Transformers Rocks!

Just got back from watching the new live-action Transformers flick.  OMG, it was better than I could have imagined.

We got to the theater minutes before the film started.  The lights dimmed shortly after we took our seats.  The previews started and... the film burned through!  It actually burned through, ripped, and the lights went up.  The horrid commercial slide show started up again and we had to wait...  after about five minutes, they switched the reels up and the films preroll trailers began.

The movie opens with Optimus Prime explaining the origin of the Allspark, and the fate of Cybertron.

The pace was fast and furious from the destruction of a US air base in Katar, and the search for answers.  Amazingly for a modern film, there was only one reference to how the events were like something out of a comic book.  Other than that, the story was treated seriously, as a proper action film.  The intensity of the opening was continued into the events that followed, with the exception of a brief interspersion of comedic scenes to introduce Sam Witwicky and his family history that connected him to the Allspark.

The FX are amazing.  ILM out did themselves in the quality and integration of the titanic robots into their real world setting.  The only scene that felt CG was when Optimus and the other autobots were talking under a bridge.  A brief interruption of an otherwise seamless film.

I cannot imagine the work ILM put into the last 45 minutes of the films.  A nearly constant series of fight scenes through the city.  Devestator and Starscream were amazing.  Megatron's menacing appearance and voice made me wince as he spoke.

Ironhide, Jazz, Bumblebee, and Ratchet were very well played.  I particularly liked the update of Jazz into a more urban character.

DO NOT LEAVE TOO SOON, there are some further scenes cut into the credits.

A great movie that will blow you away.  I highly recommend it.  I cannot wait to own it.  I really want to see it again.