Posted on July 5, 2007 @ 11:57 am
The Good:
Optimus Prime totally rocked. He looked awesome in robot form, and Peter Cullen’s outstanding voice-over work lent the film some much-needed gravitas.
I thought the relationship between Bumblebee and Shia LaBeouf’s Sam was charming in an Iron Giant kind of way. I kept hearing Steven Spielburg and Michael Bay describe Transformers in the press as “a movie about a boy and his car,” and now I understand what they were talking about. Coincidentally enough, Bumblebee was also the first Transformer I ever owned.
The special effects were spectacular. The transformations were believable, the fight scenes were appropriately larger than life, and the robots gave the impression of “real world” heaviness and mass — not an easy feat to accomplish in CGI. Basically, they got the robots right, and that’s step one in making a good Transformers movie.
The Bad:
Most of the attempts at comedy came across lame and forced.
I would have liked to have seen the film spend more time developing distinct characters for the various Decepticons — especially Megatron and Starscream. As it stands, the Decepticons as a whole felt like stock, interchangeable evil robots.
Was it really necessary to turn Jazz into a walking, talking, breakdancing hip-hop cliché? Really?
A little more time spent clarifying the significance of the Allspark would have been nice.
An evil transforming Mountain Dew machine? Come on, now…
Generally speaking, there were too many scenes featuring the rather boring human characters and not enough with giant, shape-changing robots shooting at each other. PEW! PEW! PEW! KA-BOOM!
The Ugly:
That scene with the Autobots hiding out in Sam’s backyard felt like it went on forever. Having the Transformers as the butt of an unfunny joke (e.g. Optimus Prime saying “my bad” after accidentally stepping on a birdbath) is a waste of time that the director could have devoted to giant, shape-changing robots shooting at each other. PEW! PEW! PEW! KA-BOOM!
Did I really just watch a Transformers movie where Bumblebee took a piss — I’m sorry, “leaked coolant” — on John Turturro? WTF?
Speaking of John Turturro, his scenery-chewing performance as an MIB-esque government agent was enough to drop my verdict on Transformers at least a letter grade. It was like he was acting in an entirely different movie than the rest of the cast — an awful War of the Worlds-style B-movie. At times I thought Turturro’s characterization might be an ill-advised homage to George C. Scott’s performance as General Buck Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove, but I think it was just a case of very bad acting from an otherwise excellent actor.
When I first began seeing previews for Transformers, I suspected the film would either be completely awesome or a total debacle. What I didn’t anticipate was that it would fall somewhere in between. What’s really disappointing to me is that there’s a pretty good movie buried underneath all the superfluous crap in Transformers. If only a more competent director than Michael Bay had been at the helm…
The verdict: C+
I loved it — all of it — but was disappointed that we didn’t get to see more of Megatron. He was in it a total of, what, 15-20 minutes? I wanted him to get away so we could see more of him in the future…
They left the door wide open for more Transformers movies — sans Megatron. Maybe they’ll get into more Decepticon evil then?
One of the best parts was when Megatron fingered flicked the person into the car. Yeah have to agree more Megatron and Starscream would have been great. More scenes of Megan Fox’s belly would also great, IMO. The Turturro character kinda distracted me. I kept thinking of his Big Lebowski Jesus bowler role. To add to the Dew machine, the xbox transformer was funny. Cause you know its gonna die in about 8-12 months from overheating.
In all it was good, not great, blow’em up summer flick. Got what I sort of expected from it.
But the real thing that really made me sit up in my seat,
Was the title-less trailer for a JJ Abrams film.
What was that?
Someone behind me said it might be a new Godzilla flick.
Whatever it was, it looked good.
gonz: I agree! That JJ Abrams movie trailer rocked! I can’t wait to see what that is all about.
I just saw this last night. Surprisingly, I LOVED IT!
The only way I think they could have gotten away with developing the Decepticons or Allspark lines anymore was to cut out other stuff (perhaps the back yard scene?). After 2 1/2 hours of the film, I was pretty much over it…but it rocked my socks most of the time. Especially the first half.
I thought the funny parts were cute - and put a little breather in there when necessary. I didn’t think anything turned out too corny. Then again, I’m a pretty simple person…I can giggle about anything remotely funny.
Considering I was planning on a hopeful movie that I was afraid would suck suck suck instead….I thought they did a great job!
I think those backyard scenes are mandatory. Those are the parts the non-Transformers fans are going to tell their friends about to keep people coming back to the theatre and insure we get a sequel that features more robot-fighting action and possibly even Dinobots.
Could’ve used more Decepticon discussions though. We barely got to know Starscream in this one and yet he was already starting to be one of the more interesting characters.
I haven’t seen it, and I doubt I will. I mean, come on, they alreay made the perfect Transformers movie in 1986…You got the touch! You got the pow-er!
@gonz: Unfortunately, my theater didn’t include the teaser for J.J. Abram’s mystery project. What a letdown!
