Transformers by James Ellaby

How do you turn an 80s toy/cartoon franchise into a successful live action motion picture, making it enjoyable for fans and non-fans alike? Bizarrely, it seems you get Michael Bay to direct it. Yes, THAT Michael Bay, the man responsible for Pearl Harbour (the film, rather than the attack, although his reputation probably wouldn't be much worse if that had been the case), although at times you have to wonder just how much influence executive producer Steven Spielberg has had.

One thing you can always guarantee from a Bay film though is lots of carnage and destruction, and Transformers certainly gives him plenty of opportunity for this, with the final showdown battle practically destructo-porn as these massive robots smash and crash each other through buildings and throw cars at each other. Where this film excels though is away from the action, and is the most surprising thing about it, because Bay has usually struggled to film anything that doesn't require a massive effects budget and lots of slow-mo.

A lot of credit has to go to screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who have written a very witty and entertaining script that is full of laughs at times when it could otherwise just seem like filling time before the robots break some more stuff. Where Sam Witwicky could have been a dull 'hero' character, Shia Labeouf plays him with real heart and humour, coming across as a mix between John Connor in T2 and Jason Biggs' character in American Pie. There's even a joke about masturbation, while Kevin Dunn and Julie White are excellent as his parents.

Sam getting his first car and his lovelorn pursuit of foxy bad-girl Mikaela has quite a lot of screentime, although with Bumblebee as his first car trying to help out by playing 'appropriate' music (Drive by The Cars and Let's Get It On by Marvin Gaye being two examples) there are times when this could almost be a Herbie movie. You can certainly see why the film-makers decided to have Bumblebee's car mode as a Camaro rather than the original VW Beetle (although there is an in-joke involving one early in the film), otherwise the audience might have started to get really confused.

Of course, by this stage, there has already been some carnage in Qatar (The Middle East, we are helpfully informed) where a Decepticon helicopter trashes a US army base. The plot, not that it particularly matters, is that both they and the Autobots are looking for the Allspark, a cube that turns things into Transformers, that crashed on Earth thousands of years ago. Decepticon leader Megatron also crashed on Earth some time after and has been frozen ever since. Gradually, all of the Transformers arrive, but as they all pretty much look and talk the same, it's hard to really care too much about any of them.

As a Transformers fan from my childhood, that's my main gripe about this film. So much time is spent on the varying human characters (all of which are pretty good and well-acted, to be fair) that the robots themselves have almost no characterisation, least of all the Decepticons, who are all just 'baddies' who barely speak, while only Bumblebee and Optimus Prime are ever really noticeable amongst the Autobots. In the climactic battle, there's so much metal and concrete flying around that you neither recognise any-one or get particularly involved with what happens to any of them.

Peter Cullen of course makes a welcome return as the voice of Optimus Prime, but it's a much deeper and raspier voice than we all remember from the cartoon, while the decision to use Hugo Weaving as Megatron is even more baffling than when it was first announced, as he has hardly any lines at all in the film and could really have been performed by anyone. One major disappointment for fans is that the promised 'traditional relationship' between Megatron and his scheming second-in-command Starscream has been completely excised from the final film, leaving the latter with next to nothing to do.

However, while the characterisation of the Transformers is slim, their transformations are pretty impressive and there's enough references to the cartoon to keep people like me happy ("One shall stand, one shall fall" by Prime to Megatron almost added another star to this film's rating), while the impressive humour and action make this a summer blockbuster that is easily accessible to those who were either more into My Little Pony back in the 80s or are too old or too young to know that Sam should really be called Spike. In a summer of vaguely disappointing sequels, Bay's Transformers really does stand tall as a very satifying film for all the family.