Tranformers: The Movie, The Review

Transformer: The Movie

Directed by: Micheal Bay
Written by: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Peter Cullen and a bunch of other people whose careers deserve to be punished.

Welcome Lee, from Under the Asian Influence!

So, I was recently asked to "guest" review the new live-action Transformers movie for my friends blog which specializes in reviewing everything you could possibly review. Having recently seen the movie, I thought it would be a good chance for me, a self-proclaimed old-school Transformers fan, to get a few things off his chest about this new adaptation of the franchise. I'm sure you've heard it all before, the good and the bad, but I think you'll find that my opinion is a little bit of both.

Most people going to see Transformers are probably interested in seeing it because they're fans of either the cartoon series, or fans of the animated movie. However, their is a large demographic of fans out there that refuse to see the Michael Bayified version due to his unforgivable changes to an already well-established and entertaining franchise. I was more than ready to join the boycotter's due to some of these said changes I had read about previously; Bumblebees is a Camaro, Optimus Prime has cholo flames painted on his truck, Megatron is now a Raptor jet, etc. That being said, my overall curiosity managed to get the best of me and I had to assess the damage first-hand.

If you don't know the story of the animated series, then never fear, because it's been changed completely and you won't have to have followed the cartoon in order to understand any of the movie. Now, the Autobots (good-guy robots led by Optimus Prime) are in a race against time against the Decepticons (bad-guy robots led by Megatron) to find the Allspark cube, which is basically responsible for creating the Transformers. Anything the cube touches, instantly becomes a Transformers. Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving) plans to use the cube to control all of Earth's technology and of course use it to take over the planet. The problem that the Autobots and Decepticons have is trying to locate the Allspark. That's where Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf) comes in. Sam is an almost typical, socially-awkward, neurotic geek that happens to have a very important Arctic-exploring Grandfather, Archibald Witwicky (William Morgan Sheppard), who actually discovered Megatron frozen under a lake of ice. After a mishap of activating Megatron's navigational system, the coordinates to the Allspark cube are imprinted onto Archibald's glasses. This is never really explained in detail, so you gotta just shrug your shoulders and say, "whatever". The Autobots locate Sam by finding his profile on eBay in which he's trying to sell some of his Grandfathers old things, the glasses included, and Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) explains Sam's role in this intergalactic battle. Sam's dad promised him that if he got two A's in school and saved $2000, then he would get a car for him. Less than impressed with the overall selection of used cars, Sam decides to purchase an older yellow Camaro for $4000 that just seems to feel just right. Little does he know, the yellow Camaro is really his Autobot guardian Bumblebee. Sam uses his new ride as a means of impressing the hot, popular chick at his school Mikaela (Megan Fox) who never even knew Sam existed before he gives her a lift home. Sam seems to really understand where Mikaela is coming from, and they share a moment together. Whether they like it or not, they'll be spending a whole lot more time together with the Autobots and their battle with the Decepticons over the Allspark cube. There are some other, less-relevant, additions to the storyline revolving around some young brains Maggie (Rachael Taylor) and Glenn (Anthony Anderson) assisting Defense Secretary John Keller (Jon Voight) in finding out what the cause behind the electronic disturbances are. They don't realize to the near-end of the movie that it's the Decepticons hacking into their computers in order to find out everything about Archibald Witwicky and Sam in order to locate the glasses. Also, we follow around some soldiers that were attacked on base by Decepticons and only a handful survived the assault. The survivors consist of Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson) and Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel) among others. They need to get back home and help defend the country against these giant robots, of course after learning what they are and why they're here. Also, the FBI and a special government division, Sector 7, seems to know everything about the cube and these robots from another planet. Therefore, the FBI, led by Agent Simmons (John Turturro) is after Sam and Mikaela to keep them from interfering with official business.

I think it would be best to just get all the things that I disliked about the movie out of the way, in order to end the review on a note that talks about some of the more positive aspects. I knew a thing or two about the live-action Transformers before I even watched it, and the problems I had with it were already beginning to pile up. I was bothered by the fact that they didn't use more of the well-known robots from the series in the movie, instead opting to use newly created ones such as Ratchet on the Autobots, and countless more for the Decepticons (Bonecrusher, Barricade, and Blackout for example). I also wasn't a big fan of the decision to change a lot of these robots into things they didn't transform into originally. Bumblebee being a Camaro being the biggest offender and Megatron being a Raptor jet came in close second. I was willing to forgive these choices in film making in hope that they wouldn't compromise the movie too severely. In the end, I got past it and just let it go. However, I still hate the fact that Michael Bay decided to give these robots moving lips when they speak. Sure, it may make sense from a "realistic" standpoint that they'd need them to annunciate words, but who cares about realism when we're talking about 20-30 foot robots here! It just looked stupid! I thought John Turturro was a terrible choice for the hard-talking, strictly-business FBI Agent Simmons. He was more of a parody of this kind of character, making me wonder who in their right mind would take him seriously? I didn't like the slapstick humor they did with the Autobots, such as the scene where the Autobots follow Sam back to his house in order to get the glasses. They hide around the outside of the house from Sam's parents and even trip over a power line. It sucked and I would've rather the Autobots been taken more seriously. Last, but certainly not least, I hated the fact that the Allspark cube seemed to transform everything it touched into a Transformer, more specifically a Decepticon! I saw my beloved X-Box 360 attack some jerk on the street in the last act of the movie, and instead of thinking it was cool, I just thought, "F@#$ing STUPID!".

Now, lets talk about some of the better aspects of Transformers. I did think the robots looked pretty cool, and the animation behind the transformations looked really good with incredible attention to detail. The best part of the movie for me, was the fact that Peter Cullen re-prised his role as the voice of Optimus Prime. The man was responsible for giving Optimus life in the series and the animated movie and so it only seems a necessity that he continue doing the voice for him. The final action scene, which was pretty long I might add, was visually entertaining and overall I had a good time watching the robots throw down. I enjoyed Shia Labeouf's performance as Sam. Seems people either hate this kid or just love him, and I'm more inclined to join the "love" side, but I thought he was funny and really pulled the reigns on dragging the rest of the movie out of the crap storyline. Overall, I'd have to say Transformers wasn't as big of a pile of garbage as I was expecting, but the same word kept popping into my head, over-and-over: disappointing. You have to know that a sequel is in the works, because not only did the ending warrant one, but it's a cash-cow at the box-office. I'm hoping they work out a story that doesn't revolve around finding a pair of glasses in order to save the planet. (Lee)

Story: 3

Sound/Music: 8

Look/Style: 9

Acting: 6

Overall: 6.5