8:00PM tonight, Transformers hits the United States. With the summer of sequels mostly being a series of whimpers rather then bangs, the 9 mostly competition free days will make or break the chances of a sequel. If it bombs like Die Hard 4, those chances get dim, but if it becomes a record breaking weeks, then all systems go. I have a feeling this movie is going to do what Pirates of the Caribbean 2 did last summer where good reviews and excellent word of mouth was money in the bank and the
hit of the year.
By good reviews, I mean the ones that focus on entertainment value rather then trying to predict the next Oscar nom or "great American classic." The artsy fartsy reviewers that always judge movies based on the usual literature values and forget that entertainment are not important for summer blockbusters. Speaking of reviews, below are some. The gist of all of em is highly entertaining movie with amazing CGI and good performance by Shia LaBeouf but there are some plot problems.
RottenTomatoes - Grand warehouse of all reviews. As of 4:20EST 64% with 46/72 positive.
AICN Reader Reviews - Basically most still griping about some of the changes (Optimus flames, voices, etc) but call it very entertaining.
Newsarama - 3.5/4 "It’s fun and so quick that by the time its over you won’t have time to gripe"
USA Today - 3/4 "Yes, it's loud, explosive and silly, but it also perfectly embodies the concept of a summer blockbuster with its simple good-guys-vs.-bad-guys plot, cheeky humor and flawless special effects."
CNN - "The most expensive toy commercial ever made, "Transformers," Michael Bay's live-action film about the surprisingly durable Hasbro product line, is long, loud and altogether less than meets the eye." Ouch, basically the guy didn't like the plot and it ruined the whole movie for him. Kind of not the point of watching these kind of movies. Sometimes you want to shake reviewers and scream "mindset!!!". You in with wrong mindset (your own or advertisement caused) it will screw a movie for you. 1408 is an example. Its a more psychological drama and less thriller then billed.
AICN Moriatry Review - "It’s very entertaining, and it might as well say “Starring ILM As The Coolest Goddamn Robots You Ever Saw” in the opening credits, because that’s what is going to make the film whatever size hit it is."
AICN Capone Review - "Even die-hard Bay detractors are going to have a hard time denying the good time they have watching Transformers."
Roger Ebert - 3/4 "It's goofy fun with a lot of stuff that blows up real good, and it has the grace not only to realize how preposterous it is, but to make that into an asset." Well I be damned, Ebert liked it.
Here is a Transfan review (with spoiler warnings) sent to me from Malaysia:
Transformers 07 Review
by Desmond Hew
It never struck me as anything fancy with the idea of a longtime favorite cartoon show [one of my childhood memories like so many others], being 'transformed' into a huge Hollywood film. We all saw it coming. Transformers had all the potential right from the start.
Little did I know Michael Bay and Spielberg would be involved. Bay is definitely one of the fastest rising power-directors in Hollywood history. Despite only a handful of movies to his credit, they've always taken in hundreds of millions. The one before him [who also grew to power with so few movies], was James Cameron. I knew for a fact Bay was a hardcore nut at making everything look photorealistic,
particularly from his PearlHarbor battle scenes. So I was wondering how he'd tackle both autobots and decepticons.
Now after watching Transformers and seeing how great they looked, I swear you can bet Hollywood WILL be gearing up to adapt more and more of these. I see the start of a new sub-genre coming. It happened to those sword & medieval epics, the comicbook superheroes, it'll happen to this! I do hope to see Robotech or Gundam... and Evangelion in the future. Word has it that Voltron and Thundercats are already in line.
But as far as adapting goes, let's face it, Transformers was never too thick and dense in its narrative, or at least as rigorous and all thought-out as say, the X-Files. I'm talking about the earlier seasons mind you. What stood out for the Hasbro show were its great characters and just that concept of 'transforming'... Plus, if those robots looked and sounded cool, it was enough to make us [as kids at the
time] wanna buy the toys! So for me, the 2007 movie's story wasn't one I was concerned about. I was more interested in seeing how it would differ and be condensed in terms of characters... and yeah, how realistic Bay would want his transformers to be!
