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[Hat]

I couldn't find a recent Transformers thread, so I'm just posting this instead, because I wrote a review for shits and giggles.

A Transformers review, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Watching Giant Robots Beat the Living Shit Out Of Each Other, Holy Nun Punching Christ.

I'd just like to start by saying that this movie is quite possibly the best piece of Hollywood cinema ever created. Michael Bay is a schlock merchant. Michael Bay is overblown action sequences. Michael Bay is appalling dialogue. Michael Bay is entirely superfluous subplots. This movie is his The Winter of Our Discontent. It is the single most Micheal Bay movie that could possibly be made. There is no doubt in my mind that after this movie, any disaster on a particularly epic scale will be referred to as "Bay-tacular". Hollywood might as well abandon the mindless action flick forever, because Michael Bay has made a movie with the most awful, hilariously tacky dialogue, the most fist pumping action sequences, the most superfluous subplot, and the most gapingly obvious plot holes. Oh good lord the plot holes. Everytime something blatently disregarded the laws of physics, everytime something made absolutely no sense, I had a massive grin on my face. At first I thought it might have been a satire of his previous movies, but god I hope not. Satire is for pretentious wankers. I don't think I could have enjoyed this movie if it was attempting to be satirical instead of merely extraordinarily bad. Your average action movie has crazy-awesome action scenes, and a thinly drawn out subplot with some of the worst lines ever spoken to a camera in film history. Instead of a subplot, Transformers had a kind of anti-subplot, a black hole of creativity if you will. I pray to god that this movie does "the bidness" as they say, so that we will see a kind of nuclear arms race in Hollywood, that they will try to outdo each other in just how ridiculously awful they can make the scenes between action in their movies. For years, they've been merely content to settle at the peaceful level of "pretty fucking terrible", but this movie has brought new vigour and fire into the game.

The writing was so bad that throughout the movie I was constantly debating with myself how intentionally bad it was. I don't know dick or fuck about scriptwriting, so I couldn't tell if they had to get a team of Harvard graduates in to create this beautiful piece of work, or if they just opened the doors and got whatever cheap hacks they could get to literally write for peanuts. (Insert a thousand monkeys joke here). The dialogue was akin to a Merzbow album in that it seemed designed to be as offensively bad as possible, by a highly skilled hand. No mere hack could have penned something as cheesy as one of the final lines in the movie. The hero, who I will refer to as "Igon", and his white trash girlfriend who I will refer to as "Tits n' Lips" exchange teary sentiments as the sky casts a brilliant orange behind them, as we wait for the expected line of "I love you" dialogue and a big ol' kiss. The music swells and she says "No matter what happens.... I'm glad I got in that car with you"

I need to see this movie multiple times with a notepad to record all my favorite bits of dialogue. I want them as soundbytes on my computer whenever I close a window or get an instant message. There are so many I can't even remember any of them anymore.

[Maybe Spoilers?]Oh god, and Starscream. FUCKING STAR SCREAM. I don't think I've ever been so pleased as when he just punched the living shit out of that fighter jet in mid air, transformed back, flew onto another jet and repeated the process. Honestly, he was only in the movie for five minutes and he stole the show. I am highly anticipating the sequel "Starscream the Musical"[/Maybe Spoilers?]

God, I have so many more thoughts on this movie. However, since at the moment, most of them are just "HOLY SHIT DID YOU SEE THAT GIANT FUCKING ROBOT DO THE THING?!?!?!" I'm going to leave it at this.


And as a postscript, I would like to say I know it kind of sounds like I am ironically trashing this movie. I'm not. I enjoyed this movie. I enjoyed this movie more than any other movie I have seen this year so far. In fact, I'm honestly a little concerned that this movie was so good, that I am not going to be able to see another action movie ever again for fear of how poorly it will stack up against this movie. This movie has made me think that maybe Die Hard 4 is not going to be particularly fantastic. That is how fucking amazing this movie was.

[xero]

So it actually crossed over into "so incredibly bad it's actually quite brilliant" land?

I'm amazed, especially on that big budget they had. Usually a bad movie has to resort to obviously cheesy special effects in order to push it past that golden threshold.

[Hat]

In all honesty, I think I was the only person who came out of the cinema with this opinion. Everyone else was treating it like it was just Bad Boys 2 with robots, but I had to assume they were all fucking idiots. I only really laughed at two of the movies actual "jokes" but I spent more time actually laughing than anyone else in that theatre, easily

Also, apparently this movie isn't out in some places yet? Um, I don't think I really spoiled anything, although I will kind of tag the paragraph where I actually attempt to describe part of the movie.

