Transformers (2007)

Santa brought my kids Transformers this Christmas. As soon as they opened the package, they immediately popped the disc into the DVD player, even before opening their other presents! Watching it again reminded me of all the things I loved in this movie:

(1) No more blocky and stiff Saturday morning cartoon transformers. Instead we get incredibly detailed (each of Ironhide's guns were reportedly composed of 10,000 parts) cars, trucks, fighter jets, tanks and helicopters that fluidly transform into some of the most dynamic and agile robots ever seen on screen.

(2) Mind-blowing fight scenes that would have been cool even if they didn't involved transforming robots. Kudos to whoever envisioned robots fighting with MMA "ground and pound" techniques or capoeira. Awesome!

(3) The way the size of the robots matches the size of the vehicle they transform in to.

(4) Realistic-sounding military chatter.

(5) Peter Cullen, the original voice of Optimus Prime, reprising his role for this movie. It does not matter how cheesy the line is, Cullen makes Optimus Prime sound cool!

(6) The way Megatron briefly turns himself into a giant gun.

(7) The use of the original "transforming sound" from the cartoon.

(8) Optimus Prime's Voltron-like sword. I would have liked to see more swordfighting, but the few seconds they had were pretty sweet!

(9) The way the transformers run, leap and tumble like free runners.

(10) Megan Fox.