Melanie Nilles

I have one word–AWESOME! I know someone who would have loved the Transformers movie as much as my husband, but unfortunately he will never see it. I know that where he is now, he’s giving it two spectral thumbs up

It’s rare when you have kids to find the time to go out to a movie. So far this year, we’ve seen Shrek the Third with our older girl, but Transformers was a night out for me and my husband. I’ll give you a hint of how old we are–we both grew up with Transformers when we were kids. Having grown up with two brothers, I didn’t have much of a choice, but I didn’t mind as I have always been a tomboy and never a girly girl. My brothers, like my husband, had a bunch of the toys. The cartoons were cool, because the concept was unique.

Well, Michael Bay has gone and turned that into one of the most intense, action-packed movies you’ll see this summer. If you like action, SEE IT!! The villains were evil. The one-liners were hilarious. Bumblebee stole the show. Megatron was nasty (”You want a piece of me?”-Jazz; “No, I want two pieces”-Megatron). Optimus had his same voice from the cartoons (same voice actor). And, ladies, Josh Duhamel is from Minot, North Dakota! We raise ‘em right! (I think the Roughrider Hall of Fame will be adding another portrait to the hall in the Capitol building in the near future

The story was well-scripted with witty dialogue and a well-thought out plot. We start with a surviving group of soldiers, led by their captain (Josh Duhamel) in Qatar after an attack by a Decepticon (Blackout–mind you, I’m getting these names from my husband) takes out a USAF base. They are followed by another Decepticon while seeking a means to communicate with the Pentagon what they know. Meanwhile, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) gives a speech in his high school history class where he’s trying to hock his explorer grandfather’s items for money to buy a car. Well, that car (Bumblebee) chooses him because they have discovered that his grandfather’s glasses have some secret etched into the lenses. The story follows Sam and the others as both sides seek the glasses to find a cube known as the All Spark, an alien device that can bring technology to life (basically turns a pop machine into a Decepticon). Bumblebee leads Sam to the Autobots while protecting him from the Decepticons, who take the form of a police car, a fighter jet, and other military vehicles. The race is on and the fighting intensifies with each round between Autobots and Decepticons with the human race caught in between and learning that some of these giant robots are on our side.

While I loved the movie and the eye-candy was dazzling, I would give it a four and a half out of five stars. I would like to have had the dialogue explain some things more clearly and the plot to slow down enough to catch my breath. It’s a good lesson in pacing. Fast is good, but too intense for that long and the mind goes numb. A well-written story has some slow moments to allow the reader/audience to catch their breath and sort out of the jumble before the next big moment. A story is made up of several mini-climaxes before the last big one where all is revealed. While Transformers is well-done with the CG and plot, I would have liked to have had a chance to get the know the characters a little better with some down time and time to explore with the human race exactly what was going on. The only weakness of the plot was that they didn’t follow the authority figures enough to see how they came to their conclusions and made the decisions they did. Their actions seemed premature and full of assumptions. The videography could have pulled back also. The fight scenes were a little too close to the action from the camera angle and much of that action ended up blurred because they moved fast!

Otherwise, AWESOME!