Tuesday, July 10, 2007
This is taking me surprisingly long. I've just way too much to say about it, I guess.

OBVIOUSLY, SPOILERS!!

TRANSFORMERS REVIEW PART 1: SOME QUICK LISTS

Ten GOOD Things:
  1. Peter Cullen as Prime. Absolutely has to be mentioned! I never imagined I'd hear Prime speak the words "Whoops. My bad."
  2. When Sam buys Bumblebee, the dealer tries to instead sell him a yellow VW bug, which is of course Bumblebee's original form. A nice piece of tribute to the original series.
  3. The chase scene between Bumblebee and Barricade was awesome. It also had one of the few fast, on-the-fly transformations, when Barricade is running after Bumblebee and transformers into his police car mode without missing a beat.
  4. Prime BEHEADING Bonecrusher with a freaking energy sword. Enough said.
  5. Bumblebee adapting the form of a new 2008 Camaro was great.
  6. Megatron berating Starscream for no obvious reason. (The only thing lacking was Starscream's bitter reaction, but that's another issue altogether...)
  7. Scorponok's battle with the soldiers in the desert city.
  8. Blackout's (the helicopter) first appearance in the army camp. Great, great scene, and sense of panic.
  9. Frenzy adapting the form of a cell phone on the fly to remain incognito. A PERFECT use of how the alt-forms are used to infiltrate and escape notice.
  10. Small hidden details. There was a bunch. Barricade's side reads; "To punish and enslave" rather than "To protect and serve". You only see it for a few seconds, but it's there. And at the end, I was a little surprised that Frenzy started chucking around throwing stars...until I realized they were transformed CDs.

Ten Eleven BAD Things
  1. Way, WAY too much humans onscreen and human heroics. This is a movie ABOUT ROBOTS FIGHTING. Not humans. ROBOTS. Any scene that didn't involve a transformer in it seemed to take way too long.
  2. I didn't mind the redesigns because they were different than the old models, but I did greatly dislike them for a few other reasons. One, the robot modes were just plain AWFUL looking. Two, they were almost all the same dull, bland grey, which made it really hard to tell them apart during fast action scenes. And three, one thing that was always cool about any Transformers series was that you could look at them in robot form and instantly tell what they turn into. I mean, look at this - the cab windows and grill are unmistakable, and there's even the smoke stacks. Now look at this. I see...four tires, and a whole mess of blue, red, and flames. Is he a van? A truck? A lawnmower? Who knows! And don't even get me started on Megatron or Frenzy.
  3. Frenzy's STUPID evil Ewok mannerisms. Making squeaky, chirping robot noises and behaving all cutesy was super annoying. I can understand why they made his personality like this, but I still loathed it. If there was anything that simultaneously sucker punched me and kicked me in the groin, it was this.
  4. Frenzy was super annoying, but at least he HAD a personality. The Decepticons were pretty much all boring, generic "evil robots" who we didn't care about at all. We didn't care at all when Bonecrusher died, because we had literally zero connection to him. And only Megatron had more than a few spoken lines. As a result, they were pretty bland and unfortunately, pretty forgettable.
  5. Quick, name something important Ratchet did! Or how about name anything he did at all? He was utterly useless. Jazz wasn't much better, but he at least did something...he died. (Which isn't much better.)
  6. The humans were way too strong. They basically didn't even need the Autobots. They defeated Scorponok and Blackout without any help, held their own against Devastator, and used an air strike to take down Megatron. Disgusting. The humans are supposed to be utterly helpless and weak against the Transformers, that's like the rule! That's why the Autobots are heroes, since they protect the humans and come to our rescue. And it's not even a longing for how the original series was - it's just not as exciting when there's no sense of emergency and danger. Blackout's initial slaughter had the right sense of overwhelming doom, as the soldiers were COMPLETELY outmatched. It was intense, and awesome. But later? It was like "Hey look, it's that helicopter. LET'S GET HIM!" and bam - they did. Yawn.
  7. Scorponok's disappearance! Where did he go?? We didn't even get to see him transform! Same with Barricade. He was there on the highway (Sam recognizes him) and then suddenly he's...just gone? Huh?
  8. Too many random scenes whose sole purpose was to generate cheap laughs. Frenzy's scenes or the "I need a cell phone!" scene were fine because they were connected to the plot. Bumblebee's scene with the Sector Seven guy was awesome. But I'm talking about the scene with the hacker guy complaining about his grandma's carpet; his donut scene in the interrogation room; the "Sam's Happy Time" scene. These scenes weren't bad, but they were unnecessary, especially considering the number of elements in the movie that desperately needed more screentime.
  9. Bumblebee just miraculously regaining the ability to speak at the end. What?! Did getting your legs severed restore your voice? Weird. Yes, I know Ratchet waves a laser at him, but BB doesn't start talking until much later. I've also heard the theory that touching the Allspark heals him...yet he still didn't talk during the street battle. So I don't buy that reasoning either.
  10. Speaking of Bumblebee's voice, why couldn't he talk? Prime says it's because his vocal circuits were damaged, but telling us why or how or giving us ANYTHING would have been nice, seeing as it was a pretty important plot element. In the comic prelude issues that were released before the movie, they actually explain this. Bumblebee is the one who foils Megatron's plans long ago by sending the Allspark away into space, and Megatron crushes his throat in retaliation. I'm not saying they needed to have the whole history, but even mentioning that it's because of Megatron would have sufficed. (And enhanced Megatron's "evil" image.)
  11. What the hell was up with Lennox's suicidal, Jackie Chan-ish stunt at the end when they take down Blackout? They're already hitting him with those high velocity rounds, the planes are coming in for the air strike, and then suddenly Lennox, who's been calm, levelheaded and sensible the whole film, decides to cowboy up and ride a motorbike underneath Blackout just so he can what...shoot him closer up? When did the movie turn into Bad Boys? This was idiotic and reeked of ridiculous testosterone. It sickened me.