[ForteBass]

At first I thought it might have been a satire of his previous movies, but god I hope not. Satire is for pretentious wankers. I don't think I could have enjoyed this movie if it was attempting to be satirical instead of merely extraordinarily bad.

I know this is horridly offtopic, but I do not appreciate being referred to as a pretentious wanker, nor do any other writers/artists/musicians who utilize satire.

On topic however: It can't be worse than Fantastic Four 2. From what you've said, Transformers is so bad that it's good. FF4:2 was so bad it was, well... bad.

[ALoveSupreme]

Hence my recommendation that Micheal Bay direct Bad Dudes: The Movie.

After this brilliant review, I may have to see this, when it comes to the cheap theater in town.

[pirateboy]

Dude! I have been listening to the Mute Math transformers theme for like a month now.

I'm very excited about going to see it.

I'm a big fan of things bashing the ever-lovin' snot out of other things.
I even liked 'The Hulk' to an extent.

[godinpants]

I am yet to see the movie yet, but i did just buy the complete series on dvd.
17 discs, about 43 hours including public service announcements.

From what ive been told the movie should be awesome, ill see it this thursday.

[Dimmukane]

I just got out of the midnight release and OMG IT'S ALL SORTS OF FUCKING EXPLOSIONS AND COOL!  As the great prophet Elias once said "The Transformers are like a gift from God, Randall!"  (Clerks 2; Chapter 12 Verse 23).  I want to crush the Allspark into powder and snort it like so many other controlled substances. 

If you're going to see this movie, it's not for plot depth.  It's to see shit hitting other shit with more shit which causes said shit to blow shit up.  And to pay tribute to the manliest of children's cartoons.  The ghetto dude sitting next to me was crying when Starscream showed up.  There were maybe two lines that really pulled me out of the whole thing, but the sheer amount of KABOOM before and after them made up for it, like, ninety-six fold. 

/HELP THE XBOX 360 IS SHOOTING ME AND DEAR GOD IT'S GOT LEGS.

[Thy Dungeonman]

Haha, I half expected the 360 bot to show the red ring of death and just fall to the ground.

[Jimmy the Squid]

I went to see Transformers today. And I am pissed off. Not because of the plot holes, not because of the script but because...


We went to three fucking cinemas and it was sold out at every single one. Every session! And almost always as soon as we actually got to the ticket booth. Fuck fuck fuck.

[0bsessions]

the manliest of children's cartoons. 

The manliest of children's cartoons was G.I. Joe and anyone who says otherwise is quite obviously a communist.

[Kaktion]

Are everyone's balls bigger now?

(This review makes me want to see this movie a lot. Even more than I originally did, and I really wanted to watch it in the first place. I can't wait to hit the theaters on the weekend, when it's not sold-out and I actually have the chance to go out.)

[0bsessions]

I stand corrected. The manliest cartoon physically possible is a crossover between Transformers and G.I. Joe. The badass team-up of Snake Eyes and Starscream would legitimately make Jesus shit his pants. And Jesus was a fucking Go-Bots fan.

[CmonMiracle]

I saw this movie yesterday and unfortunately I fell asleep because I was so exhausted organizing July 4th. However, the movie beamed into my brain directly so I actually remember most of the story and events! And from what I can remember, it is a great summer movie, something you can watch for 2.5 hours and not have to worry about anything or think about it after. I remember it being pretty funny.

[dont eat that hallway stu]

that movie had the most freakin awesome action scenes but i wish the decepticons had got more lines or betterlines or whatever... especially starscream. the script was terribly cheesy but did invoke a bit of nostalgia for me with the "autobots, roll out" line. all i can say at the moment is **spoiler** OPTIMUS SWORDED A GUY IN THE FREAKIN FACE !!!!!.

[xero]

I went in expecting it to be bad, and to enjoy the suckfest for what it was worth. Unfortunately, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting... which is to say, it failed to cross that threshold into "so-bad-it's-good" territory. No, it just plain sucked.

