'TRANSFORMERS' RUNS OUT OF GAS TOO SOON.

Byline: Glenn Whipp

Film Critic

For those who came of age crashing their Autobots and Decepticons together while watching Saturday-morning cartoons and slurping down sugar-coated cereal, seeing an impressively rendered Optimus Prime throw down against Megatron at the end of Michael Bay's tedious toy commercial, "Transformers," will be akin to Christmas, Easter and the Fourth of July all rolled into one.

For the rest of humanity, a "young species," the good robots tell us, that "has much goodness" (the Transformers speak on a third-grade reading level), "Transformers" will be a long, repetitive slog. Yes, yes, the Transformers look cool, and you will feel their robotic clanging deep into your internal organs.

But with a running time of nearly 2 1/2 hours full of unnecessary Bay-like digressions, the movie is needlessly complicated for a film presented "in association with Hasbro."

"Transformers" has a distinctly '80s feel to it, a nod to the toy line's 1984 debut and the presence of executive producer Steven Spielberg. When the bad robots (the Decepticons for those not steeped in the classics) hack into the U.S. military's computer network, the resulting panic is straight out of the Cold War, with accusations flying toward China and the Roo-skies.

The red alert sends American jet planes into the air, the better for Bay to work in some "Top Gun" stunts (and silhouettes, don't forget the signature Bay silhouettes) and Reagan- era military be-all-that-you-can-be recruitment flavor. There are nods to "Gremlins" and "E.T." and even a shout-out to "Short Circuit," a touchstone family film for the Transformers generation. (The cuddly Transformer Bumblebee's behavior bears more than a passing resemblance to "Short Circuit's" No. 5.)

All this might sound like good fun, but mostly it isn't. Bay wants "Transformers" to be "Armageddon" meets "War of the Worlds," when the movie should just be a fun fantasy flick about robot Hot Wheels. You can forgive the constant car commercials (but not the Burger King tie-in) because that's the source material -- fast, shiny cars and huge, shiny robots.

What you can't abide is the grossly inflated running time, the repetitive action sequences and the unnecessary characters arc that infect every Bay movie, as well as those of his mentor in the dark art of bloated moviemaking, Lord Bruckheimer. We don't need to know the back-stories of the Air Force flyboys. It's about the alien robots, stupid. Focus. Focus on the robots.

But even the Transformers are a mixed bag. Bay's action choreography leaves something to be desired; he's on surer footing when he's stealing from Brad Bird's "The Iron Giant."

That cribbing results in the movie's best scene -- the Autobots hiding in the backyard of teen-aged hero Shia LaBeouf's house while Shia tries to distract his suspicious parents. There you have everything you want from a "Transformers" movie -- the cars, the robots, some personality and a healthy dose of much-needed fun.

It's not the only time that the movie comes alive, but such moments are too rare in a flick based on the imagination that comes from opening a toy box.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

[e-mail]

TRANSFORMERS - Two and one half stars

(PG-13: intense sci-fi action violence, brief sexual humor, language)

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox.

Director: Michael Bay.

Running time: 2 hr. 20 min.

Playing: Opens tonight at 8 p.m. In wide release.

In a nutshell: Michael Bay opens the Hasbro toy box, delivering cool-looking robots in the middle of a overly long, repetitive jumble of a movie that isn't nearly as much fun as it should be.

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Photo:

Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, battles the evil Decepticons to protect the human race in the action-filled but overly long "Transformers."