Transformers is easily Michael Bay’s best film since 1996’s The Rock. It’s still wildly energetic and it is edited at warp speed, but it is also full of breathless imagination and rock’em sock’em CGI action sequences that are, for once this summer, actually worth their salt. Audiences are going to love it, and by the time is all said and done I fully expect this re-imagining of the popular Hasbro toy line and the 1980’s cartoon series to become the biggest popular hit of the entire year.

Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, in Dreamworks' Transformers

Just don’t expect me to watch it again.

That’s probably a bit harsh. But, seriously, once you’ve seen the thing there really isn’t one good reason to take it in for second time. You can only watch gigantic computer generated robots beat one another to smithereens for so long before you find yourself growing tired. A person can only take so much whiz-bang before it finally all starts to look the same, and while this one offers more thrills, chills and spills than either Spider-Man 3 or Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End that doesn’t make it the greatest thing since sliced bread, either.

What you have, of course, is style and visually wizardry over anything remotely substantive. Not that this should come as a surprise. Considering the source material, what exactly did you expect writers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Mission: Impossible III) to come up with? We aren’t talking Shakespeare, that’s for sure, and if the film tends to revel in far too many Independence Day-style theatrics who am I to say there was another way to take things other then this?

That doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could. At a 140-minutes sitting through this glossy over-produced comic book adventure can be more than a bit tiring. While the human characters certainly acquit themselves nicely (Shia LaBeouf is starting to look more like a movie star every day, while Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and Jon Voight all do just enough to not make you not annoy the fact their presence is keeping you from watching more of the action), the silly story (revolving around a gigantic cube called the Allspark and the race by the Autobots – the good robots – and the Decepticons – the bad robots – to possess it) is more than a bit exasperating.

Seriously, do we really need Anthony Anderson showing up as genius Jeff Goldblum-style computer geek? Are scenes of a monstrously over the top John Turturro (playing a frenzied government agent that would make Jeffery Combs proud) harassing LaBeouf and Fox at all necessary? Did Bay and company really have to include a joke of a red sock-clad President Bush asking for Hostess pastries during a national crisis? Okay, so that last one is actually kind of funny (especially considering how right wing much of this film actually is), but as I’m sure you can tell this picture is nowhere near as dark or as mysterious as the trailers and commercials have led us all to believe.

That’s fine because, again, this is a movie about gigantic robots trying to beat each other to smithereens after all, but in the end I really could have used a little less ridiculousness and a bit more gravitas in order to make my time sitting in the theater watching it well-spent. Don’t get me wrong. The promised Megatron (the head baddie) versus Optimus Prime (the good guy, naturally) smackdown is pretty incredible, while an opening assault in the sands of Qatar is so good it almost makes me what to take every bad thing I’ve ever said about Bay after Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II and The Island back.

I’m not going to, of course, but at least the thought ran through my head (which is probably saying something and means I should maybe be giving the picture more of a break then I am). The thing is, as much fun as much of it is if I’m going to go to the theater for bubblegum I’ll take the visceral real-world thrills of Live Free or Die Hard over this any day. Still, Transformers is a lot of fun if you’re in the right mood, and while it’s certainly not more than meets the eye it’s still good enough to keep most audiences happily animated for the foreseeable future.

Film Rating:  êê1/2  (out of 4)