That's not so say it didn't TRY to cross the threshold, or that it didn't threaten to do so at times. Yeah, there were a few so-bad-it's-good moments (namely any of the numerous scenes with John Turturro or Shia LaBeouf's parents), but overall the thing just sucked. My reaction to most of the (I'm guessing) "WOW moments" was generally to roll my eyes, slap my forehead, groan, and then exclaim "Oh, Jesus Christ!" That's literally what I was doing. And then every once in a while, when things got particularly ridiculous, I looked over at my friend, he looked over at me, and we both shrugged, as if to say "I dunno, man. It's the fucking Transformers."

Oh, and it was WAAAAAAAAAY too long, especially for a schlocky action flick soggy with special effects.

In my own defense, I didn't particularly WANT to see the movie, I just went because I'm on vacation, I'm bored, and my best friend heard that his band's poster was visible on the main character's bedroom wall. It was, but it was out of focus and all too brief.

[fish across face]

But is it the best ad for General Motors ever or not?

[TheBoredOne]

Saw the movie. Laughed at the jokes. Enjoyed the fight scenes.

The only problem I had was there was too much stuff about humans, not enough about Transformers.

[Mikagon]

I saw this movie three times within the first 24 hours of it being in theaters.

I didn't plan seeing it three times but only once-the midnight showing and be done with it. But I couldn't help it; everything was just too amazing about the movie to leave the theater. My diet for the day was popcorn and soda, that messed up for a while but it was completely worth it.

To everything bad that's been said about this movie: SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR RICE KRISPSIES.

On a sidenote; the soundtrack fit the movie perfectly. I enjoyed the fact that there were only a few minutes in the entire movie where there was no music. Made it so much better. Plus the ending speech was fantastic; possible sequel?

[TheBoredOne]

When a comic book-based movie does this well in theaters, there's bound to be a sequel.

[notselfcreated]

The sequel better have a scene paralleling this or I'll be angry.

[Blue Kitty]

huh, I have not actually posted a damn thing in this thread

any way, I loved the movie.  I loved everything about it, especially the fact that Peter Cullen was in it.


oh, wiki says that there are already talks about a sequel.

[anditsdiscontents]

I agree with Hat. I will never be able to watch another action movie ever, ever again, because Transformers is THE DEFINITIVE FUN ACTION MOVIE and no-one will ever top it.
Probably not enough dialogue for the Transformers, but otherwise, seriously, there would be no possible way to do this movie any better than they did.

[Mikagon]

I just thought of a part of the movie I laughed at that wasn't supposed to be funny.

**Spoilers**
The part where all the autobots are on the side of the building (excluding Bumblebee) and they discuss leaving Bumblebee behind and finally got the location of the All Spark off of Captain Witwikki's glasses. I found it funny as they were supposed to be 'hiding' and yet they were all standing on the side of a building in plain sight. Heh.

[CmonMiracle]

huh, I have not actually posted a damn thing in this thread

any way, I loved the movie.  I loved everything about it, especially the fact that Peter Cullen was in it.


oh, wiki says that there are already talks about a sequel.

Yeah, I think you could tell because at the end, you saw Starscream flying off in the distance.

[Motherfirefly]

I agree with Hat. I will never be able to watch another action movie ever, ever again, because Transformers is THE DEFINITIVE FUN ACTION MOVIE and no-one will ever top it.
Probably not enough dialogue for the Transformers, but otherwise, seriously, there would be no possible way to do this movie any better than they did.

I honestly thought that Die Hard 4 gave it a good run for the money for the amount of laughing in an action movie.

I was really just amazed at the CGI, really impressive. I personally wasn't a huge fan of the cartoons but the movie made me actually like the storyline, the photorealistic animation I think converted me...

[philosopherqueen]

When a comic book-based movie does this well in theaters, there's bound to be a sequel.

I just read in the paper that two of the actors have already signed on for not one, but two sequels.

[Mikagon]

I'm so psyched for the sequels then. Midnight showings here I come!

[pi]

spoiler:

"I bought a car and it turned out to be a giant alien robot. Who knew?"

[Aimless]

My own impressions (not a proper review by any means):

This movie. Was. So. ****ING. AWESOME.

I did not expect this level of awesomeness. The guy in the lead role was totally not what I expected--he was a cool actor!--and his character wasn't as **** and as cheesy as I'd expected either--he was smart, sharp, cocky, funny AND a, well, a bit of a loser. Megan Fox... was CUTE. And her acting was perfectly acceptable. The other characters were fairly minor, with not too many lines and not too much screen-time, but they fit well into the rest of the film.

