Transformers
Transformers is dumb.
At times it's painfully dumb - we are expected to believe that five giant robots can stomp around in the back yard, uproot a couple of power lines and smash a fountain and nobody will notice, not to mention expected to believe that Megan Fox is in high school, not to mention…we could go on. It is also not a movie overly concerned with the niceties of, say, characterization, or with picking up dangling plot threads, or with the physical limitations of 19th century eyeglasses. (You'll know what I mean when you see the film.) And as you might expect from a film this expensive, it's jam packed with product endorsements, some ok, some genuinely irritating. And some parts of the film, especially in the last 25 minutes, just don't make any sense. None. At all.
But.
Robots.
Not just robots in disguise, but fighting, stomping, transforming into cars and a truck and planes robots. Robots.
Oh yeah.
My inner robot is telling you to go see this movie like right now, 'cause, you know, it's got more than meets the eye. And after all, the stupidity actually seems to be part of the point.
1) "In association with Hasbro." In huge letters right across the credits, right in the beginning. Nice. Nothing like announcing that this is just an ad for toys right up front.
2) Fair warning: it takes Michael Bay a full five minutes to start blowing things up. Five minutes. In an exploding robot movie. Inexcusable.
3) Reason number 782 why all Decepticons should master at least the rudiments of American English: because otherwise the U.S. Air Force will immediately see through their disguises and start shooting them, which then of course forces the Decepticon to get busy and start killing things, which while it's cool and all, comes at a terrible cost to U.S. taxpayers or to the special effects budget, whichever.
4) My, the U.S. military is remarkably fond of Apple computers, and quite considerate about positioning their computers so that we can see the Apple logo each and every time.
5) You get Ding-dongs on Air Force One? Seriously? I thought one minor benefit of the presidency would be top notch airplane food. You disappoint me, Air Force One.
6) Memo to shrimp little robot dude: You can, in fact, get back issues of The New York Times and The New York Herald in more easily accessible areas than Air Force One.
7) Did anybody else find it just slightly suspicious that almost all of the Autobots and Decepticons just happened to land right next to General Motors vehicles?
8) Just imagine how much smoother everything would have gone had the Autobots just learned how to order things on eBay.
9) Confirmation of what I've always thought: Nokia phones can transform into utterly evil entities, and nobody remembers where they are made.
10) Oooh! Not only is Mountain Dew evil, but when you're not looking, it will transform into an evil robot and smash things! I knew it!
11) I don't mean to be critical about the last several minutes of the film. (Well, ok, yes, I do, since they just were not up to the first ¾ of the film.) But, honestly: the world is going to die unless you can get a little black box into the hands of the airborne military (temporarily skipping past the tremendous not-making-any-sense of this). Do you a) search for a building with a working elevator, or b) decide to enter an abandoned building and try to rush up about 60 flights of stairs? If you haven't seen the film and are wondering, remember that I said that at times this film was dumb. Really dumb.
(Purists are going to point out that the entire city was, you know, getting attacked by giant robots, so the chances of the power going off trapping you in the elevator are pretty high, which is all true, but would have made for an awesome scene had it happened, because, you know, the robots are stomping around yelling, "I need that cube!" and the kid is clutching the cube saying, "Ok, I'm claustrophobic and I need a bathroom but maybe they'll smash through the building soon and grab the elevator and send it swinging and swinging and maybe even turn it into a robot toy with me still inside it and huh. Well, at least I don't need to go to the bathroom any more.
Remember, it's not like this film shied away from multiple urination jokes.)
12) Um, did anyone else kinda wonder what happened to the other geeky dudes at the Pentagon? Not to mention to the four people hanging out under the Boulder damn saying to each other, "Man, it's not bad enough that we got sucked in a subplot ripped off from Independence Day, but we don't even get an end to our subplot? We so need to speak to our agents."
12) And did anyone else wonder if Megatron was going to say, "Opitimus. Take. The. Blue. Pill. The cube must be destroyed. One of you must destroy it."
13) Grr. Hi screenwriters. Let me introduce you to two powerful tools called "Google" and "Wikipedia." With these remarkable tools, you too can discover that the deepest part of the ocean is actually the Marianas Trench, thus saving yourself from gross oceanographic errors and saving me from unnecessary irritation. It's the little things, screenwriters, the little things.
