‘THE TRANSFORMERS’: STRETCHING A POINT

The Transformers are a line of toy robots that children can bend and twist to form other things, such as cars and helicopters. “The Transformers: The Movie” (citywide) is a toy commercial that the Sunbow/Marvel Studio has twisted and stretched into an 86-minute animated film.

In their syndicated television series, the Transformers regularly battle the Decepticons, a group of evil robots. For the film, an additional menace has been added: Unicron, a gigantic metal structure that chews up entire planets. (It looks suspiciously like the Death Star with a pair of horns stuck on.)

Although the story borrows heavily from live-action science-fiction films, especially “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and the “Star Wars” series, viewers unfamiliar with the toys and TV shows will have a hard time figuring out which of the dozens of similar-looking robots is doing what. At least two-thirds of the film is devoted to virtually identical battles, all set to the pounding beat of the nondescript rock score. Despite the futuristic setting, the robots use very primitive methods when they fight--swords, slingshots and martial-arts kicks.

The voice actors, including Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy and Robert Stack, do what they can with Ron Freidman’s inane dialogue. As one robot dies, he intones, “Do not grieve, soon I shall be one with the Matrix.” Orson Welles--who certainly deserved a better curtain call--gives his final film performance as the voice of Unicron.

But not even the best actor can create a character out of nothing. Not one of the robots has a reason for doing what he does. The Transformers are good because they’re good, and the Decepticons are bad because they’re bad. The great animated villains, like the Wicked Queen in Disney’s “Snow White,” had motivations as compelling as any live-action character. Unicron apparently destroys entire worlds because it has nothing else to do.

In an effort to generate some excitement (and disguise the limits of the animation) director Nelson Shin keeps the camera constantly in motion. “The Transformers” has so many cuts that it looks like the film was developed in a Veg-O-Matic.

Because it features ineptly blended drawn animation and computer graphics, “The Transformers” is billed as state-of-the-art. It seems more like state-of-the-marketing.