Time to Trash "Transformers"

After putting aside my disdain for the the "Jackass" and "Saw" movies yesterday, it's time to tear into the franchise that I think commits far worse cinematic crimes: "Transformers." I'd avoided these massively popular Michael Bay films before now, because I honestly had no interest in them. Sure, I remember the toys and the cartoons from the 80s, but they were primarily the domain of my younger brother, along with "He-Man" and "G.I. Joe." The only "Transformers" I ever really took a shine to were the CGI "Beast Wars" cartoons of the 90s.

Still, I came to the first film with some expectations. If the notorious sequel was such a major step down, then logically there had to be a decent baseline to begin with. After all, Stephen Spielberg produced it, I knew from commercials and trailers that the special effects were impressive, and it was a sizable hit that broke a lot of box office records. The film has also permeated the culture to the extent that I knew who Sam Witwicky and Bumblebee were, so I assumed it was kid safe and mainstream friendly. Also I happily make allowances for big, stupid action films that exist primarily as a vehicle for effects spectacle. I can turn my brain off for Roland Emmerich and Jerry Bruckheimer movies when necessary. Heck, I'll even admit to liking "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull," and you can't get much more mindless than that.

But even with all these caveats, I was not prepared for the sheer incompetence of "Transformers." Stupid films can be a lot of fun if they're made by people who know how to present the material in a slick and entertaining way. I'll gladly sit through the "National Treasure" and "Night at the Museum" movies even though they're hardly more than collections of splashy effects shots, cameos, and one-liners. "Transformers" fails to match even this modest standard. It's a sprawling, unfocused mess of a movie that tries to do too much, tries to be too many things at once, and runs a mind-numbing two-and-a-half hours in length. It's filled with eye-popping effects, characters that have the potential to be interesting, and plenty of material that could have been really enjoyable in other hands. And it all goes to waste.

Before I dive into the dissection, first let me present some basics about the "Transformers" universe. Two groups of warring alien robots have come to earth, who can disguise themselves as vehicles like trucks and helicopters. The good guys are the Autobots and the villains are the Decepticons. When they fight each other, they transform into giant robots with fun vehicular flourishes. Things go boom, yadda yadda. Human beings were never the focus of the franchise, but they take center stage in "Transformers." First we have a small group of soldiers in the Middle East who survive an attack by the Decepticons and are trying to warn the American government of the impending invasion. There's also a young Pentagon analyst who is also trying to raise the alarm, based on recovered data from the attack.

And then there's our main protagonist, Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf), a teenaged boy who is desperate to acquire a car and a girlfriend. The car he buys happens to be an Autobot disguised as a yellow Camaro, Bumbebee. Not long after that, he's in the right place and time to offer a ride to the school hottie, Mikaela (Megan Fox). But their bliss is short lived, because soon the Autobots and Decepticons start arriving on Earth in force. Due to the usual contrivances, Sam holds the key to a major Macguffin, the Allspark, that both sides are after. It takes at least an hour for Optimus Prime, the iconic leader of the Autobots, to appear onscreen, along with half a dozen other transformer characters we're barely introduced to, right before carnage and mayhem descend on the rest of the picutre.

I hadn't really understood the animosity that Shia Labeouf provoked from many viewers until I saw his performance in this. With Sam Witwicky, he embodies the kind of immature, adolescent, male character that only exists to be a proxy for an immature, adolescent, male audience. Sam is a bright, enterprising kid, saddled with two cartoonish buffoons for parents, an embarrassing dog, and a smart mouth. And he's also the kind of character who never really has to work for anything, who wins the day by good luck and good timing. He never makes any hard choices, gets the girl because he has a nice car, and frankly he's just dull to watch. I know Laboeuf doesn't have much to work with, but it's not a good sign when I can't find any reason to sympathize with Sam whatsoever. He acts like such an entitled jerk for the first half of the movie, the filmmakers have to introduce an even more entitled jerk as an antagonist, Agent Simmons (John Turturro), to make Sam seem less grating by default.

And then there are the Transformers themselves, who seem like minor characters in their own movie. It's difficult to tell them apart, and only Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, and the evil Megatron are really distinct characters. The Autobots are impressive-looking at first, but quickly become ridiculous after being used as comic relief in several scenes. The gag is that they learned to speak English and based their mannerisms on popular culture from TV and radio signals, thus justifying their jarring use of slang and vernacular. It's not a bad idea, but the implementation is so awkward and forced, it ends up making these towering alien beings come across like overgrown four-year-olds. One Autobot, Jazz, who speaks in stereotypical Ebonics, is the obvious precursor to the two similar characters in the sequel who were called out for engaging in racially insensitive minstrelry.

None of the humor works very well. It's childish and clumsy, resorting to scatological jokes, too-obvious pop culture references, and broad caricatures. The "Shrek" movies are subtle by comparison. What's more, Bay does a terrible job of integrating it into the rest of the film. There are some genuinely tense moments when the movie follows the soldiers in the Middle East or the hackers at the Pentagon, but then we go back to Autobots playing peek-a-boo with the Witwicky family dog. I'd have loved it if Bay just jettisoned the story with Sam and Bumblebee, and followed Josh Duhamel's and Rachael Taylor's characters. Cut out all the pandering nonsense, and you'd have a pretty decent, though very brief, "Transformers" movie.

There were some things I liked. There's no question that the effects are great, the CGI characters are beautifully designed and well animated. When the Autobots and Decepticons stop horsing around and start fighting properly, they serve up some decent action scenes. Professional voice actors rather than celebrities were wisely engaged to play the transformers, including Peter Cullen reprising the role of Optimus Prime. Bumblebee was a great character, both as a car and as a giant robot. What really gets me about the film is that it could have been a perfectly decent piece of entertainment. There was nothing wrong with the concept of "Transformers," but the filmmakers made a mess of it.

I've heard horrible things about "Revenge of the Fallen," but I expect that nothing was wrong with that film that didn't have its genesis in this one. So I'm done with this franchise until someone competent decides to reboot it.