Sunday, September 14, 2008

Fine, fine, I'll say it: They're more than meets the eye: "Transformers"

But let's not get carried away. It's still about robots that change into vehicles for no real good reason, and I'm not 10 years old anymore.

There was no way I was seeing Michael Bay's take on the popular 1980s toys in the theater. But as luck would have it, we've had back-to-back free preview weekends -- first HBO and Cinemax, then Starz and Encore. You know how my DVR list was wiped out? Now it's more than 60 percent full, and that's not because of The Woman Who Gives My Sorry Existence Meaning's affinity for "Army Wives."

Anyway, so I figured seeing this big-budget fun for free couldn't hurt. Our story has warring factions of shape-shifting robots searching Earth for some magic cube, and not of the Rubik's variety. The bad robots -- Decepticons, like you didn't know -- just shoot sh*t up, while the Autobots befriend Indiana Jones' son (Shia LaBeouf, still a stupid name), who holds the key to finding Ye Olde Cube. Also involved in the fun are soldiers, code breakers, Jon Voight as the Secretary of Defense, John Turturro as a super-secret government agent and Megan "Man, Is She Ever a" Fox as Shia's would-be squeeze.

The storytelling is standard: Show some ominous scenes early on, then unleash an action scene that doesn't give away too much shortly after that. Then more build-up, the big reveal, exposition, action, romance, action, action, big finish. Hey, I got no problem with that. This is Michael Bay we're talking about, not Chris Nolan.

I actually liked some stuff in "Transformers." The build-up was handled well, and the effects are plenty good. It was especially cool later in the movie when robots would shift back and forth during fights. Made it seem more natural -- weird as that sounds -- vs. "everyone stop and watch this thing change." Also, LaBeouf wasn't that bad -- similar to "Disturbia" and a hell of a lot more winning than in "Crystal Skull" -- and Fox was appealing, and not just because she's, to use a technical term, f*ckin' hot. Dear lord.

But as much as we're here for the action, and as solid as the effects and explosions were ... this really isn't much of a movie for grown-ups. (Surprise, I know.) I'm sure it's just me, but once the robots starting talking, I began cringing. Instead of "ha ha," I thought "uh-uh." The dialogue was either too corny or too sappy, and that really took away from the throwdowns between the big guys.

Of course, with no personalities, the robots are just ... robots. So I'm not sure what, if anything, could be done differently. And it's not like "Transformers" is bad. It's just passable, which is good compared to what I expected. I just wish I had held onto my own Transformers, if only to recreate those epic battles with the Gobots. Man, was that a tussle.

1 Comments:

At 12:22 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I thought it was an alright movie being based off of a Hasbro toy. Pretty neat that they got Peter Cullin to do his old voice as Optimus. Maybe in the second one, we can get a controversial scene like in the animated movie. Lebouf played the part like a cartoon, which is not bad since this movie is about robots from an alien planet. The only character that did not feel right was Optimus Prime due to how bumbling he was.
It is too bad that the voice of Starscream/Cobra commander is dead because there probably would have a dorkgasm over the internet.
Speaking of Cobra Commander, can't wait to see your review of GI Joe when it hits the big screen. Isn't Sgt. Slaughter dead?

 

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