Jul
01
2007Transformers The Movie - Review
01
2007
That’s right, it officially starts July 3rd, but I was lucky enough to see it at Hasbro’s charity premiere on Thursday.
First things first, as a kid I LOVED Transformers. They were pretty much the only toy I cared about. And as for any other toys I had - if they weren’t something that turned into something else, I wasn’t interested. I even collected all the Go-Bot Rock Lords - robots that turned into, yes, rocks.
But, I digress. The point is, I’ve been a huge Transformers fan for over two decades now. So, I had some fears about the movie. Clearly it wasn’t going to be like the old cartoon, or the original animated movie. And the teaser shots made it clear that the robots didn’t quite look like the originals. - they were far more alien-looking. Could Spielberg and Bay really capture the essence of Transformers that made them so exciting as a kid - yet appeal to a wider audience 20 years removed from the initial phenomenon? In other words, could the movie be awesome?
In a word: yes.
The movie is awesome. My main concern was that to make it a more “human” movie, the focus would be more on the humans’ reactions to the Transfomers’ actions around them, than on the actual interactions between the robots themselves. The first 30-45 minutes of the movie certainly felt this way, but fear not, things really start kicking in once the Autobots arrive on the scene. The big name Decepticons show up much later in the film, but this works out great for fanboys like me, getting two doses of giddiness as the two sides are introduced via subtitled roll calls.
There are “mythological” differences between the movie and the original story line, but nothing anyone but the most obsessive geeks would fret over. Optimus Prime is most definitely Optimus Prime, right down to the original voice. Bumblebee is changed up a bit - there’s a definite bit of “Herbie the Love Bug” to his new persona, but it’s not as cheesy as it could be, and it all kinda works.
There is a lot of action in the movie, but another fear I had - that the movie would be light on the witty banter between Optimus and his gang - was quickly put to rest. It’s in there - including one very poorly chosen taunt from Jazz as he battles Megatron.
By the way, let’s hear it for General Motors in the product placement deal of the century. What an odd coincidence that all the Autobot cars are based on current GM models. Sure, Jazz used to be a Porsche, but isn’t a Pontiac Solstice pretty much just as cool? That’s neither here nor there, I guess.
One thing I was wondering going into the movie was - so what’s Megatron going to turn into this time? Megatron has had an awful identity crisis throughout the years (turning into a Walther P-38 pistol clearly was not an option this time around). The movie handled this pretty slickly by making Megatron the only Transformer who doesn’t not take on an Earthling form - keeping his Cybertronian “protoform” alternate mode (a cool jet thing).
One minor peeve I have with the movie is that the “updated” robot designs are far too complicated. Not that I have a problem with the idea of reimagining the original designs - it’s just that in battle scenes, it’s sometimes hard to figure out what’s going on when each robots 10 million moving parts get intertwined.
Speaking of lots of moving parts - yes, it’s true… Optimus Prime has a functional, moving mouth. BUT - you’ll notice that when he goes into battle, the mouth “shield” we’re all familiar with slides up into place. So, you see, he had a mouth all along, he just chose never to move the shield in the old cartoons.
Oh yeah, and one more major peeve with the movie. As much as the movie strives for visual realism, it’s yet another flick with ridiculous misrepresentations of computer hacking (and the obligatory anti-stereotypical hackers). Just accept that it’s there to move the plot along, and you’ll be fine…
Well, I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, and this review is already getting pretty long. Mainly, I just wanted to give the movie my seal of approval. To all the Transformer fans out there, go see it, you won’t regret it.