Transformers movie review & film summary (2007)

The movie is inspired by the Transformer toys that twist and fold and double in upon themselves, like a Rubik's Cube crossed with a contortionist. A yellow Camaro unfolds into a hulking robot, helicopters become walking death monsters, and an enemy named Megatron rumbles onto the screen and, in a voice that resembles the sound effects in "Earthquake," introduces himself: "I--AM--MEGATRON!!!"

I think that's the first time I've used three exclamation points. But Megatron is a three-exclamation-point kinda robot. He is the most fearsome warrior of the evil Decepticons, enemies of the benevolent Transformers. Both races (or maybe they're brands) of robots fled the doomed planet Cybertron and have been drawn to Earth because Megatron crash-landed near the North Pole a century ago and possesses the Allspark, which is the key to something, I'm not sure what, but since it's basically an alien MacGuffin it doesn't much matter. (Note to fanboys about to send me an e-mail explaining the Allspark: Look up "MacGuffin" in Wikipedia.)

The movie opens like one of those teen comedies where the likable hero is picked on by bullies at school, partly because he didn't make the football team, and mostly because he doesn't have a keen car. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) talks his dad into buying him one, and he ends up with an old beater, a yellow Camaro that is actually the Transformer named Bumblebee and gets so mad when his paint job is insulted that it transforms itself into a shiny new Camaro.

This is more than a hot car. It plays the soundtrack to Sam's life. It helps Sam become visible to his sexy classmate Mikaela (Megan Fox), who says, "Do I know you?" Sam mentions casually that they take four classes together and have been in the same school since first grade. The high school stuff, which could be a teenage comedy on its own, segues into the battling robot stuff, and there is some low-key political satire in which the secretary of defense (Jon Voight) runs the country, while the president (not even credited) limits himself to a request for a Ding-Dong.

Voight sends the armed services into action, and we see a lot of Sgt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Tech Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson). They and their men labor during much of the movie under the optimistic impression that a metal robot the size of a 10-story building can be defeated by, or even brought to notice, automatic weapons fire. Sam and Bumblebee are crucial to the struggle, although a secret ops guy (John Turturro) asks the defense secretary, "You gonna lay the fate of the world on a kid's Camaro?"

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