At times it's painfully dumb - we are expected to believe that five giant robots can stomp around in the back yard, uproot a couple of power lines and smash a fountain and nobody will notice, not to mention expected to believe that Megan Fox is in high school, not to mention…we could go on. It is also not a movie overly concerned with the niceties of, say, characterization, or with picking up dangling plot threads, or with the physical limitations of 19th century eyeglasses. (You'll know what I mean when you see the film.) And as you might expect from a film this expensive, it's jam packed with product endorsements, some ok, some genuinely irritating. And some parts of the film, especially in the last 25 minutes, just don't make any sense. None. At all.
But.
Robots.
Not just robots in disguise, but fighting, stomping, transforming into cars and a truck and planes robots. Robots.
Oh yeah.
My inner robot is telling you to go see this movie like right now, 'cause, you know, it's got more than meets the eye. And after all, the stupidity actually seems to be part of the point.
1) "In association with Hasbro." In huge letters right across the credits, right in the beginning. Nice. Nothing like announcing that this is just an ad for toys right up front.
2) Fair warning: it takes Michael Bay a full five minutes to start blowing things up. Five minutes. In an exploding robot movie. Inexcusable.
3) Reason number 782 why all Decepticons should master at least the rudiments of American English: because otherwise the U.S. Air Force will immediately see through their disguises and start shooting them, which then of course forces the Decepticon to get busy and start killing things, which while it's cool and all, comes at a terrible cost to U.S. taxpayers or to the special effects budget, whichever.
4) My, the U.S. military is remarkably fond of Apple computers, and quite considerate about positioning their computers so that we can see the Apple logo each and every time.
5) You get Ding-dongs on Air Force One? Seriously? I thought one minor benefit of the presidency would be top notch airplane food. You disappoint me, Air Force One.
6) Memo to shrimp little robot dude: You can, in fact, get back issues of The New York Times and The New York Herald in more easily accessible areas than Air Force One.
7) Did anybody else find it just slightly suspicious that almost all of the Autobots and Decepticons just happened to land right next to General Motors vehicles?
8) Just imagine how much smoother everything would have gone had the Autobots just learned how to order things on eBay.
9) Confirmation of what I've always thought: Nokia phones can transform into utterly evil entities, and nobody remembers where they are made.
10) Oooh! Not only is Mountain Dew evil, but when you're not looking, it will transform into an evil robot and smash things! I knew it!
11) I don't mean to be critical about the last several minutes of the film. (Well, ok, yes, I do, since they just were not up to the first ¾ of the film.) But, honestly: the world is going to die unless you can get a little black box into the hands of the airborne military (temporarily skipping past the tremendous not-making-any-sense of this). Do you a) search for a building with a working elevator, or b) decide to enter an abandoned building and try to rush up about 60 flights of stairs? If you haven't seen the film and are wondering, remember that I said that at times this film was dumb. Really dumb.
(Purists are going to point out that the entire city was, you know, getting attacked by giant robots, so the chances of the power going off trapping you in the elevator are pretty high, which is all true, but would have made for an awesome scene had it happened, because, you know, the robots are stomping around yelling, "I need that cube!" and the kid is clutching the cube saying, "Ok, I'm claustrophobic and I need a bathroom but maybe they'll smash through the building soon and grab the elevator and send it swinging and swinging and maybe even turn it into a robot toy with me still inside it and huh. Well, at least I don't need to go to the bathroom any more.
Remember, it's not like this film shied away from multiple urination jokes.)
12) Um, did anyone else kinda wonder what happened to the other geeky dudes at the Pentagon? Not to mention to the four people hanging out under the Boulder damn saying to each other, "Man, it's not bad enough that we got sucked in a subplot ripped off from Independence Day, but we don't even get an end to our subplot? We so need to speak to our agents."
12) And did anyone else wonder if Megatron was going to say, "Opitimus. Take. The. Blue. Pill. The cube must be destroyed. One of you must destroy it."
13) Grr. Hi screenwriters. Let me introduce you to two powerful tools called "Google" and "Wikipedia." With these remarkable tools, you too can discover that the deepest part of the ocean is actually the Marianas Trench, thus saving yourself from gross oceanographic errors and saving me from unnecessary irritation. It's the little things, screenwriters, the little things.