I liked this movie when I was in high school, but after Age of Extinction, I wondered if I could still trust that judgement.

What’s It About? A teenage boy finds himself at the center of a secret war between Autobots and Decepticons, robots in disguise who have come to Earth to claim an ancient artifact.

STRAIGHT UP: I liked it (again). Has what a summer action movie needs. 7/10

What I Liked

Optimus Prime and Megatron as you know them – This film’s portrayal of these characters is faithful to the original ’80s cartoon in a way none of the other ones are. Optimus is a considerate protector instead of a bloodthirsty warchief; Megatron is an intimidating overlord instead of a hapless sideshow; and both of them get to drop a few of their signature lines.

Simple, effective storytelling – There are three distinct, easy-to-follow plot threads in this film, characters who generally have a reason to be here, and a handy MacGuffin (the All-Spark) to tie them together. After the bloated runtimes and illogical narrative turns of the sequels, it’s easy to appreciate a story that knows its own limits.

Shia LeBeouf as Sam Witwicky – No, really! As an actor, LeBeouf hadn’t yet gone all-in on the spastic, stuttering mannerisms that made him a parody of himself in the sequels. As for the character… I may be alone here, but I had a lot in common with Sam Witwicky when I was in high school, so I believed in him and got invested in his story.

The military guys – Despite Michael Bay’s alleged “military worship,” I thought that Capt. Lennox and crew had a justified role in the story, giving the film’s conflicts a sense of scale. I liked their part in the final battle, too; although some might have preferred a strictly robot-on-robot affair, letting the soldiers contribute to the team fit better with the movie’s themes.

The opening scene – It’s kind of perfect, giving the audience an obvious tease and then putting a Transformer in the spotlight right away.

What I Disliked

Cluttered mechanical design – It’s well-known that these Transformer designs are a mess. Visually confusing, they can only be processed as vague shapes without effort. Though the Transformers get plenty of screentime, I rarely felt like I had gotten a good look at them. This is one thing it’s hard to go back to after seeing Age of Extinction.

Any attempt at humor – The parts of this movie that try the hardest to play for laughs (the Witwicky parents, the Agent Simmons character, Bumblebee “lubricating,” etc.) are unfunny to the point of being embarrassing.

The camera work – Especially towards the end of the film, the quick-cutting camera disrupts the action’s flow and sense of location. Meanwhile, extended sequences like Starscream’s takedown of an F-22 squad really look great, so I’m at a loss as to why there aren’t more of them.

Jazz – Gets torn in half in the final battle, and Optimus can barely spare a minute of time and a dozen words in remembrance. Poor bastard.

CLOSING THOUGHT: I didn’t like this movie as much as I did in 2007, but overall it’s still not bad. Michael Bay actually restrains a lot of his worst impulses here; there’s only one exaggerated set-piece action scene, and the explosions are not so many as to leave the audience senseless. Meanwhile, the screenplay makes sense and doesn’t overstay its welcome, which puts this film head and shoulders above its sequels. Honestly, this is probably as good as any other Transformers production out there – it’s better than the 1986 animated movie, and at least as good as all but the best episodes of the TV show. (Maybe that’s just a roundabout way of saying that Transformers was never very good, but whatever.) Anyway, I think this movie gets judged unfairly because of who made it, who’s in it, and what came after; on its own, it’s perfectly acceptable. If you won’t take my word for it, consider this: Roger Ebert – a man who knew far more about movies than I ever will – gave Transformers 3 stars out of 4 in his review back in the day.