No more than what meets the eye

I did it. I sucked it up, put on a wig and a fake beard over my real beard and went to see Transformers Tuesday. This one is really kind of hard to review objectively, as there was alot there and some of it was great. This movie is to Michael Bay what Poltergeist was to Tobe Hooper. Don't get me wrong, it's still got all those trademark "Michael Bay" shots in it where we are subjected to someone standing up as the camera rotates around them until we throw up from motion sickness, but for the most part I feel he was really roped in and held a little back on this one. That's a good thing. It means we don't have to watch Optimus lose his spark in slow-motion while Aerosmith plays in the background. You can tell that Spielberg was runnin' the show. This might have some spoilers, so don't go on any further if you give two shits.

Lets start with the good things. This is a total realization of 80's childhood fantasy and they know it. It's the toys I was completely obsessed with for years throughout the mid to late 80's. We all were. So, there is a soft spot ($$$) to see them on the big screen again, this time in multi-gazzillion dollar shiny CG glory. That is exactly what they did. Fuck the nerds annoyed with the fact they gave them "mouths" and that Optimus had flames on his truck. They all looked BADASS. The effects were INSANE and through the roof. I have never seen this much destruction and CG with so much camera movement in the plate shot. I don't know how the hell they did it, but it was incredible to look at. My point is, I don't think they "gay'ed" up the robots too much. I thought they looked pretty damn cool. Second, there was plenty of action. The pacing only dwindled once or twice but overall the action was kept pretty tight and moved along very well. ALMOST made me forget it was 2 and a half hours long...almost.

They also managed to throw in a few nods to the old guys in the audience. I noticed a couple lines pulled directly from the animated movie which was kinda' cool. I also really enjoyed the original voice actor for Optimus being in the film. I think it worked as a sedative making me lucid throughout the film so I wouldn't notice all the flaws. It was like a familiar voice guiding you through the valley of the shadow of death. It was also adequately dark and violent, almost surprisingly so. It had plenty of people getting thrown all over the place and the destruction level was through the roof. The brief battle on the highway and the battle in the city at the end are worth the price of admission alone.

Now for the problems I had. Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to nit-pick this movie too much. It is what it is: a gajillion dollar spectacle cashing in on a nostalgic 30 minute toy commercial from the eighties. This isn't the Iliad. That said, it still managed to disappoint on a few levels. Mind you, it takes a day or so for the "high" to wear off of just having seen nearly 30 years of nostalgic wet-dreams realized. Once you regain consciousness is when you start to realize these problems. Problem numero uno: they actually dumbed down the story. Let me repeat that. They dumbed down the story of a 1980's saturday morning cartoon. What does that say about us as a country or SPECIES for that matter? The original series and film had the Autobots fighting Decepticons over energon whilst trying to avoid things like Unicron. It was a simple story any kid could grasp even having never seen the show. So, why is it for this TWO AND A HALF HOUR FUCKING EPIC do we need to make it as dumb as Autobots and Decepticons on earth to find the "all spark" which is basically the life force of cybertron. Don't even get me started on how Megatron gets to earth [rubs temples to numb the pain]. Its a little sad when the '86 animated movie has a deeper plot, that's all I am saying. There were a couple scenes that made me cringe, such as the extended "where are the glasses" scene while the autobots hide and chatter as well as the slutty chick driving around the towtruck with Bumblebee's awful dialogue. Yeesh. One other gripe is all the freakin' product placement. It was insane! I don't mind the logical car brand crossovers but it all started to get a little silly.

One other slight issue I had with the movie was [dips finger into film and tastes it, smacking loudly] it needs more Decepticons! Seriously, they take a major back seat in this movie and don't even show up officially until the end. That party shoulda' got started in the first half hour! This was more about the Autobots...but whatever.

Despite it's problems, I still had a damn good time. It was fun, commercial-pop-bubblegum crap. I don't care if it had problems, it was TRANSFORMERS! All in all it was only mildly sacreligous to the source material [cold makes them shut down??? How the hell do they travel through SPACE then?!], it was just a little watered down. No big surprise. Most big budget films are so over analyzed and tested to the point that everything is watered down. I still recommend seeing it. It was a blast with a few moments of stupidity. It managed to be a kid's movie that catered enough to old guys who grew up with this stuff to not make us violent. I'd call that a moderate success.