Transformers (HD DVD)

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Then there's the plot. The Allspark has been kept in a US landmark for decades, and its power signature has been masked from everyone by reinforced concrete. I'm sorry, but concrete? Are you serious? This thing has the power to destroy entire worlds and concrete keeps all manner of scans from seeing its location? And the final decision to move the cube is just as bewildering. Why, outside of the "blowing stuff up good" rationale, would anybody agree to this plan?

Hell, we can bat around all manner of plot holes or head scratchers, but that wouldn't be fun. For the sake of argument, though: Why are people continuing to run from the scene of the final battle twenty minutes after its started? Is the government so desperate as to be recruiting analysts out of high school? And why, for the love of everything rational, does the military consistently discount the one person with any credible information on the Transformers or the Allspark? Not that it really matters: This is an action movie with no agenda.

If there is one aspect of the film that doesn't quite live up to what it should be, it's the introduction of Optimus Prime and the final battle with Megatron. When Optimus finally comes on the scene, there should be a bombastic score, something to herald the coming of the hero the fans want to see. There isn't that sense that everything will be okay once he's arrived. Think of how Darth Vader is introduced in "Return of the Jedi," with the Imperial March. Prime is a hero worthy of that level of reverence.

And that final battle is the one flat action sequence in the film. The other scenes are kinetic, with dizzying camera shots and a clear idea of who's doing what to whom, a directing style many action directors can learn from. Yet there's no sense of drama or excitement about the final battle; this is the titanic match up between Luke and Vader or Picard and the Borg Queen, but it comes off as feeling run of the mill.

"Transformers" isn't supposed to be anything except loud action pulp to fill a summer slot and rake in the money. Oh, yeah, and sell toys.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a major disappointment: the classic "Transformers" theme song is nowhere to be found in the film. It had been remixed for the 1986 animated movie, but it's absent here. The whole thing didn't need to be included; part of it over the end credits would have been welcome.

"Transformers" is a family-friendly film, with no real objectionable content. However, there is a large amount of fighting and peril, which might cause a smaller child to have problems. The movie rates a strong 7/10 because it delivers on its premise and doesn't get bogged down in plot trivialities. And summer action never looked so good.

Video:
The film showed up pretty well in a theater, and in HD DVD Paramount reproduce it much as I remember it from my local movie house, with one exception noted below. Using an MGEG-4AVC codec, the video engineers maintain the film's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. What we see is a relatively clean screen, free of grain and transfer noise, even in darker outdoor shots, freer of grain, in fact, than I remember from the movie in a theater, leading me to think that perhaps Paramount applied some form of grain filtering to the transfer. Colors are bright, rich, and deep, perhaps a tad too bright, rich, and deep for real life, and a touch glassy, too, but appropriate for a cartoonish movie like "Transformers." Definition is, as we might expect, near flawless, the crispness of the delineation serving to point up every detail in the mechanical creatures. Any blur in the actual transformations I assume was intentional on the part of the filmmakers.

Audio:
The big controversy in the audio department swirls around Paramount's decision not to include a Dolby TrueHD track on what is possibly their highest-profile HD DVD release of the year. Most viewers probably won't even notice the missing lossless track, but its omission will surely annoy audiophiles and videophiles. I have no idea what was behind Paramount's decision. Perhaps, and most likely, they didn't have room on the disc for the track; perhaps they figured there wasn't a big enough audience for it; perhaps they think there is no discernable difference in sound quality between TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus; or perhaps they just made a mistake and forgot it. I don't know. I do know that in every past instance where I've had a chance instantly to compare the two audio formats, I have always found differences in the sound quality; not always big differences, but always differences. And I have always favored the slightly smoother, less bright, and less forward sound of TrueHD over DD+. But I may be among the few who hear such differences or care about them. In any case, it seems to me to have been an unwise decision for Paramount to leave off a TrueHD track if for no other reason than public relations. It's good PR to have the track and bad PR to omit it, particularly on a blockbuster where many people perceive the sound as critical to the overall movie experience.

Be that as it may, what we do have, Dolby Digital Plus 5.1, is plenty good enough, and since there is nothing with which to compare it, we will never know if TrueHD could have sounded any better. The DD+ produces room-rumbling bass, with a strong, well-focused impact; midrange of remarkable clarity; and treble that glistens. The front-channel stereo spread is wide, and the filmmakers take all the advantage they can of the surrounds. Rousing, pinpoint directional sounds from all five main speakers do a lot a to sell the show. I can't imagine anyone complaining about the audio on this one.

Extras:
The sheer quantity of extras will thrill fans of the film, I'm sure, especially as most of them are in high definition. Non-fans, however, may simply see them as more of the same. Disc one includes the feature film; twenty-three scene selections; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired. In addition, there is a commentary by director Michael Bay in which the filmmaker seems to me a somewhat immodest fellow, his comments often self-serving. Then there is "Paramount HD Connect" for further on-line features. And, of greatest use, "Transformers H.U.D.," a "Heads Up Display" that is essentially like WB's picture-in-picture "In-Movie Experience" and features various pop-up bits of trivia about the film as well as shots of the filmmakers discussing various scenes as the scenes are playing out.

Disc two includes a number of other bonus items, divided into several categories: "Our World," "Their War," "More Than Meets the Eye," trailers, and the like, mostly, as I say, in HD. In "Our World" we find "The Story Sparks" (HD), "Human Allies" (HD), "I Fight Giant Robots" (HD), and
"Battleground" (HD), segments that one can play separately or all at once. Together, they total about forty-nine minutes and provide information on the origins of the movie, the actors, the military background, and the special effects in the battle scenes.

In "Their War" we find "Rise of the Robots" (HD), "Autobots Roll Out" (HD), "Decepticons Strike" (HD), and "Inside the AllSpark" (HD), about sixty-five minutes total, covering the background of the toys and cartoons and the special effects of the cars and such. In this section we also find "Transformers Tech Inspector," where we can look at each of the autobots up close in an interactive mode.

Then, in "More Than Meets the Eye" we find a nine-minute segment called "From Script to Sand: The Skorponok Desert Attack" (HD) and, better, a series of beautiful concept art (HD). Also on disc two, we find trailers--two theatrical trailers and a teaser trailer, all in HD. Lastly, I understand there is a series of Easter eggs in the set: a Michael Bay cameo appearance, "Bay Bot," "Girl in Dress," and "Casting Mojo."

The two-disc HD case comes housed in an attractive slipcover. But here's the thing: The thin, translucent-plastic slipcover contains all the disc details printed on it. The HD case itself has a cover with nothing written on it front or back, only the title on the spine. Therefore, if you want to know what's in the case, you have to use the slipcover, something I don't generally do and resent being forced to do. I usually leave slipcovers in a drawer upstairs because I see no need for them in my collection. Except in this event.

Parting Thoughts:
It's huge; it's loud; and it's filled with things that crash and blow up in glorious high-definition picture and sound. "Transformers" is everything you expect from a colossal summertime blockbuster. Looking for logic, sense, reason, even sanity in a story based on a children's toy would stretching a point. The movie is for the eye and the ear, not the brain. It turned out a lot better than I thought by looking and sounding so good in HD, so give it some credit. Big, dumb, and attractive in this case is probably good enough.

As Mikaela says, "This car's a pretty good driver."