I must offer up a disclaimer of sorts: first, I was not a lover of the original cartoon, nor did I hate it. I was indifferent and thought it was sort of silly, though the toys were cool. Way cool. I am also not a fan of Michael Bay, he who cannot hold a camera shot for 60 seconds, he who makes the serious funny, and he who producers the most bombastic films and thinks it’s a compliment.
Yes, it’s a stupid toy movie. Michael Bay strikes again with Transformers. This is like all other Michael Bay films — it’s long, it’s full of action, and it’s overdone. Seeing the transformers do their work was neat. Shia LaBeouf did a great job with his part, but all the character were caricatures and that’s not what you want in an action film. I think this was supposed to be an action film, but I’m not sure because the only person who gets Michael Bay’s vision is Michael Bay. Was I entertained? Yeah. Was it good? No. It was better than most of his other movies, except perhaps Armageddon. It was certainly better than that Pearl Harbor film he put out.
This film suffered from Bay disease, which means it views like a kid with ADHD who forgot his Ritalin. You see something and the camera keeps switching angles, and the scenes keep changing. Sometimes an audience wants to look to see what’s happening, but it’s hard.
The subtitles of the aliens speaking in their native language were absurd and I’m not sure why he did that. It was utter rubbish. And there was an amusing continuity gaffe where the street signs in the city changed colors repeatedly from green to blue to yellow. Not a big deal, but it was really obvious. I guess they did a few shots in real LA and then did the rest elsewhere where it was cheaper. During the attack on Sector 7 they say they’re sending F-22, but the first aircraft to be shown taking off are F-16s. There are a number of scenes where it changes from daylight to night far too quickly and without any plausible reason. Yeah, I was so interested in the film I noticed goofs instead.
Also, I must point out that the dialog was often stilted, especially that of the robots but that may have been intentional. And the voice of Optimus Prime sounded just like the cartoon. Did they get the same guy? Anyone know?
See it. Don’t see it. It doesn’t matter. It will still make more money than it deserves. I know I said I wouldn’t see it, but Adrian was able to actually leave and do something, so there we were. We ate at TGIF’s.
Also, on Flickr, I posted a new photo: a nice new sweater courtesy of K. Higgins.