Transformers!

The first I heard of the "live action Transformers movie" was while watching Clerks II. I seriously thought it was a joke. Even when I found out it was for real, I still thought it was a joke. I mean, why? I was in my mid-teens when the first run of the anime series was aired, and since it was thoroughly targeted at boys under 12, I was completely uninterested. Optimus Prime? Decepticons? Bwuch.

So of course I went to see the movie.

Several things within this movie surprised me. I thought it was going to be a dumb movie, and it was. Extremely dumb.

But . . . here it comes . . .

THIS WAS THE COOLEST DUMB MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN!!!!!!

Here is a short list of surprises:

1) It had a plot. An involved, convoluted, *interesting* plot.
2) When an alien robot uploads or downloads files from the Terran internet, it has to wiggle its head at a rather high frequency.
3) All obnoxious people pick their noses.
4) All extremely beautiful young women (even the shallow ones) are extremely well versed computer hacks and car mechanics, and like to date weird looking guys who are socially inept.
5) Alien robots shop on eBay.
6) There were several jokes that made me laugh out loud.
(Fat guy running down street with video camera during a meteor storm that turns out to be the Autobots and Decepticons plummeting to Earth: "This is ten times cooler than Armageddon, I swear to God!")
(Chaz: "Oh, you want a piece of me?"
Megatron: "No! I want two!" rips Chaz in half.)
7) When there are many, extremely large, high-tech, battle-ready Autobots just standing around, it makes more sense to have a wimpy human try to outrun Megatron and take the Allspark cube to the top of a building to hand it off to the US Military.
8) Alien robots are completely familiar with human social customs, to the point where they know how to play cupid and make cheese-ball wisecracks.
9) A tow truck has enough juice to drag or push an Autobot around town.
10) You can buy an Autobot at a used car dealership for $4000 US.

Overall, this movie (even if you weren't into the anime) is pure entertainment. The CG was unbelievably realistic, the humour was well placed, and there were lots (and lots) of explosions. Even the soundtrack was good -- I know, not what you'd expect from this kind of movie. Perhaps my reactions to it were not what the movie makers intended, but I still had a lot of fun.

Rating: 10.5 out of 5.