Walking Amongst Dark Shadows

Stupid looking CGI bots ahoy!

When I first heard that the yanks, well Micheal Bay to be precise had bastardised the Transformers film by ‘updating’ it to modern day movie standards I like many fans was less then happy. However to cut a long whining story short, I had to swallow my pride upon seeing the film tonight because even though I said it’ll suck, it was in fact superb. Me and Deena rushed to the cinema to watch this as we were strapped for time. Over in my home town, this sodding film has been booked solid for weeks, hell we couldn’t even get a Saturday late night ticket, so Sunday evening had to suffice.

After munching on Pizza’s, which are strangely becoming a weekly addiction for us two we bounced off towards the cinema. We barely made it in time just as the mysterious Cloverfield trailer was airing before the main film.

The film tells the story of the age old struggle between the Autobots, the good guys and the bad guys who are the Decepticon’s. The latter have been on Earth for a while now searching for the Allspark - a cube of power that Megatron (stupid looking baddie leader) wants to use to ultimately take over Earth. The Autobots, led by Optimus Prime want to protect Earth and humanity as they believe humanity is an important species, with a bright future (shows how clever they are!) and they want the Allspark destroyed. However a secret US Military segment known as Sector Seven has long ago captured the Allspark in a top secret underground lair. However, within this lair they also have a cryogenically frozen Megatron - who crash landed on Earth long before the Autobots did.

Shia LaBeouf, plays Sam Witwicky, a high school geek type who becomes involved in the entire situation because of his great grandfather, who was an artic explorer. He stumbled across Megatron who crash landed in Antartica and was frozen solid. He also found the location of the Allspark but was knocked unconscious, not before the location of the cube was imprinted on his glasses. Back to present day, and Sam’s father buys him a car for graduation, which turns out to be Bumblebee, an Autobot and sadly not the Volkswagon Beetle he should be.

Bumblebee has been assigned to protect Sam from the Decepticon’s who eventually learn through Ebay (groan) that the owner of the old glasses that are up for sale, is in fact Sam. Then Megan Fox turns up looking hot and sultry and the guys in the cinema start getting hot and sweaty, hell who can blame them! Move over Mrs.Jolie (you were overrated anyway!) Sadly both Shia and Megan fail to add much to the film, and its quite hard when the film is dominated by some of the best CGI I have ever seen. It’s hard not to be knocked sideways by such awesome looking computer generated robots!

Shia eventually saves the day, and risks his life (heroic lucky goit) in doing so, which results in the Autobots owing their lives to the guy. On the whole, one hell of a good film, just don’t expect much in the way of a good plot. A sequel has been penned with both Megan and Shia returning for their roles. I look forward to December 2007 now and the HD-DVD release!