The real stars were the robots. Omfg the robots. I was never a huge fan of Transformers, and, tbh, I've pretty much forgotten everything about the cartoons. I remember kinda being annoyed by bumblebee back when I was a kid, but this time 'round I totally fell in love with him. And omg, OPTIMUS PRIME! *shivers* indeed, all the Autobots were awesome. I had no idea giant robots could be made to be so... personable. So cool and at the same time so SWEET, when they were sneaking about trying to be unnoticeable

Megatron was the only one of the Decepticons who got much in the way of lines, but he was a bad-ass villain:

"You want a piece of me?!"

"NO... I WANT TWO!! *RIPS APART*"

The CGI was great, and the action was fast-paced and hot. I had no problems with the directing and the editing, and not even with the script, which came as a huge surprise. Fave line in the whole movie, I think:

"I'm going to count to five--"

"I'm going to count to THREE."

<3

Transformers isn't just eye-candy and things going BOOM, although there's a great deal of both (jesus, Megan Fox was HOT. I didn't expect her to be that hot!). It's a complete movie, and I for one recommend it be enjoyed in the theatre.

Totally worth the ticket-price. I'd almost like to pay to see it again! =P

Hope you like it too Cheers!

-- P

EDIT: I saw Die Hard 4 last night. It was sweet, but Transformers = sweeter.

[electropants]

I was a lesbian for that two hours.

[Joseph]

The movie was ass.  And this is from someone who loved Snakes On A Plane.

There were some fun action sequences, but there weren't a ton of them.  The Transformers themselves were almost a subplot.  The movie was too easy to make fun of; it required no work.  Joking about the movie was even boring.  I want the cartoon back.

[Mieville]

Good enough for me.  Slightly miffed Bumblebee was a Camaro instead of the Beetle, but you could see a yellow VW Beetle next to him (Bumblebee) during the buy-a-car-for-Sam scene.  That redeemed some of it.  But when you see Barricade chase Bumblebee around do you really feel its so much better when its the classic muscle being chased by a cop car.

CGI and animation is way too intricate for any game platform to run, currently anyways.  That is why its top notch.

*dips a finger into the Transformersauce*
Hmmm...too many humans, needs more bots.

[Jimmy the Squid]

I saw this the other night and I was fucking disappointed.

I went into this film knowing that the dialogue was going to be bad and that the entire movie was an excuse to see big robots blowing shit up and laying into one another. I was still disppointed. I had no idea the film would be this terrible. Shia LeBeouf is only ever good as a side character (and even in this he played the same brash, cocky teenage jerk he is in every other role he's ever played and he didn't even do it well. I don't know who they got for the Love Interest but she was entirely forgetable. Her character had the credibility of a burning paper bag of dogshit, she was unpleasent to look at and even more so to watch. Overall the human actors sucked.

The Transformers themselves were done really well. The voice acting was better than expected and the CGI effects were, for lack of a better word, amazing. Nevertheless the fight scenes went the way of so many action films these days and were lost in a haze of confusing camera angles and infuriating close ups that made it impossible to see what was going on. I kept waiting for the film to impress me. I held on to that optimism until the fight scene with Optimus Prime and Megatron. I have no idea what the hell happened, all I know is that Megatron somehow won but I have no idea how. This film tried to cross the line between shit and awesome and failed miserably. This was Mortal Kombat: Annihilation bad. This was The Covenant bad. This was actually painfully boring to watch.

Michael Bay stole two and a half hours of my life. Fuck you Michael Bay.

[Ben yayayayayayayay]

According to imdb, so far he's stolen 14.63 hours from me.

Why do I never learn 

[bujiatang]

I watched the commentary track that accompanies the DVD of the '89 cartoon movie.  I almost died from laughing.  I forgot how traumatic it had been when they excrutiatingly killed off Optimus Prime to sell a new and different toy.

Somehow the movie reminded me of Better Off Dead.  maybe it was the car. or the lead that looks like a young John Cusack. 

[imapiratearg]

Dude, someone in this thread stole my avatar.  O.o

[Mieville]

Dude, someone in this thread stole my avatar.  O.o

So they have.

Anyone up for a sequel though?  With more robots and less humans?

[Aceandcups]

Less humans would be better. I'd like to see some robotic genocide and less product placement.

*me five minutes after the movie* "Oh man, do I want to drive a Chevy and drink a Mountain Dew!"