The Transformer movies starting from the first one in 2007 are similar in that they are all noisy, busy, colourful, have amazing stunts, super SFX and eminently forgettable. Based on Hasbro toys, the movies tell of a war between alien robots who transform themselves into automobiles.
Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is the school nerd who has to save the world from this war between the good autobots and the evil decepticons. The autobots are led by Optimus Prime voiced by Peter Cullen while Megatron (Hugo Weaving taking a break from agent Smith and Elrond) leads the decepticons.
Sam gets involved in the war because the car he buys to impress school hottie Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) turns out to be the autobot Bumblebee from the planet Cybertron. Sam learns that Cybertron was destroyed and the life force in a cube crashlanded on earth many millions of years ago.
The decepticons want to use the cube to create an army and take over the universe. Sam helps stall the wicked plans and gets the car, the girl and the world. The film was directed by Michael Bay, who made all those noisy but kind of fun blockbusters in the 90s with producer Jerry Bruckheimer including Bad Boys and The Rock .
Transformers was a hit and the sequel followed quickly. In 2009 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen sees Sam off to college with the autobots joining with the army to hunt the remaining decepticons. Megatron is resurrected and some ancient machine is stuck about in a pyramid in Egypt which is going to destroy the sun and life as we know it. The film was universally panned with even director Bay and LaBeouf apologising for the movie. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote in The Chicago Sun-Times , “If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.”
Despite the mauling by the critics, the film was success and in 2011, Transformers: Dark of the Moon (what happened to ‘side’?) was out. Sam is now finished college and got a new girlfriend (Megan Fox was apparently replaced after she said not so complimentary things about Bay’s style of working). The film, in 3D with a weird Obama moment, shifted the war between autobots and decepticons to a space race between USA and Russia.
Now after much back and forth and will he, wont he Bay is back for the fourth instalment which apart from having a whole new human cast also has dinobots—robots that transform into mechanical dinosaurs, despite Bay saying he hated the idea when it first came up during the development of Revenge of the Fallen.
So the humans are represented by Mark Wahlberg who plays struggling inventor Cade Yeager. Nicola Peltz is his daughter Tessa and Jack Reynor plays Tessa’s boyfriend Shane a race car driver. How come 43-year-old Wahlberg’s is already playing papa to teenagers? There is also Stanley Tucci as a horrid designer.
Optimus Prime continues to lead the autobots while Galvatron leads the decepticons and Grimlock who transforms into a T-Rex, leads the Dinobots. Like the earlier movies, this is one is also over two hours long—45 minutes longer to be precise. With good, bad and ugly robots, 3D and hectic CGI it is time for more manic mayhem from Bay.
