Transformers 1

I watched this in preparation for watching Transformers 2. In retrospect, this was better than the sequel ; pretty amazing, given how bad it is. Shia LeBoef is reasonably good on his own; when he's only talking to himself, he plays a convincing unknowing kid who gets in way over his head, and knows it.

The basic set up for the movie is that Shia's grandfather discovered something in the ice while exploring in the arctic north many years ago. He evidently wasn't able to turn this discovery into much financially, but does have a reputation that's worth something. Thus, when the kid needs some money to buy his first car, old relics go up on EBay in hopes of attracting a collector.

Without spoiling too much, the collectors that are interested in these items are more akin to EBay's servers than humanity. Somehow this all feeds into a showdown between the good guys and the bad guys, where Shia is drafted by the good guys into a showdown; the stakes prove planetary and the explosions many.

Bay has done this sort of movie before -- I am not an especial fan of his storytelling, but I can't recall ever seeing a movie of his that went this far off the track before. It's an awkward 3 act movie: shia is bumbling kid, they're trying to find the mcguffin, and they're trying to stop the decepticons from gaining ultimate power. The first and last bits feel strung out ... the director and/or writers wanted to have the story do X and Y, and forgot to string the scenes between them.

I've seen many critics complain that the fight scenes are confusing, since the robot characters are all chrome and jagged angles; I thought these concerns were ill-founded. The fights are pretty clear and, if there are brief instants where a photograph reveals confusion, the fights' momentum would reveal all to the diligent viewer. The main trouble is that Bay makes the robots too tough; no ranged weapon other than a particularly powerful one the US military has seems to make any impact on the machines, so these advanced robots end up punching each other. Somehow this does more damage than all the artillery they have at hand.