@JP: Yeah, the live-action version didn’t even include a soundtrack appearance by Weird Al. Talk about missed opportunities!
My fiance really wanted to see this one. Luckily he found a friend to go with him and I was off the hook. He says I made the right choice. I could have told him that before hand.
I think this is the first time that we have 100% agreed on something. Literally. Like all the little bullet points were exactly what I liked or disliked about the movie. It’s eery really…
Well, I agree with your grade C+ is what I gave it too, I went in with some predisposed notions, (ie, flames on prime, megatron not being a gun, them all being GM cars, their faces looking like broken glass.)
My good:
They did not automatically all speak English, I like that, it made sense,
Ofcourse, Peter Cullen and Optimus made the movie, Shia and bumble bee were cute as a duo, “Megan was a fox” for sure. At least one character “dying” from each side was good. (I know more decepticons died than one.)I also like that the autobots were not so damn sweet like they were in the cartoon, Bay and the writers
added a little edge to them. That was appreciated.
My Bad:
Was what you said, “My Bad” WTF? Huh did Optimus Prime really say that? Bumble takin a leek, was cute though I didn’t hate it.
My Ugly: Plot was as thin as t-shirts in a girls gone wild DVD. Allspark, Megatron in ice, ummm? The militaries weapons actually work against the decepticons? And why do we need the Autobots then?
Jazz is apparentley a cliche. And most importantly aside from, prime, Megs and Bumble there was not much of a damn thing to distinguish these characters, I mean come on they spent Millions on creating these characters, decent voice actors should be the cheapest part of the deal? No? Oh well. I gave it a C+ but everyone around me sings it’s praises, maybe they saw a different film then I did. I probably ave to watch it again just for the mindlessness of it.
[...] it hits our $3 theater next month. In the meantime, you can check out Apropos’ on the film here. And please enjoy this wonderful short from McSweeney’s: “A Letter to Optimus Prime [...]
This was a great, leave-your-brain-@-home-and-enjoy-the-pretty-colors popcorn movie, nothing more. Of course it would have been an A+ movie w/some more exposition and a more cerebral director. But come on…it’s a Michael Bay flick!
Expecting any more than pure adrenaline guy-movie type cinema is a bad idea w/Bay.
That’s like copping a 50 Cent album wanting to hear deep, Nas-type lyrics. It just ain’t happening. Not that 50 ain’t entertaining, but it’s just not Nas.
Having said all that, I’d give the movie a B-. I personally believe it’s the penultimate popcorn flick.
I did hate the fact that they had to make Jazz so stereotypically Black. But I guess since Jazz was voiced by a black man in the G1 series (Scatman Crothers..RIP), they had to go the same route, but way more exaggerated here.
All in all, a decent, typical Hollywood flick. I wasn’t too dissappointed.
Good Parts:
-Transformation sequences, they worked really hard on those, but at times they cut corners
-Peter Cullen as Prime, if they didn’t use him in this movie to save it’s authenticity, it would not have worked, Peter saved this movie…Tyrese did too
-Blackout kicked azz, too bad he couldn’t talk
-Scorponok was bad azz too, what happened to him in Qatar, I mean New Mexico..
Bad Parts:
-Not enuff dialogue between Magatron and Starscream, or any other decepticons for that matter
-Frenzy totally got on my nerves, with the belching, and he never resembles the objects he was in robit form, a cell phone??!
-Bumblebee always got his azz kicked in the cartoons, now he’s the hero
-Where was Barricade in the final battle scene, just like a cop not to show up until it’s over..
-Why did Megatron have to be so damn ugly, and what was he supposed to be anyway, a skeleton bot?
-When Prime transformed he never made the “transforming” sound
-WHERE WAS PRIME’S TRAILER!!!!!!!
The robots were so big and moving so fast that i couldnt tell what they were doing. I also couldn’t keep track of all the deceptacons. when they transformed, they all looked the same. I also would have liked to see bonecrusher in the final battle. I still think its the greatest movie ever made.
I think it was the best movie of the summer I took my girlfriend to see it and she loved it
Good Parts
PETER CULLEN AS PRIME
TRANSFORMATION
BLACKOUT KICKED ASS
BAD PARTS
NO SOUNDWAVE
WHAT HAPPENDED TO BARRICADE AND SCORPONOK
NO FIGHTING BETWEEN STARSCREAM AND MEGATRON
MOST DECEPTICONS DIDNT HAVE VOICES EXCEPT IN THE GAME
PRIME DIDNT HAVE THE TRAILER
NO WEELJACK,SHOCKWAVE,THUNDERCRACKER,SKYWARP,
NOT ENOUGH MEGATRON OR STARSCREAM
MOST BAD GUYS DIED
NO HUMANS DIED
NO CUSSING
NOT ENOUGH ACTION
NEEDS MORE WEAPONS