Transformers

Ladies and gentlemen, I have an impossible, amazing announcement to make. One that will shatter your mind into tiny, disbelieving pieces.

Michael Bay has made a movie that doesn’t suck.

I know, I know. It’s crazy! But after a career replete with MTV-action mediocrity (The Island, Armageddon, Pearl Harbour), Michael Bay has hit on a winner. It’s about robots… robots in disguise.

Based on the successful Hasbro toy franchise, animated series, comic books, animated film… yeah, you get the idea, the Transformers are given a new lease on life in their first big-screen live-action outing.

It’s big dumb fun. That was never in doubt. This is, after all, a Michael Bay film. It’s full of fast-edit fight sequences, syrupy emotional bits, and the usual crap about how ordinary people can find inner strength and save the world blah blah blah

But despite and maybe because of all the chaos and running about, the film triumphs. The machines have been overhauled from their original incarnations, looking bigger, shinier and more streamlined than ever. There’s nothing to fault as far as special effects go: frankly, they’re mindblowing. And the characters they do bother to put emphasis on - Shia LeBeouf’s (Holes, Disturbia) reluctant hero for example - are genuine enough and believably heartfelt, even if minor characters fall by the wayside

The balance is perfect. Michael Bay has managed to imbue real heart into his characters – we do actually care what happens to them, even the robotic ones. There are moments of comedy (wait until you see what the Mountain Dew vending machine does). And the action is spectacular.

But we’re all here to see the machines, aren’t we? There’s a plot, yes. Something about a magic cube and a pair of reading glasses in the Antarctic. But who cares? As the Autobots duke it out with the Decepticons, we’re transported to a world where god is Optimus Prime, the devil is Megatron, and a stereo can be more than meets the eye.

A must-see for all the eighties kids who remember a simpler time, and for a new generation of human children.