In fact, I think it was during a screening of Bay's "Pearl Harbor" that I wished I'd brought along a transformer - something to bide time while waiting to learn if World War II was going to interfere with a romance between Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale.
Bay is probably better off leaving the Pacific Theater to Clint Eastwood. But he may be the perfect guy to make "Transformers," a ride-pimping extravaganza dedicated to the proposition that a '76 Camaro can save the world.
And get girls, which is the whole point of saving the world. I think this is what Al Qaeda guys don't get about the West, about car culture. You've got terrorists in England filling a perfectly good late-model Mercedes with propane and nails in order to kill people so they can reach heaven and its bounty of 72 virgins. So many extra steps. The purpose of the Mercedes is that it can be filled with girls right away.
Anyway, if there's one thing "Transformers" understands, it's the boy-meets-car story. It casts the appealing Shia LaBeouf (hot off "Suburbia") as Sam Witwicky, a teen whose life as an overlooked high school misfit takes a turn when he gets his first hot rod.
Actually, the car gets him. Amusing scenes show the driverless Camaro stalking Sam, staking out a spot in a used car lot and making sure Sam makes the right choice.
The yellow muscle car not only attracts the prettiest girl in school (the aptly named Megan Fox), it helps Sam with a few romantic moves - its AM radio has the right song at the ready to set the mood.
All of this is handled with a ample sense of humor, the better to prepare viewers for the movie's goofy premise. Sam's car is really a transformer - it morphs at will into a giant robot. It is, as luck would have it, a good robot, harbinger of a war between good and bad robots from another galaxy that threatens to engulf and destroy the earth.
