be thrilled to see them. Three female action movie stereotypes.

The first thing that must be clear is that I loved this movie. I shouted and cheered and looked at my younger sister in wide-eyed glee throughout, and left happy. I at one point said something like, "I think that's the greatest movie experience I'll have all summer."

Now that my love of the movie has been made clear, understand that none of the following criticism made me dislike it or despise Michael Bay any more than I already did. I've seen Pearl Harbor, so you can guess how much I'd like to see that man stepped on by a giant robot. This movie proves that the right material can rise above Michael Bay, the Transformers were too cool for him to ruin.

According to people who've read the comics, the film pulls more from them than the cheesy cartoon, with the exception of course, being Peter Cullen, who returns as Optimus Prime and narrates the opening and closing of the film. Hearing the age in the man's voice was a little disconcerting, when he was young he was the voice of your uncle, now it's more like your grandfather.

The plot is shoestring: there is a cube called the Allspark. It's been lost for ages, but found on Earth. The evil Decepticons want to use it to kill us all and turn Earth into a new Cybertron(their destroyed homeworld). The heroic Autobots want to keep it safe and save us from the Decepticons. The U.S. government of course wants to use it for war and profit (a secret government agency no less).

In the middle of this tug of war are three groups of people: some soldiers who survived a Decepticon attack on their base in Qatar, the Secretary of Defense (awesomely done by John Voight) and his crew of computer geeks, and Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) who happens to be the descendant of the arctic adventurer who made first contact with a particularly dangerous visitor: Megatron. Literally along for the ride is Mikela, the girl of Sam's dreams who is as pretty as Sam is awkward, but for the sake of the plot must be a closet mechanic.

That's a lot of characters to follow, but as Michael Bay cannot seem to grasp that less is more, there are unnecessary "comic" scenes with police officers who believe Sam is on drugs because he swears his new yellow Camarro (Fan-Favorite Bumblebee, upgraded from a VW Bug) turned into a giant robot. Also thrown in are hackers who will never be seen after the midpoint of the film, replaced by another "funny" character who eats too many donuts.

If it feels like this review is bogged down in humans, that's how the movie feels at points. The Decepticons and Bumblebee get some screen time early on, but for long stretches it's nothing but humans. All that is forgiven, however, when the Autobots arrive and choose their forms. The scene when Sam and Mikela meet Optimus, Jazz, Ratchet and Ironhide is fantastic. The transformations are believable and amazingly cool. Later in the film when the Decepticons respond to Megatron's summons and also transform is equally great.

Also well done is the slow reveal about Megatron. When he does appear, he is terrifying, and that terror has been well-built by the Autobots and the human characters. Another good choice is to mask the usually unique voice of Hugo Weaving by having him sound as if he is gargling gravel from the bottom of a metal garbage can. It reads like it should be silly, but played well on screen.

The robots are all male personalities, the main characters are all guys. The exceptions are Mikela, Sam's mom Judy, and Maggie Madsen, the lady hacker whose name I only know because it was on the Internet. Hacker Maggie, it must be said, has distractingly shiny lip gloss that never fades over the two days of the story. Seriously, there's a giant robot on screen, and I kept wondering how she found the time to reapply. Each of these women exists for one personality trait. Maggie's the brains, Mikela's got courage, and Judy's the caring one. Imagine Sam as Dorothy Gale, and you get the idea.

The fighting is done in typical Bay style, fast, loud, complicated and crowded. I got a headache. Better done were the one-on-one robot fights done in open space, such as Optimus versus Bonecrusher.

Bay knew the audience, however. When the time for the final battle arrives, Optimus readies his troops with the battle cry "Autobots, Roll Out" and Megatron howls his trademarked command: "Decepticons, ATTACK!" The dialog even accommodated a version of the classic tagline, "More than meets the eye."

And everyone who remembers hearing those words as children cheered.