Point is, giant robots turn into cars! (More specifically and profitably, they turn into Pontiacs and Hummers and GMC pickup trucks.) And jets! And helicopters! And boom boxes! And cell phones! And then they fight each other! All sarcasm aside, that’s pretty much awesome. On some very basic level, I don’t think you can fuck up the kick of a movie about metamorphic robots-no, not even you, Mr. Bay. Let us acknowledge that Transformers is not simply a story of humanity being attacked by a sophisticated breed of technological nihilism-it is that assault.
Excerpted from “Auto-Chaotic” by Nathan Lee, The Village Voice, July 3, 2024