This may spoil (save?) the viewing of the movie for some people… if you don’t care, just click on the link to read more.
I went in to Transformers not knowing much more about it than what was shown on the trailers: explosions, transforming, and more explosions. I knew the movie was produced and directed by Michael Bay (of partnering with Jerry Bruckheimer fame to make The Rock, Armageddon, Bad Boys I and II, etc.), so quite honestly I didn’t expect much more.
I think going in to any movie with low expectations is a good thing, because if you don’t expect a movie to be an exact replica of the comic / cartoon / book it is based on… it allows you to accept certain things at face value as something that was done “for the sake of the movie”.
There was a predictable amount of rah rah USA is A-OK stuff that you come to expect from Bay and Bruckheimer, but I don’t recall any 50 foot tall US flags appearing in the background for no reason (something that seems to happen from time to time with these guys)… although there were more than enough GM vehicles in this movie to make up for it.
Blatant product placement… *sigh* don’t get me started.
Character development was at a minimum (shocking), although they did do an ok job of at least introducing us to Sam, his family, and his obsession (Mikaela). I say ok because my two fellow moviegoers raised a ton of questions of “why didn’t they…?” afterwards. They provided a decent back story on how Sam became the central focus for the Transformers, why the Transformers came to earth, and gave enough exposure to Optimus and Bumblebee to at least be able to pick them out in a crowd.
While the Autobots got an introduction and some actual lines (except for Jazz..what was the point of him other than introducing a lame new GM car?), Megatron and Starscream could have been the same robot and the majority of the Decepticons were just there to rip things up / get killed (once they actually got on the screen.. very late in the movie). The movie was incredibly fast paced, and could easily have been spread out in to two movies to give time for character development, but who needs that? just blow more shit up!
When the main / final battle started, the pyro guys were working overtime because *everything* was blowing up. Optimus vs Megatron for all the marbles, and.. well, you can probably guess who won.
I did actually enjoy this movie, but more from the “hey look, fire and explosions” perspective than from the “that was a great story” angle. You want a great story with a decent amount of action wrapped around it, go watch Children of Men.
In conclusion I can only say this:
It was a summer action movie featuring the Transformers, not a Transformers movie.
6.5/10.. a good way to spend a few hours, but definite room for improvement.
I had the same problems Al has with comic book movies.
They bastardized everything and tried to tell years of story in one movie.
Beyond that this movie has the extra excitement of disgusting ad-based corporate whoreatism, way to fast twitchy zoomed-in cgi, no character development for the transformer (yet tonnes of drivel for the stupid human characters), and finally way too much booyah for my liking. It made me want to retch every time there was some kind of marines-rule, we need F-22’s, US Millitary is like so snap.
Highlights from 20 minute talk with another guy at work who saw it:
- “It wasn’t a movie of good vs evil – Autobots versus Decepticons; It was US persevering (good) amidst ancillary alien battle (whatever).
- “They could have catered to our target audience (knowledge of original Transformers cartoons and comics), and make the teen age group appreciate it for what it was. Instead this was made for idiot American teens. Instead of PG-13 the rating should have been +13-17. Eighteen year olds should buy a crapload of transformers off ebay, drink beer, and play like they’re 5 year olds. Way more rewarding.
All in all everyone here was glad they saw it – (the start is amazing).
But you will most likely come out with craploads more complaints then praise.
A tremendous waste of a tremendous opportunity.
No not all american teens are idiots.
Just the ones that are.
sounds awesome! i can’t wait!
one thing I said to Scott and our other co-worker after posting this was the movie reminded me of Independence Day.. good the first time you watch it (because it is such a spectacle), but it definitely loses something in repeated viewings.
I haven’t seen it yet, as a French Optimus just seems wrong to me, although I do wonder if they’d have French flags in the background… Either way, I love seeing trivia like this
“According to one of the CGI artists that created the animated robots at ILM, if you took all the polygons (CGI building blocks) from all the autobots and decepticon models they created at the studio, and strung them end to end, they’d reach to the moon and back and you’d still have enough left over to build the coliseum in Rome two times.”
Now either that is completely made up, or they should have gone with “…mars and back”
Thanks for saving me some $$$… although it may be a rental at some point. Lame
Too bad…although I wasn’t into Transformers back in the day, I was looking forward to seeing this one. Don’t need to spend the $$ on a random action flick, though.
Al, killer blog title – just had to say!
So I’ll just search for another way to optimize my movie-going kilomantra and let the yoshirolla’s have their own contest!
You know what I just heard really good things about that I haven’t seen yet? The new Turtles flick.
I’m sure some of you cats have seen it? Opinions please. With no spoilers please.