Finally got around to seeing it...
I don't know why I'm disappointed, it's not as if I was expecting much. But, dang it, I just dislike the way Micheal Bay directs movies. I know it's trendy to pick on him, but he has absolutely no sense of on-screen patience. There is never any real tension, nor any sense of character. He shoots the whole movie like its a giant stack of ADD postcards. How many times can we see people silhouetted on a sunset? Useless slow motion? Hyper-saturated close-ups? He is so over stylized, that consequently he has no style. I would love to see Bay--for once--to just hold the CAMERA STILL.
The story I guess is okay. Yeah, it's stupid--but then again the source material comes from a bunch of toys. It's not high art (must get giant MacGuffin before it's too late!). I just had a problem with the useless subplots (hot sixteen year old hacker in the pentagon? ?). Josh Duhamel talking about how he needs to get home to his kid (gag me!). The movie should have cut out both of these plots and just stuck with Shia Lebeouf's character and the war between the transformers. Lebeouf's got good comedic timing and he's charming. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Megan Fox. Could they have written a more clichéd character?
To give the film credit, the special effects are amazing. The robots are funny and it's fun to watch them transform. And, on a basic level, it's hard not to geek-out when giant robots are fighting each other for like forty minutes straight. The climactic battle is unquestionably the best thing about the movie.
But, In the end, it's so empty. Yeah, I realize it's a summer blockbuster...but I've already forgotten a lot of what I've just seen. It doesn't stick with you. It just exists. There really isn't any more than meets the eye...
