"one shall stand... and one shall fall."
ah yes, i watched transformers.
first, let me tell outright what i thought of this movie:
IT SATISFIED EVERY EXPECTATION I HAD OF IT.
that being said, i will now go fourth and bring up points that will no doubt plague my thoughts as i reminisce about the live-action adaptation of one of my favorite childhood memories.
yes, transformers brought the pain and brought it with the highest quality CGI and CGI-"acting" (by this, i mean that the actors really convinced me that the robots were there in all their bio-metallic glory, and that they weren't just talking and interacting w/ air particles) i have ever laid eyes on.
they retained optimus prime's valor and dignity without forcing him to become some sort of angsty, brooding anti-hero with skeletons in his closet like so many silverscreen heros/heriones of our day have become.
he was good ol' Prime: talking in an eloquent, gracious manner, but with peter cullen's (thank GOD they listened to fans and picked him up for this) stern, commanding tone. they had most of prime's great lines from the old animated series and movie (i.e. "one shall stand... one shall fall", "freedom is the right of all sentient beings."). they even had the dignity to leave out hot rod/rodimus prime: for those of you not in the know, i hate that fucker. he killed op in the original movie.
as much as i hate shia lebeouf as an actor, he didn't bother me as much in this movie, for some reason or the other-- probably because i was too distracted by the fucking awesome action sequences.
now, if you go see this movie for only one reason, make sure it's for the right one: the jaw-dropping action. i've become slightly disenchanted with hollywood's action scenes as of late, due to the favoring of "shakey-camera sydrome". fuck that shit; give me what i paid for.
i want to see the punches,the kicks. i want to see that fucker get stabbed in the face. i DON'T want to see blurs of their clothing and hear lots of grunting/shuffling.
transformers gave me what i yearned for: lots of slow-mo, wide pan out shots, explosions that didn't obscure too much of the action, and even prime putting a fucker in a headlock and stabbing that fucker in the face (where the shit did that blade come from?).
now for the dark side of this movie: mind you, if you go in expecting to watch a michael bay film, you will not be disappointed. fuck, you might even be a little blown-away.
i went into the theater remembering the shitfest that was "pearl harbor" and "armageddon". i didn't even like "bad boys I/II" that much. hopes for character development, well-placed humor, and plausible action all went out the window for me once i settled into my seat.
the human characters in the movie did nothing for me-- not even the eye-candy that is megan fox. don't get me wrong, she was very nice to look at, but i didn't care for her character's troubles in the least bit.
about a little more than half of the human characters are absolutely arbitrary, often lending nothing to the plot. the cast could have probably been cut in half if they had just combined some of the characters into a singular entity, which they probably should have done so they could save the money to buy better script writers (and possibly not michael bay?).
anthony anderson's character was moot and unfunny. the entire hacking team was utterly useless and quickly forgotten. the entire sector seven was stupid and a horrible attempt at humor, not to mention a waste of john turturro's acting ability.
even sam's (lebeouf) parents seemed like they were simply added for some sort of comic relief, which failed for the most part (short chuckle for awkward conversation about masturbation).
even the attempts at making a touching scene were fucked to pieces by bay's hand. with spielberg as a producer, there's an obvious homage to" E.T." in the scene where sector seven is corralling bumblebee and sam is trying to keep the agents from freezing his newfound, transforming friend/car.
while "E.T." took the time/effort to form an obvious and touching bond between the young elliot and the alien from outer space, we get no such treatment from bay's rushed, super-kinetic style: when the scene finally approached, i felt nothing for sam. sure, i felt bad for bumblebee, but kind of in a frowning sort of way-- not in the way it could've/should've been done, which was to make grown men and unborn babies cry.
basically, there was no character development, so i could not have cared less about any of the characters. had i no previous knowledge of the autobots and decepticons, i probably wouldn't have cared about them either.
i know naysayers will exclaim, "but it's an akshun movee, lawlz. no plots, plz." what i say is if you're threatening to kill off the leader of the fucking autobots (prime), make me care about him. i actually didn't give a shit when jazz died, because i wasn't familiar with his character from the animated series and his death was borderline comic material ("you wanna piece of me??" megatron tears him in half: "no! i want two pieces of you!").
anyway, i guess what all this was trying to say was that when/if you go to see this movie, remember that you're watching something that has been molested by michael bay's strangely effeminate hands.
but for michael-bay-standards, this movie is off the charts and easily his best work.
thank God for steven spielberg.