Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Transformers

I'm not going to sit here and try to come up with some elaborate justification of why Transformers is a good movie. In fact, I'll do just the opposite. It is a terrible movie. It's overly long, has a poor sense of pacing, the acting is well not really acting. The human element? Oh it made me want to gouge out my eyes with my own fingernails. I've seen Michael Bay talk, he is genuinely convinced he is a decent film maker. This astounds me. But despite how truly bad this film was there is the little kid in me. The little kid who owned and played with transformers. The little kid who watched hours of the old cartoon show. The little kid who delighted in the Transformers animated movie. That little kid was gleeful every single time he heard Peter Cullen utter a line in this movie (they got the original Optimus Prime!). Evey time a machine transformed and fought, pure joy in my eyes. This is the only reason I could stand this movie and the only thing I can recommend about it. If you loved transformers as a kid, there is a good chance you can stomach this film just for the joy of seeing those robots in disguise in cgi rendered realism.

1 comment:

Wretched Genius said...

In some ways, it seems like Michael Bay is the only director who makes sense directing something like "Transformers." He is all gloss and no substance, just like my favorite childhood toys. The 80's TV series and movie were nothing more than really long commercials, but damn if I wasn't entertained at a child. And Bay's version entertained me in the exact same way.

Sure, I have my fanboy complaints about the film. Starscream should have been the 1st Decepticon to touch foot on Earth in search of Megatron. But no, he doesn't come in until 2/3 through the film, and is barely featured. He better be the lead villain in the sequel (and not Megatron's boring 2nd identity, Galvatron). In the TV series his role was just as big as Megatron's. And where the hell was Soundwave? Frenzy is in the movie, and he's one of Soundwave's cassettes. That's just not right.

Complaints aside, I enjoyed myself immensely when the robots were onscreen. The rest was just filler to give me time for restroom breaks.