More than meets the eye? Probably not.

I watched the film with my son tonight after work. Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay are co-executive producers and Bay directed. I read a review that said the first half of the film is Spielberg and the second half is Bay and that turned out to be pretty accurate. Characters are developed and you sort of begin to care about them in the first half. Everything blows up in the second half. The visual effects were stunning. The acting was not horrible and there was a joke about it being 7 times better than Armageddon (an abysmal Bay film).

There were some excellent values in the film. The Autobots have honor and loyalty and respect Optimus Prime’s leadership. They are willing to sacrifice themselves for a greater cause. These are laudable things that Hollywood more often than not messes up. They can’t seem to understand virtue.

However, there was some unnecessary crude humor in the film that ruined it. My family will not be seeing this film. The ‘humor’ was brief but it was still too much. Because of it I would say that this is not a family film. Don’t take your family to see it. Instead take the family to see Ratatouille. A few times. It was good natured humor with lovable character.

A good portion of Transformers was filmed at Edwards Air Force Base, my old stomping ground. It served as Qatar and Nellis AFB. I saw the place I used to work a couple of times. :) We used to call it North Hollywood Air Force Base for a while. That was back when Bay filmed part of Armageddon there. When the A-10s rolled in to save the day I just about cheered. What a nerd. Hey, I was too old to watch Transformers on TV so I got to nerd-out over something else in the movie. The Air Force came to the rescue.