Autobots, roll out.
So... Transformers...
I went into this film in two minds, plenty of folk I know have already seen this and people have loved it, and people have hated it. I dislike going into a movie with high expectations, I am invariably disappointed. I usually enjoy a film far more if I go expecting nothing great, nothing more than an amusing distraction.
So maybe it was because I was in two minds going in, the expectation of disappointment flickering in a tiny spark of hope, that I came out in two minds.
It was a very entertaining and enjoyable film. It was one of the worst films I have seen this year.
The good, the bad, and the plotholes:
The good? Well, we were laughing, a lot, and not just at the stupid bits, it has some genuinely funny moments.
Unfortunately they often come at the expense of sensible plot development.
This is most reflected in the human element. I've heard both sides, that it stopped it being a huge robot-on-robot plotless mash-up, and that it got in the way of what should have been much more of a robot-on-robot mash-up.
I fall in the middle, some of the fights should definitely have been longer, but I actually liked a lot of the human element, I liked the military squad shoved into the middle of things, they were just right for me. Its the first Witwicky part of the film, which essentially becomes Herbie with a Camaro (a nod in the direction of the beetle? Far too wastely if it is), that could have been cut back to provide more space for fights. Why would Bumblebee play cupid for Witwicky? When their quest is so urgent why spend so much time arsing around? If it's to gain his trust then it becomes completely pointless because Bumblebee gains his trust when he defends him from Barricade, making the previous moments, plotwise, entirely superfluous.
I both hated and loved the robot designs. The less chunky design was quite cool, but due to the zoomed in shaky-cam fight scenes it made it too hard to identify what was going on, who was who, in most of them. And the faces just ended up looking idiotic, like a child's copy of a transformer, they should have left the face plates and forgotten the mouths. Why would a giant robot that can adapt and shift its form even need a mouth?
And forget about the fact that the ghetto blaster was Frenzy and not Soundwave; Frenzy was smaller and they were, alledgedly, trying for a robot/ vehicle-form mass analog. I thought the stealthy robot was a cool idea, except why they couldn't have found someone other than Johnny 5 to play him, and why a stealth unit would jabber like a Critter I have no f*cking idea.
Oh, the glasses and the all-spark... or MacGuffin Prime and MacGuffitron, and they shall now be known...
The whole concept of the map 'burnt' into the glasses is just f*cking stupid, and its such an obvious and rubbish plot device it hurts me just thinking about it. Some random piece of megatron that archibald nicked would have made more sense. (why is megatron's navigation system in his finger, too?)
And then the all-spark. This is the thing that initiated life on Cybertron, which the film itself begins by telling us used to exist in peace. So why does it instantly make beings that are hostile and develop weaponry systems? (weaponry systems which for some reason seem based on Earth weapons tech too...)
I'm not going to go into the incorrect tranformer/ vehicle situation. VW wouldn't license the beetle, get over it. My only complaint is with Optimus' big splash page entrance. Forget the shape of the cab, it's that they ruined the iconic blue and red paintjob by splattering my-first-Need-for-Speed flaming decals up the side of it.
It's a film that has loads of good moments that Michael Bay and team manage to ruin with some utter crap. So, my final word is: enjoy this movie, but while you do so, hate every other moment of it.
Have a photo:
I went into this film in two minds, plenty of folk I know have already seen this and people have loved it, and people have hated it. I dislike going into a movie with high expectations, I am invariably disappointed. I usually enjoy a film far more if I go expecting nothing great, nothing more than an amusing distraction.
So maybe it was because I was in two minds going in, the expectation of disappointment flickering in a tiny spark of hope, that I came out in two minds.
It was a very entertaining and enjoyable film. It was one of the worst films I have seen this year.
The good, the bad, and the plotholes:
The good? Well, we were laughing, a lot, and not just at the stupid bits, it has some genuinely funny moments.
Unfortunately they often come at the expense of sensible plot development.
This is most reflected in the human element. I've heard both sides, that it stopped it being a huge robot-on-robot plotless mash-up, and that it got in the way of what should have been much more of a robot-on-robot mash-up.
I fall in the middle, some of the fights should definitely have been longer, but I actually liked a lot of the human element, I liked the military squad shoved into the middle of things, they were just right for me. Its the first Witwicky part of the film, which essentially becomes Herbie with a Camaro (a nod in the direction of the beetle? Far too wastely if it is), that could have been cut back to provide more space for fights. Why would Bumblebee play cupid for Witwicky? When their quest is so urgent why spend so much time arsing around? If it's to gain his trust then it becomes completely pointless because Bumblebee gains his trust when he defends him from Barricade, making the previous moments, plotwise, entirely superfluous.
I both hated and loved the robot designs. The less chunky design was quite cool, but due to the zoomed in shaky-cam fight scenes it made it too hard to identify what was going on, who was who, in most of them. And the faces just ended up looking idiotic, like a child's copy of a transformer, they should have left the face plates and forgotten the mouths. Why would a giant robot that can adapt and shift its form even need a mouth?
And forget about the fact that the ghetto blaster was Frenzy and not Soundwave; Frenzy was smaller and they were, alledgedly, trying for a robot/ vehicle-form mass analog. I thought the stealthy robot was a cool idea, except why they couldn't have found someone other than Johnny 5 to play him, and why a stealth unit would jabber like a Critter I have no f*cking idea.
Oh, the glasses and the all-spark... or MacGuffin Prime and MacGuffitron, and they shall now be known...
The whole concept of the map 'burnt' into the glasses is just f*cking stupid, and its such an obvious and rubbish plot device it hurts me just thinking about it. Some random piece of megatron that archibald nicked would have made more sense. (why is megatron's navigation system in his finger, too?)
And then the all-spark. This is the thing that initiated life on Cybertron, which the film itself begins by telling us used to exist in peace. So why does it instantly make beings that are hostile and develop weaponry systems? (weaponry systems which for some reason seem based on Earth weapons tech too...)
I'm not going to go into the incorrect tranformer/ vehicle situation. VW wouldn't license the beetle, get over it. My only complaint is with Optimus' big splash page entrance. Forget the shape of the cab, it's that they ruined the iconic blue and red paintjob by splattering my-first-Need-for-Speed flaming decals up the side of it.
It's a film that has loads of good moments that Michael Bay and team manage to ruin with some utter crap. So, my final word is: enjoy this movie, but while you do so, hate every other moment of it.
Have a photo: