Can't agree more. 10 years ago I looked up transformers uploaded to YouTube, and they couldn't stand the nostalgia test. Plots are primitive, characters are flat. It made me actually recall that by 13 years, I started feeling little embarrassment watching them because of thqe plot itself.
Apart from that, what surprised me was that it had vibes of 1950s: watercolor still images, and the music score not with analog synths (that we'd expect from the '80-s), but a (small) orchestra with TRUMPETS leading. (This was the biggest '50s factor for me.)