Transform and Roll Out!
I saw Transformers and I had every intention of writing a review, but I feel a little overwhelmed by the spectacle.
I barely paid attention to the story, which is not a lot of story to begin with, but the effects, explosions, and battles kept me in rapt attention.
After years of sliding down the ladder of SFX respectability by bringing to life Jar Jar and the other fake environments in the Star Wars prequels; ILM finally got tired of having the shit kicked out of them by WETA, and stepped up in a big way this summer.
Gollum and King Kong changed special effects forever. Yes, Jurassic Park brought us forward, but the dinosaurs were special effects; monsters, things of action mostly shot in the dark, with practical effects taking over for a lot of the close-up stuff. Gollum and King Kong, however, made it plausible for a special effect to be an actual character. A thing that could emote in the presence of flesh and blood actors, and react to dialogue and narrative, as well as push things forward with explosions and noise.
Ever since then, ILM had been playing catch-up until last summer when they dropped Davy Jones into our laps. For the longest time I thought he was a practical effect, make-up, robots parts, etc, all touched up with CG.
Then I saw the making of, and it turns out that Bill Nighy was on set to deliver lines, and hit marks. Everything else, tentacles, eyes, even clothes were all CG.
Now they give us the Transformers.
It’s staggering to look at these robots. My brain literally could not absorb all the detail and movement in these Autobots and Decepticons.
They have a weight to them, they move and interact like something that’s thirty feet tall and weights 4 tons should, but they have a grace to them that warriors possess and would be effortless for mechanical constructs that don’t have to worry about muscle and bone structure.
Seeing Optimus in “real life” took my breath away, and while I never minded the flames on Optimus, the lips were going to be a problem for me. They were throughout, and I wish we would have had more with the mouth guard, but that’s the only real complaint I had for Optimus.
I wish Ironhard retained the Texan drawl from the cartoon. With the creators getting Peter Cullen to return as the voice of Optimus, I hoped Ironhard would still pronounce his name “Arn-hahd.” He has almost a British accent, and if you’re going to make him go in that direction at least make him sound like either a modern SAS commando or an RAF pilot from WWII.
Really, I want to see it again before I write an honest to god review, because like I said I was overwhelmed. I was trying to follow fight scenes shot from a human perspective, rather than for the combatants, so a lot of it was a blur as the cameras struggled to follow the cybertronians in their war.
Due to this, I really didn’t pay attention to the story, but from what I can remember, mostly painfully unfunny attempts at humor, I highly doubt it will hold up to repeated viewings.
Thus, I can definitely recommend seeing it as it starts up, and just keeps going, and as I said, the effects were amazing, and worth the price of admission, but I don’t know if it’s a good movie.
Matt