Best part of the movie? Well… it was loud.
July 4th, 2007 by screenwriterguy
If I ever again suggest giving Michael Bay the benefit of the doubt, stop me.
With the 4th of July awkwardly falling on a Wednesday this year, and with Bush’s hidden-from-news-cycle-by-holiday commutation of Libby squeezing any last drop of national pride from me, I opted against attending any fireworks celebration. Instead, I thought I’d check out the new Transformers movie. I should have gone with the fireworks. Fireworks might not have been as loud, but undoubtedly they would have had better plot development. You remember the cartoon from the 80s? Any single installment is guaranteed to have better character and story than this movie, and the cartoon was pretty much a repeated 20-minute toy commercial about robots shooting (and missing) each other with lasers.
Right about here I should probably issue a minor spoiler warning. Although I’d rather offer a warning to instead use your money on anything else. Go to the dollar store and pick out ten of anything. You might not need nine back-ups for your new plastic yo-yo, but you’re more likely to be happy with your expenditure than you will at the end of Transformers.
The logic flaws were big enough to drive an alien robot disguised as a truck through. In an early scene, a robot is attacking a military base. He stops to hack into a computer. All around, soldiers run from explosions… caused by the robot. Which wasn’t, at that time, causing any explosions. It was hacking into a computer system. Seriously, stuff just started blowing up on its own. And it pretty much didn’t stop blowing up until the moment it was time to ham-handedly prep us for a sequel.
About an hour into the movie, at which point Optimus Prime had still yet to speak, I tried asking myself if I would be so disappointed in the story if I had never met the characters before. Was I just upset that Bumblebee wasn’t a VW bug and Megatron wasn’t a gun? But I don’t think expectations were a problem. After all, someone new to the franchise who watched only the movie wouldn’t have met the characters, either. In the climactic battle, one of the autobots dies. I didn’t know which one. Nor did I care. Optimus reminded us at the end as to the name of the fallen comrade, right before he shrugged it off because he sure was happy to have made new friends.
Seriously, I can’t understand how I encountered so much positive early buzz on this movie. The insult to injury will be when it does $6oM this weekend.
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Posted in Reviews |
Jul 5th 2007 at 4:12 am
Ugh.
For 2 plus hours, I got to sit down and be flat-out entertained by this movie. And for that, I’m thankful. When I first wrapped up with film school, I remember being completely unable to enjoy a movie… I was too busy analyzing every detail… were there enough reversals, what imagery was best used to illustrate the allegory of the film, how was subtext driving my experiences with the characters.
Then, I realized that was keeping me from enjoying some movies. Movies like this one.
It was big, loud, fun, and not-important. Were there logic gaps? Absolutely. (Bumblebee’s voicebox was healed WHEN?) But it was also a summer movie that - for the first time in years - I left thinking “I might be willing to see that again.”
Jul 5th 2007 at 6:40 am
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I tend to like stories to make sense. (When did Megatron learn English? Why would mutilating one transformer kill him, and doing so to another make him split into cute little regenerating pieces? Why were the Autobots trying to help Sam get the cube to the U.S. military, when their goal all along had been to take it?)
But I went into the theater EXPECTING a mindless summer movie. I was on board. I was in the mood. So the fact that I didn’t like it isn’t because I’m overanalyzing. I’m calling out a flick whose plot-to-spectacle ratio is just far too low to be acceptable. And just because I think it’s crap doesn’t make it fair to accuse me of snobbery.
Remember Independence Day? That was another mindless summer movie whose main appeal was aliens blowing stuff up. It was also a movie with ridiculous story flaws, most famously the Apple laptop interfaced with alien technology to give them a computer virus. But at the same time, I remember CARING about Will Smith dragging an alien through the desert, Randy Quaid sacrificing himself in part to make his kids proud, and President Lonestar giving a rousing speech. Independence Daywas a crap movie, too… but I liked it. Outside of hoping Sam would score with the overly hot female lead, I wasn’t given much of anything to root for or against in Transformers, so I stand by my assertion that I wish I had bought ten plastic yo-yos instead.
Jul 5th 2007 at 6:46 am
No one accused you of snobbery, Screenwriterguy.
Jul 5th 2007 at 6:58 am
Fair enough, and I apologize for getting overly excited about how little I liked this movie. It’s just that it sorta wasted my day off.
Jul 5th 2007 at 7:00 am
I think the next post should be a movie you loved but I found truly distasteful — if only to restore the balance!
Oh… and you’re so NOT invited to my place for a Transformers DVD screening party.
Jul 6th 2007 at 9:48 am
It’s always a little odd to me when people say, “It’s a summer movie — I was hoping for something mindless!” Can’t understand it when people are aghast at anyone who expects spectacle AND a decent story. Remember Indiana Jones? Smart + spectacle = awesome.
Oh, for further childhood-memory-raping, please see: http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2007/07/alvin_and_the_chipmunks_poster.php
Jul 6th 2007 at 2:29 pm
Wow. Looks like #277 on Earl’s list is going to be “Co-starred with cgi rodents with a lot of street flava.”
Jul 6th 2007 at 2:35 pm
Dunno…It was stupid. It was fun. I didn’t know what the hell was going on for most of it, but I liked watching cars turn into robots and throw stuff around, the explosions were good, and the theatre was air conditioned. And there was enough bass that the baby kicked through the whole thing (two geek parents…) But I guess it’s pathetic that it’s probably the last movie theatre movie I’ll see before I become an actual Parent. Maybe we’ll see Pixar tonight to get the grime off…
Jul 10th 2007 at 4:41 pm
I totally agree that just because it is a spectacle movie, it does not have to be without intrigue and intelligence…the movie makers just assume that they can cause we are dumb enough to support the inane ones….
Jul 10th 2007 at 4:46 pm
Fine! I give in!
From now on, I will expect more from my movies about robots from outer space.