Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 62

I have great memories as a child, the whole family gathered round at Christmas to watch that big blockbuster movie; but something I always feel strongly about is that for a movie to have that real longevity and real appeal to the younger audience the film really needs to be set in the present; the reason? Because kids have great imaginations, and they love to believe that the sort of things that happen to the kids in these could happen to them. Goonies, Lost Boys, Gremlins, Back To The Future, and Independence Day all being prime examples of this, good family movies that all can relate to. I’ve not seen a really good example of this sort of movie since Stargate, and from the opening hour of Transformers I realised that the kids of today could now have that same feel that I had.

When Transformers were big first time round I was a bit too old, I was at the stage when kids my age stopped playing with toys, and I was gutted; a whole period of my childhood was spent playing with seemingly bad toys, then all of a sudden these amazing toys that were in fact two toys for the price of one appeared on our shores. I’d secretly watch the cartoon but never admit to it, now I had the opportunity to enjoy Transformers without stigma attached; after all it was pretty much THE film of the summer.

Transformers opens with two separate stories that connect as the movie progresses; in the Far East in a US army camp Captain Lennox (Josh Dummal from Turistas AKA Paradise Lost) is looking forward to his return home to see his newly born daughter. But the arrival of a long missing helicopter brings this dream to an end; more or less the entire bases inhabitants are killed when the helicopter turns into a giant killer robot; and Lennox and a few survivors must make their way across the desert in order to communicate with the White House and tell them of the impending terror.

In a small community in the US Sam (Shia LeBeouf) is looking forward to getting his first car, but his dream turns sour when he ends up at a bottom of the ladder car dealership, and a dealer with unscrupulous methods. Sam spots a car shortly after the dealer tells him that the car often picks its owner, something about this car certainly picked Sam. In an attempt to sell him a wreck of a car instead after haggling over the price of this chosen car fails, the car seems to re-emphasise its choosing by smashing all the windows in every other car.

It’s not long before Sam realises that his new car is something