Review: Transformers
This afternoon I took off a bit early and saw Transformers. Let me just say that this is one of the best films I've seen in a long time. Not in the Godfather/Children of Men/etc type area but as a pure action/popcorn flick - it was near perfect. From the first few minutes to the end it is almost non-stop action and the slower/mushy/comedy type scenes are nicely spaced throughout. If I had only one complaint - it was a bit too long. I can't imagine what I'd cut though. There wasn't any obviously horrid scenes like the Jazz club in Spiderman 3. (I still shudder to think of that train wreck of a scene.) I just would have made it a bit shorter.
What follows now could be considered mild spoilers, so please stop reading now if you want to be surprised.
I knew the film would be cool, and man, it was cool. What I was worried about though was how the personalities of the Transformers would be handled. I had no reason to worry. The Transformer were perfect. Seriously - perfect. My memories of Optimus Prime was that he was a good guy who would never shut up about doing the right thing. He was so, blah, so, "We must not harm the humans", and while I sound like I'm complaining, thats just how his character was played. They nailed it perfectly in the film. The other autobots also had personality as well.
If there was one thing I wish they had more of it was Starscream. He was always my favorite character growing up. He was always trying to scheme his way to take over from Megatron. While that wasn't really shown in the film, there was a scene where Megatron makes a condescending comment to Starscream and I swear I felt like I was a kid again. Again - they nailed it perfectly.
A few random notes: I think there were a few easter eggs in the film. For example, the cop car (Barricade I think), had something like "To attack and enslave" instead of "To protect and serve". I swear I saw a few other things as well that may have been injokes/geek references.
At the end of the film, don't leave. There are three additional scenes. Two are pure comedy, the last one... it's important.
What was it with the 'spark of life' making little monsters? It seems like every time it would make a new Transformer, it would make an evil one. My only guess is - these new robots were like babies. Powerful, transforming robot babies. Maybe back on Cybertron they were immediately trained how to control themselves.
Comments
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I had a few small gripes with it though, mostly minor:
- the lips on prime were just wrong.
- the lack of starscream or decepticon time vs all the human storyline time.
- The way they isolated one or two of the characters from the story, given the way it goes. I don't want to expound on this and give away movie parts though :P
- the backyard scene reminded me of the spiderman 3 jazz club - heavy handed and out of character for the prime that some of us grew up with. It wasn't bad just felt off.
What doesn't make is that every Autobot that transformed into an automobile or truck transformed into a GM vehicle. Come on, look around, you'll probably see a lot more Toyotas or even Hondas on the road. I initially thought Barricade (the police car) was a Dodge Charger, but according to the website, he was a Saleen 5281 Mustang.
Also, I swear the voice of Optimus was the same guy from the cartoon.
Has anyone else noticed this trend in movies lately? Over the last few years, movies have been getting longer and longer. When The Lord Of The Rings trilogy came out, 3 hours was extremely rare (although not completely unheard of) for a movie length. Now, I would wager that most movies are aiming for the 2 - 2 1/2 hour mark, and 3 hours is getting to be the standard for your big budget "blockbusters".
Don't get me wrong, I love going to the movies and watching it on the big screen. But if it's going to be so long that I can't sit through the entire thing without having to get up to go to the bathroom, then I'd rather just wait 'till it comes out on video so I can pause it.
(sorry to hijack the thread)
Anyway, back to the Transformers. I was talking with a friend of mine a couple of days ago, and she's really excited about the movie and just kept talking about how much she liked the cartoon series as a kid. When I asked her what she thought about the first Transformers movie, the conversation when something like this:
ME: What did you think of the first Transformers movie?
HER: This is the first movie.
ME: No, the original movie based off the cartoon series in the 80's.
HER: They made a movie?
ME: Yeah, you don't remember? They killed Optimus Prime and almost killed Megatron but he was saved and turned into the psychotic Galvatron.
HER: I never heard of that!
ME: It's at blockbuster, you should check it out.
Anyway, I may go check out the first one before I see this one, just for "old times sake".
@Scott - it was Peter Cullen, the original voice of Optimus. Initially they said they wouldn't use him or were leaning away from him and the fans went ballistic. I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it or Peter nailed his audition but he got the part.
The voice of Megatron was replaced in the movie with Hugo Weaving. Bay said he thought the original Megatrons voice was too cartoony for a 40ft evil leader type. Its odd given the short amount of lines Megatron has in the movie. They did pull in the original voice of Megatron for the video games from this movie. Seemed odd.
@Eric - Yeah, movies ARE getting longer. Although I will say that LOTR was ok being long. LOTR was pure gold. Period. About the best darn movies ever made. I'd site through 8 hours of them. (Of course, all 3 together are what, 12 hours?)
@Scott - I woulnd't say it was _too_ too long... just a bit too long. ;) As I said -it was my only complaint.
@Eric - Believe it or not - I've never seen the first movie. I'm going to add it to my wishlist now.
As a final note - now that it is 24 hours since I've seen the movie, I can say that my appreciation for it has only grown. I'd go see it right now if it wasn't for the fact that I've had a few beers. (Ok, quite a few beers.) (Ok, way too many beers, but that's all good. Moosehead is good for the soul.)
I just hope if they re-do G.I. Joe they do as good of a job.
Great Movie
2 favorite inside Jokes.
1. Bee-otch air freshener.
2. The scene where Optimus and Megatron go crashing through the building (Megatron is in Plane form) is a direct nose-thumbing to the Silver Surfer scene in FF2. I think it might even be the same building.
Aside from that...there are no palm trees at Nellis AF Base (go Nevada).
Oh and one more thing, I wish they used more of the original transformation sound effect that you always heard in the cartoon. I think it was used only four times in the movie.
My fave was the "Bee-otch" car air freshner hangin' from Bumblebee's rear-view.