And lo, it is sort of terrible. Which is to say, as a film it ranks somewhere between Star Wars: Episode I and a moldy bread pudding. There is an entire subplot with a group of hackers and John Turturro that could be excised from its two-hour-plus running time and no one would be the wiser. Plot holes abound; a Decepticon that levels an entire army base in the opener is later dispatched with comical ease.
But, oh! Those robots! Every time the robots are on the screen, with the exception of one annoying, chittering Decepticon goblin, you’ll find your digits clutching into an irresistible fist, ready to be joyously thrust upwards into the base of the skull of the movie-goer in front of you. The Transformers pose and posture, leer and smile, and generally beat the ever-loving waste oil out of each other.
The first third of the movie is surprisingly well put together, with Shia LeBouf acting like a convincing teen with a lot of genuine humor and tense moments. As soon as the rest of the Autobots appear, though, the whole thing devolves into a living cartoon. Not a tragedy considering the source, but all of the Autobot voices save Optimus Prime are so over the top that I found myself wishing they’d spent the rest of the movie pantomiming and mugging like Bumblebee does at the beginning.
They’re clearly setting themselves up for sequels—it’s not a sly nod or anything; they pretty much end with Optimus sending out a message to the rest of the Transformers that it’s time to scrap it up on Earth—but as long as LucasFilm can keep up the same level of special effects, I’ll go and watch each one. I expected anything that wasn’t the robots fighting to be crap, so learning that only most of the filler plot was awful was a pleasant surprise.
I agree. I saw it yesterday, and apart from the yucky americanism and some contiuation errors (I only noticed small things, like Megan Fox missing nailpolish between some scenes) I found it entirely pleasurable. Shia plays the teen pretty well.
(I liked the australian analyst. She was yummy!).
Of course I might have missed a lot of horrendous stuff, due to the fact that I was wiping drool off my chest between robot fight-scenes. Oh yeah, the voices too. Optimus Prime I liked, but the others they could have done much better! Argh the goblin was so annoying. It was like JarJar Binks for transformers.
After all that, I am ready for a sequel with even more fighting robots!
I agree about the hacker subplot, they could have ditched that whole mess. On the whole though, I really enjoyed it, especially after seeing Live Free or Die Hard last week, this was action moviemaking done (mostly) right. The one thing I missed, and it’s a small thing, but I wish Starscream’s voice had been as shrill and annoying as it was in the cartoon. A little more personality from the Decepticons in general would have been nice, for the most part they were introduced and then commenced to fightin’. But again, on the whole, I walked out of the movie pretty damn happy, and very much enjoyed it.
saw it last night… genuine perfection :) complaints about the movie should be ignored! I mean come on, getting picky because the voices of the giant alien robots were hokey? might be their 12yr old target audience they are trying to appeal too, not the 30 something re-living his childhood.
Yes its cheesy, yes the humor is thin, and shock, the “sub-plot” wasn’t well fleshed out.. its a movie about giant alien robots fighting… and Man did they fight!
… I loved it
J.
“Plot holes abound; a Decepticon that levels an entire army base in the opener is later dispatched with comical ease.”
Actually they where quite clear about how this was done, as they realized durring the Scorinox battle that the magnesium shells they used did massive damage to them, which standard shells did not.
I don’t usually comment but I couldn’t let this one go by.
I whole heartedly agree with James K. I think it was the best movie I’ve seen in a long time, if not ever. I wanted an action flick and they delivered 110%. I wanted to see robots fight, sh-t get blown up and a good car chase or two. It’s all there.
There will always be plot holes or inaccurate scene consistency (commaro door was open then magically closed after the cut shot), but who cares. I go to see movies exclusively for the fun of it and hope the story is good too. If I got all wrapped around the axel and serious about the plot holes, missing set props and the like, most movies would be ruined. Seriously, who’s going to fall 10 stories to be caught by a metal robot hand and survive? No one, but it was a great action sequence and added to the fun.
The 18 bucks I dropped for my wife and I were well spent. I’ll be going to see it again with my ‘lil brother when he gets in from playing Army this weekend. This time it will be on the IMAX screen.
As for a sequel? I’d be all over it.
Great movie. Go see it and enjoy it for what it is, a great action movie.
totally loved this movie, wasn’t there to find issues or tiny things they missed but for the robot fights. considering this is based on a cartoon and not Shakespeare, it lived up to all my hopes, I’m looking forward to sequels and seeing it at our cinema draft house again. thats really all the movie was missing for me, a cold beer.
I have to agree with RESCUE1000 and James. It’s Michael Bay, not Sofia Coppola. Anyone who went into the movie expecting “cinema” would be sadly disappointed. It’s an action flick about giant fighting robots, gratuitously plain and simple.
This is a movie aimed at 18 to 24 year olds. It is a bit better than OK.. but not great. I am much older but try to act like a 20 year old… loved the shameless hype of “The Strokes” and some more subtle Green Day posters.
I would have liked it a bit more if the effects were not so slick. I wanted to see more “mechanical” motions, with grinding sounds as the machines turned into and out of cars …The transitions were a bit to smooth for me. I guess I just remember the mechanical movements of my 2 son’s toy Transformers.
As far as the opening where the bad robot destroys the whole base, that was my favorite part. It is always better to see a bad guy get a leg up in the opening of the movie… now Humans have something to fear…Plus these battle effects were great…. The battle at the village was above average also… I might have seen a bit of a tribute to ‘Star Ship Troopers “When the soldier from Boston is impaled?
All in all pretty good… A bit of a knock off of Independence Day (not a bad movie to steal from) but one level below….The movie was worth 2 1/2 hours of my life.