Now granted, you can't have everything and I'm still baffled by people expecting the movie to simply be an exact 101% replica of the series. Trust me, you'll save yourself the pain by not expecting that. It never happens when you look back on the others that were brought to the bigscreen, whether successful or unsuccessful. Not just with Transformers, but with all franchises. Same with the X-men movies...
you can't have it all exactly the same can you? It's compromise ya see.
Anyway, Bay starts the film with a huge bang when an unidentified 'chopper' destroys a whole army base. Lemme tell you this sequence is a cause for 'WOW'... especially when ya first hear that classic transforming sound and see it blow everything up... way up!
Afterwards, the film branches off to other story threads, particularly with Sam Witwicky [Indy 4's Shia LaBeouf] which is the main focus. And rightfully so, since his is the more involving and funny one. It's mostly a teen plot, mixed with a bit of Stephen King's Christine [at least that's what I felt] and the scenes with him discovering Bumblebee are hilarious. Anyway, he and Megan Fox's story gets
intercut with the military/government trying to figure out the army base attack from the beginning with Jon Voight leading the operation.
Eventually all sub-stories converge for a massive climax in the city and Shia's early discovery of Bumblebee's true form will lead to the close encounter with Optimus Prime and the autobots. It's basically all a race to retrieve/destroy an ancient CUBE that came from their native planet of Cybertron... which holds the key to earth's survival.
Now the introduction of this 'cube' was somewhat strange to me at first because I thought our beloved robots [whether good or evil] were simply gonna deal with Energon-cubes but I guess it's an okay addition that stands out from the cartoon series.
Obviously the decepticons too are in pursuit of the cube though it's never quite clear what they do while the other stories unfold. Well except maybe for Frenzy, who seems to progress frequently in the first half. Now honestly, I don't like this little twerp. His character really dances on a fine line of being annoying, as if he's competing to be [almost] a muted Jar-Jar-Binks. On top of that, he's so
un-decepticon, the film should've ditched him since he sticks out like a sore-thumb. Clearly his addition is for the present 6 to 7 year old kids... despite the PG-13 rating. Now who is Frenzy?? Just wait till ya see one of them transforming from a PORTABLE STEREO SET. At times he reminds me of a Gremlin.
This may sound strange but I've always been a bigger fan of the Decepticons than the Autobots. Here, it seems to be the case as well. They get the more whacky vehicles with greater firepower than the autobots. Same goes for Megatron. I at first had mixed feelings about his 'new' design in this film, even though I'm not a megafan of the decepticon leader. Indeed it does deviate quite a lot from the series and I can understand the outrage for this new makeover. But after watching the film, it made far more sense for him to look the way he is. For those of you who don't already know, the transformers themselves appear in a more 'alien' form once they come to earth. They then have to immediately pick a vehicle for stealth reasons, which
results in their machine-like appearance that we're more familiar with. It's pretty much like the Terminator needing clothes when they arrive. For Megatron [and without giving too much away], he'll only appear in the last quarter, so he wastes no time for something pointless since he's after the cube, more than anything else. So
should the filmmakers give him a second appearance in the sequel, there's STILL hope for him to have a design that does him some mega-justice.
Moving onto another controversial alteration, was to have Bumblebee be a Camaro. I for one have no reservations on this matter. Other than the Herbie and copyright issues Bay had with VW, it's pretty obvious why he got switched to a Camaro. It's evident when he has to do those wild maneuvers in a chase with the decepticon, Barricade. It just looks much more satisfying rather than seeing all those turns being done by a 'cube-shape' Beetle. On the other hand, I DO have some pickiness about his communication abilities to Sam [Shia]. Him using excerpts from the radio just isn't Bumblebee at all! That's Jazz or Blaster! I know this goes against what I myself said about compromise, but stealing from other character traits isn't always a good idea and it proves to be true in this case. Also the robotic sounds Bumblebee
uses to substitute his otherwise muted state, are a little hard to swallow. He at times sounds like a howling animal especially when he's tangling with some choppers trying to apprehend him. I'm very sure some fans will have problems with this.
Primes another matter. I don't mind his flames. Is it that big a deal?? What I do NOT like with Optimus are his moving lips. They just seem limp. Other than that, it sure is great to hear Peter Cullen!! Who coulda done a better job? And as much as I would've liked to hear Frank Welker reprising Megatron's voice, I think Hugo Weaving does a nice contribution, though it sounds nothing like him since it's been
digitally modified and pitched down... but the results are still good.