Five CURIOUS Things
  1. So the US government had this super secret alien giant cube, which they kept under tons and tons of concrete to prevent the signal from being detected...and yet they stored the SECRET ALIEN GIANT ROBOT in the same underground base like...2 rooms away? Does that not seem a little shortsighted?
  2. What was with the lack of guns? Bumblebee had a pop-out cannon, Ironhide had his arm cannon things going...but no one had a separate, individual gun. Megatron didn't have an arm cannon, but instead put his hands together and...grew...a rifle barrel? Or something? Weird. I realize that Prime did have an actual gun (he pulls it out and shoots Megatron with it before Megatron blasts him with his hands/rifle thing.) But you never get a good look at it. The lack of guns wasn't bad, just a little unexpected. I miss Jazz's cassette tape-turned-rifle. And Megatron's HUGE freaking arm cannon.
  3. An entire government signals/communications branch (like 50 people) were working on the mysterious audio signal for like an hour and got nowhere...but the hacker dude just popped it into his PC and within 30 seconds was not only able to detect that there was a message, but also READ the message? Even though it was in all kinds of weird symbols and hieroglyphics? Yeah...okay. Sure.
  4. "She's a criminal! And criminals are HOT!" Wow. So many things wrong with this. Without a doubt the weirdest moment in the entire movie. Weird like creepy weird. Like awkwardly, desperately hope something explodes soon so the movie can move on and pretend that line never happened.
  5. If you're going to bring back Cullen as the voice of Prime, you basically have to bring back the voice of Megatron. Bay said that Frank Welker's voice didn't fit the new "monster" Megatron. But you know what? Who cares. This is perhaps the one thing where Bay should have just bitten the bullet and sacrificed his creative vision. The funky new designs, the lack of important characters, PRIME WITH FLAMES...all of these are minor compared to the iconic voices of Cullen and Welker. As soon as Cullen started talking, the audience pop was huge. But it would have been through the roof if Frank Welker was replying. They even signed Welker to voice Megatron for the video game! I can't really say this was a totally bad thing, because Hugo Weaving was fine as Megatron. But even an average performance from Welker would have been so much more memorable. Bay REALLY missed the boat on this one.

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A letter to Optimus Prime from his Geico auto insurance agent.
"$665,789.11 requested reimbursement for repairs to your trailer. You claimed the damage was caused by a giant mechanical scorpion, which I can only assume is some amusement-park ride, although I question the wisdom of bringing your mobile home so close to such dangerous equipment."


[posted by Rades at 11:44 PM] LINK ||