The real strength of Transformers movie is the human element....The mega-budget sci-fi action film Transformers hit theaters this week as the top box-office attraction of all time, according to media reports. The film took in $156.2 million during its first week, the studio reported.

It deserves it. Transformers has raised a good deal of attention for its giant-robot characters, but the real strength of the film is the human element.

Transformers director Michael Bay is known for his skill at creating over-the-top action sequences that defy logic but still impress the senses, but his real strength is in creating characters we really care about and then testing their courage and moral strength.

What is even more important, I think, about Bay’s films is that his characters rise to the occasion. Bay is no cynic, and his protagonists, although raffish and full of human flaws as the rest of us, are basically good and want to do what’s right. They also tend to have a good deal of fun while doing so, as in Bad Boys and Bad Boys II.

As in those two films, along with Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and Transformers, the image of the protector is strong in Bay’s films. Evildoers threaten, and protectors always arise to save those who aren’t able to do so themselves. Bay’s films create a straightforward moral universe in which some people want to exploit others, and other people step forward to try to stop them—and Transformers is more explicit and direct about this than in any previous Bay film.

Self-sacrifice is a powerful element of most of Bay’s films, and is a central aspect of Armageddon. It is also a critical theme of Transformers, where one of the "autobots" of the film’s title offers itself for a Christ-like death that will save the human race from the evil Decepticons.

As in Armageddon, The Rock, and, if I recall correctly, most of his other films, the writers also intersperse religious notions through the story, as in the instance noted above, which constitutes a central element of the plot. In fact, the entire central battle between Autobots and Decepticons, with its great, powerful beings battling over the very existence of humankind, repeatedly evokes notions of angels and demons engaged in spiritual warfare.

Bay’s films tend to intersperse comical scenes of American bourgeois domestic life among the action sequences. This serves an important thematic purpose, in showing precisely what the good characters are fighting for and what the evildoers are trying to destroy. It also helps us to understand them better, and thereby identify with them and feel more emotional involvement in the film.

In Transformers Bay seems to take special care to provide even more of these scenes than usual, and it is a very wise decision indeed.

Sure, audiences will come for the Autobots and Decepticons, but what really makes Transformers interesting and effective is the human beings at the center of the story.