Now certainly these characters would be nothing without the outstanding job of ILM and what a monumental achievement it is. If they don't deserve an Oscar, no one does! The effects are all tremendous and downright believable. ILM is truly the God [and Bomb] of VFX and always will be. Just to see the robots move and transform
is worth the price of admission alone. Think it's partly due to the fact that CG-armies and digital flesh creatures are becoming the norm. Those who had doubts whether Michael Bay can bring the transformers to life and have them rip the shit out of everything, can rest easy. Hey, it's Michael Bay afterall and if you've seen all his action, you'll know damn well what to expect. He spares nothing when it comes to it and Transformers is almost no exception. Plenty of chaos and destruction!!! And although I do have minor, minor issues, it was still superb overall! Just wait until the transformers reach the city and all hell breaks lose! One of my favorite moments is when Starscream comes after several fighter jets! From a plane, he transforms to a robot, sprays his machineguns midair to blow one up, then jumps & bounces off another jet [thus popping it with his weight], then turns back into a plane & spins round while firing again, all this in midair around the skyscrapers, through a single shot!! And the standoff between Megatron and Prime is also quite enormous. Almost none of it can be seen in the trailers, and I've watched them all unless new revealing ones surface. Even the one with Starscream and the jets can only be glimpsed at [like 1 second] through TvSpots. Like what Michael Bay said, there's a lot we won't see in the ad campaign!
And what an unusual campaign it is. I'm sure a lot of us know by now that it was all strategically done to not reveal too much of the Transformers. True it's annoying [still is as I look back] and goes against what most others would normally do which is show snippets of all the best or biggest scenes. Not so for this. As aforementioned, Prime's fight with Megatron isn't seen. It even goes so far as to not
show Prime grouping or interacting with his fellow autobots... or even letting us see the Transformers talk! As a result, it really grabbed me when the decepticon Barricade [a police cruiser], first uttered those loud words ---- "Are you username Ladiesman217?!!!!" ---- cheesy when ya read it, but truly menacing once you hear him!! Well, any gripes on their overall voices? Well as I said, Megatron sounds good but perhaps maybe Starscream is nothing like himself from the series [god bless you Chris Latta] though I can take it… since he doesn't speak much. One line I didn't particularly like from Optimus was him saying "My bad." ---- which felt out of character. Again, these were gripes to me… though may prove sacrilegious to Dot-Yer-I-Cross-YerT-fans. Fortunately he does say "Autobots, rollout!" so as a whole, it's give-and-take folks.
I mentioned earlier some minor issues with the battles but whether you'd agree with me is really subjective and may not worry others so here goes. Bay's action scenes normally go on too long and take forever to stop and admittedly at times I feel it does, especially in BadBoys2. For Transformers, it's a little ironic. Some of them DON'T go quite as long as I would've liked personally. For instance, Prime wrestling with Bonecrusher on the freeway where they both fall somewhat twenty stories down, could have been longer and exciting but it ends sooner then I thought. Even Prime's brawl with Megatron, though it has great, great moments, also seems slightly short and spare at least compared to normal Bay standards. Maybe it's because those like Bonecrusher and Blackout looked too impressive, I dunno.
This brings up a separate issue, which I think might alarm some fans. The transformers seem to 'burnout' a little too easily. Meaning they can be hurt or killed. This made me feel uncomfortable at first, but as I started to think and look back on the series, things were the opposite. Almost no one could ever, ever die, let alone be severely hurt... plus the decepticons always retreat and that's it! Here, even Bumblebee gets crippled and some decepticons 'burnout' in the climax... and maybe a little too quick and easy for my personal tastes another little gripe there folks. But if you're worried whether they had a chance to show off their stuff; weapons, transformation and all, it's there!!
So there you have it. Transformers is truly awesome and should you be a wimp and prefer to wait for it on home-video, lemme say you're committing one hell of a cardinal sin. Films like Transformers are made for the BIG screen [and sound] experience. So transform and rollout when it hits theaters!!!!!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Update: Adding reviews as stumble across em.
