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Hats off to the eternal optimist who thought that a twenty-year-old Transformers cartoon would make a decent theatrical release. Animated storytelling has come such a long way since the mid-80s, and the film, which sees warring factions of shape-shifting robots facing extinction at the hands of an omnipotent planet-eater, is as clunky as its characters. With Michael Bay's big screen adaptation just around the corner, releasing this now is like watching a flick book etched in crayon.
It's 2005 and the Autobots and Decepticons - two opposing factions of giant transforming robots - fight a frenzied battle on earth, unaware that their homeworld is under threat from the planet-guzzling Unicron. This skirmish results in the mortal wounding of their respective leaders, Optimus Prime and Megatron. Prime dies, passing on the 'Matrix Of Leadership' to Ultra Magnus, while a badly-mangled Megatron is cast out by his minions, but taken in by Unicron and refashioned into Galvatron. As repayment, Galvatron must destroy the one thing that can stop Unicron: the Matrix Of Leadership. What follows is a colourfully weird journey, that only real fans would understand or care about, making it a bemusing, but largely unrewarding watch for anyone who isn't one.
"COLOURFULLY WEIRD"
On the plus side; the hair metal soundtrack will please the ironic crowd no end, the dinobots are good for a laugh, and you can just sit there wondering exactly how they got all those big movie names (and Judd Nelson) to lend their voices. Hardcore fans might enjoy another chance to see this on a big screen, but for anyone else, Transformers The Movie barely warrants a trip to the DVD rental shop, let alone a viewing in a cinema.
Transformers The Movie is released in UK cinemas on Friday 4th May 2007.
