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Anonymous
I thought it was a pretty good movie. I liked the new designs for the Transformers. Much more alien. The special effects were great, with the transformation sequences being handled very well. It was also very amusing, particularly the scene where the Autobots were tearing up Sam's yard. I liked how it actually showed humans doing things like calling in air strikes (seriously, did they ever do anything in the series, or were they all helpless Decepticon fodder?). Frenzy kicked ass as well. And of course, Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime.
However, it could've been better in certain areas. The action scenes were very brutal and kinetic, but they were often brief (Bonecrusher lasted, what, a minute?) and/or suffered from odd cinematography, such as unusual angles or jerky, blurry motion. Also, very little was done to develop the characters of most of the Transformers themselves, with most of the emphasis going towards Bumblebee, Prime, Megatron, and Frenzy. Most of the Decepticons were introduced fairly late into the film, and (besides Megatron) had few if any lines or anything. The traditional dynamic between Megatron and Starscream was only hinted at, Barricade had a couple of lines before simply vanishing, Frenzy was comic relief, and the rest were simply big, dumb, characterless brawlers. While I liked that humans were actually doing their part in defending Earth, Bay really could've placed more emphasis on the Transformers themselves, that way he could've used more of that 2 ½ hours developing the Transformers' characters.
Overall, I give the movie 3 out of 4 stars. It's a great action movie with a lot of nostalgic appeal. It's definitely worth a watch. Hopefully the sequel, which will apparently have a new director, will correct the bad things about it. The action scenes should have better cinematography, and more focus should be placed on the Transformers themselves, giving them more character and personality, dialogue, screentime, etc.
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