Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

Updates:

Transformers (2007)

Director: Michael Bay

Time Out rating

Average user rating

149 reviews

Synopsis

Based on the hugely popular cartoon and toy range from the 1980s, ‘Transformers’ revolves around a war between two sets of robots for supremacy on earth. Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots, who have travelled to earth to protect mankind from Megatron and his evil army of Decepticons. Meanwhile, young human Sam Witwicky buys his first car, which just happens to be Autobot Bumblebee, and soon finds himself embroiled in the battle to save the planet.

Movie review

From Time Out London

The cars – are they here to help us or destroy us? Not an idle question in these carbon-conscious times, and Michael Bay’s ’splosiongasmic ’botfest could, at a stretch, be parsed as a grand-scale id-fantasy of America’s doomed infatuation with the internal combustion engine: both goodies and baddies look sexy as hell, and both leave destruction in their wake. You could even tease an oil-anxiety subtext out of the film’s overseas settings: a spot of blowback in the Middle East and a salutary warning against exploratory polar digging.

As in the ’80s cartoon series/corporate promotional tool on which the movie is based, Earth is the battlefield for two tribes of ancient alien robots who can shape-shift into items of our technology. (They also seem to have developed a kind of robo-parkour.) The evil, spiky Decepticons and the friendly but, in this version, equally spiky Autobots are slugging it out for control of a magic Rubik’s Cube; caught in the middle is high-school kid Sam (Shia LaBeouf), who inadvertently picks up a battered Autobot at a secondhand car lot and develops an even bigger crush on it than he has on the girl from history class (Megan Fox).

Sprawling, hardware-heavy, gung-ho with a streak of cruel humour, ‘Transformers’ is a Michael Bay movie, all right. It’s also about as nimble as a 30-foot behemoth with fried navigation circuits, lunging and lumbering from misfiring comic set-piece to messy pitched battle, landing the occasional bullseye along the way. John Turturro is good value as a sleazy spook but you’ll search in vain for anything like characterisation elsewhere, especially among the robots themselves. Less than meets… you know.

Author: Ben Walters 2007-07-24 16:35:01

Time Out London Time Out London Issue 1927: July 25-31 2007

Bookmark

User reviews of this film

DUDE said...

Posted on Aug 10 2007 11:27 dude this film was sooo tite, it totally rocked. maybe even better than live free or die hard. go c this fim u wil b so totally stalked.

Report as inappropriate
geak162 said...

Posted on Aug 10 2007 09:17 This film is great, for the first hour. It builds the story really well then it just gets boring (whilst everyone looks for a pair of glasses!!!!). The the last half hour is full-on action. It's a great film (if you're a kid) but it could. and should, have been soooo much better.

Report as inappropriate
Rob said...

Posted on Aug 09 2007 21:33 If you like mindless CGI you'll love it. If you loved the classic cartoon, you'll adore this. If you're going for an involving storyline and a meaningful narrative, don't - it doesn't have either. I wasn't expecting it to, and I LOVED it. I came out of the cinema with the biggest smile on my face. In the league of 300 and marmite - people either love it or hate it. I'm definitely in the former. Full marks.

Report as inappropriate
PARENTS REVIEWER said...

Posted on Aug 09 2007 21:31 A REVIEW FOR PARENTS TAKING CHILDREN -What was good - fast moving story with non stop action aimed at 6 -16 year olds but obviously enjoyed by immature men who watched the original as children. The time flew past. For pace and action 8/10. What was bad - The fight scenes were a blurr and it was impossible to see which robot was fighting and the obvious detail of the action was lost. Despite the enormous efforts on CGI, it was impossible to discern which bit of which robot was damaged or injured and the film was the worse for too much smash and bag in too much of a blurr. Less would have been more effective.The basphemous language which is now so common place most people simply do not hear it or ignore it, Bad language with repeated "piss" and "crap" throughout and a completely unacceptable scene about masturbation. I was ashamed. By removing the inappropriate language and the scene about masturbation the film would loose nothing.This is a childrens film and for this reason I cannot recommend parents to take or allow their young children to see it!

Report as inappropriate
Jade and Cieron said...

Posted on Aug 09 2007 19:43 Kick ass film of the year!!!

Report as inappropriate
jade n cieron said...

Posted on Aug 09 2007 19:42 kick ass film of the year!!!!

Report as inappropriate
Carlos said...

Posted on Aug 08 2007 19:20 I wasnt really into Transformers when i was a kid but thought id give it a go due to all my friends raving about. From the word go the film blew me away. The effects are amazing and have certainly set the bench mark for future films. It has something for everyone in the film, theres laughter, tears, love and jaw dropping action. Ive been to see it twice now and it was just as good the second time round...

Report as inappropriate
Stacy Shaw said...

Posted on Aug 08 2007 16:17 This is the best film i've seen in a long long time. I've seen it 3 times in 4 days!! Brilliant film, excellent!! Go Autobots!!! Optimus Prime is ace!!!!

Report as inappropriate
emma said...

Posted on Aug 08 2007 10:33 The Best Film Ever, A Must See Movie. Great From Start To End.

Report as inappropriate
Elaine said...

Posted on Aug 07 2007 18:02 Usually avoid remakes - especially kids cartoons and so was dragged to see this at 10AM Sunday morning by hubbie who assured me it would be 'absolutely ace!' - It did not disapoint! it was awesome - great story and fantastic CGI - the autobots almost seemed human! well worth giving up my lie in!

Report as inappropriate
shady said...

Posted on Aug 07 2007 15:00 i went to watch this film expecting it to be reaaly crap, but as a transformer fan i had to watch. But i was amazed every aspect of a good film was involved from effects to even having a good story which i was not expecting. Trust me it was worth watching, but have to pre-warn anyone who trys watching it on a dodgy DVD. The effects are so fast you would not have a clue what is happening def one for the cinema

Report as inappropriate
Chantelle said...

Posted on Aug 07 2007 14:41 After hearing loads of people say 'oh its brilliant' its fantatsic' 'blah blah blah' etc i assumed i wouldn't enjoy it, because whenever people really bigging up a film I usually end up disappointated. But not this time! This film absolutely blew me away. Being born in the 80's its brilliant to see it brought back with so much life. Definite 5 plus stars from me.

Report as inappropriate
Ashfaqur said...

Posted on Aug 07 2007 11:43 This film is to good you got to watch it , the best part is when butterfly busts all the cars up hahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Report as inappropriate
LuigI said...

Posted on Aug 07 2007 11:00 It started off really good kind of a comedy. then that small hacker transformer thing came and it had that really annoying screech. then the big transformers came and the moment i heard their voices i knew this would be a corny film. To long, corny, fight scene was far to long seemed to go on forever and got very boring, very good spec' effects, trailer was misleading. i was disappointed. ( allmost as bad as the 1986 film haha! )

Report as inappropriate
redvixen said...

Posted on Aug 06 2007 18:03 superb! want to see it again!!! i want a bumble bee 1!

Report as inappropriate