Director Michael Bay is not someone who is generally well thought-of in the world of cinema. This is a guy whose résumé consists of too many explosions, too much sentimentality, and too little substance, films like Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. With Transformers, though, Bay found just the setup he needed to make an awesome movie and provide characters we care about. While he's clearly banking on the action for appeal, Bay manages to go beyond giant-robot smashing and into more relevant humanitarian territory in a film where each element complements the next. This movie has everything.

Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), a hapless high school student, has found himself in quite the situation. Due to his ancestry, he is caught in the middle of a battle between shape-shifting robot aliens -- the Autobots and the Decepticons -- fighting for a cosmically powerful cube that has landed on Earth. If the Decepticons get it, they will take over the universe. The Autobots are here to make sure that doesn't happen and to protect all humans while doing so.

The film succeeds on every level, beginning with the action and special effects. The Transformers look as real as the vehicles they morph into. Even the act of morphing itself, while too fast for one to catch all the details, appears to preserve all the mechanical components involved, unlike the 1980s cartoon, in which the robots gain and lose mass at will (a full-sized pterodactyl robot can change into a cassette tape). The action utilizes this realism in scenes that must have been tremendously complicated to create, with the metal behemoths pummeling each other and leaping around like ten-ton acrobats. For some directors this realism would limit what the movie is able to show, but leave it to Bay to assume the risk. Backed by a superb special effects team, Bay displays in full detail prolonged battles involving, at times, multiple Transformers of each side, along with the military. Never once is the verisimilitude cracked.

Vehicles that turn out to be robots are what the Transformers franchise is all about, and in this film, that basic concept -- the surprises that can be hidden beneath the outer layer -- is taken to the thematic level. All the main characters hide attributes that would not be expected based on their appearance. Sam, through the course of the film, finds an immense bravery inside of himself despite his tendency to get picked on by his peers. Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), a smokin' hot classmate who winds up accompanying Sam on his adventures, turns out to be what one would least expect -- an expert on cars and their workings. Another young, attractive female, Maggie Madsen (Rachael Taylor), is a top-notch signals analyst who helps the government decode signals and identify cyber attacks, which, unbeknownst to them at the time, are being carried out by the Decepticons. Madsen's "advisor," who she claims is the best there is, appears even more unlikely: a donut-devouring young man (played by Anthony Anderson) who lives with his grandma and spends all day playing video games. In the end, the film is focused mostly not on what the Transformers can turn into but what the humans reveal themselves to be capable of. Even Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, is impressed by our species. At the end of the film he sends out a message to other Autobots roaming the universe, saying, "I have witnessed [the humans'] capacity for courage. And, though we are worlds apart, like us, there's more to them than meets the eye."

On another level, this is a film about virtue, demonstrated chiefly by Optimus. In Transformers he is the ultimate hero, never even hinting at a moral misstep. When the humans capture one of the Autobots, and the others ask Optimus why they shouldn't fight to save him, his response is that Autobots don't harm humans and that the captured comrade is "a brave solider" who would want it this way, not so much as considering any type of revenge. When Ironhide expresses his concern that the human race is so violent that it may not be worth saving, a thought that perhaps many viewers can empathize with, Optimus responds with complete sympathy towards our race: "Were we so different? They're a young species. They have much to learn. But I've seen goodness in them. Freedom is the light of all sentient beings." What really makes lines like these work is the voice-acting behind Prime, performed by Peter Cullen, the same Peter Cullen who did the character's voice in the original television cartoon. The tone is gentle yet strong, low yet articulate. It fits the character perfectly. Optimus Prime is a guardian not only of Sam but of the moral code of the good.

One thing that's really surprising about this movie is how funny it is. There is one bit where the Autobots are hanging out behind Sam's house at night while he looks for a crucial item inside. The robots, obviously not prone to patience, keep coming to the window and pestering him, accidentally destroying his parents' backyard in the process. At one point Sam looks out the window to see that they apparently think waiting in vehicle form in the backyard is perfectly inconspicuous. When Sam finally convinces Optimus that they have to go away for a second, Optimus responds like a spouse, "Calm down calm down." And the frustration audible in Prime's voice ("What is with you?") when he's fed up with other Transformers for misbehaving is equally hilarious. This humor does more than make us laugh, though; it also brings the Transformers more fully to life. Their light bickering and their clumsiness around potted plants makes them relatable as sentient characters and not mindless robots.

In fact, the Transformers' sentient nature is another interesting aspect of the film. These robots were created by a cosmic force in the same way that life on Earth was created. This is a minor aspect of the movie, but it opens up a lot of questions as to what constitutes "humanity." Can the Transformers be said to be any less worthy of the rights belonging to any other sentient being simply because they're made of metal and we're made of soft tissue? I may be getting a bit too metaphysical for a robot-smash-'em-up, but rarely, if ever, do you see metal organisms in a film. This, to me, is another example of the brilliance of Transformers. It is far beyond your typical robot action flick.

I cannot imagine a person not liking this film. If action's not your thing, turn to the humor. If you want a little depth, that's here, too, if you look for it. You like romance? It has that as well. The only thing Transformers has going against it is viewer preconception. Indeed, if you haven't seen this movie or haven't paid close attention, it is easy to pass it off as a mindless romp with expensive visual effects. Michael Bay has made some crap in his time, but Transformers is one enormous diamond. This isn't just a good movie. This is the type of movie you get only once in a great while. Now let me end this review before I'm tempted to figure out a way to finish with the line "more than meets the eye."

... Damn!