Transformers, or, "I wish this film would turn itself into something worth watching."
After several of my friends chided me for not going to see Transformers during its opening week, I finally sucked it up and went last night.
I'll be honest, it wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting, but then again, I was expecting something only slightly more entertaining than a case of violent diarrhoea.
The theatre crowd was, shall we say, not quite as reticent as I prefer. I enjoy a boisterous laugh every now and again, but I can't think of a single film where screaming, "TAKE YOUR TITTIES OUT" at the screen could be considered prudent or worthwhile. But enough of that, let's move on to the film itself.
I'll get the nerd stuff out of the way first...the US Military and NASA use 24 hour time, kilometres, and Celsius. In Transformers, they don't. Sorry, but it irked me to a level that I didn't think was possible in the realm of irkitude.
Character development was awful, albeit expected from a Michael Bay film, and there's a certain sense of irony in the fact that the two main character leads were born after the show was off the air in some parts of the world, and just a few months before it was off the air in the US.
Yes, the special effects were incredible, though the film suffered from the same problem that Matrix Revolutions did, which is that the action sequences were simply overdone to the point that you could no longer tell what was going on. Furthermore, the Decepticons pretty much all looked the same when transformed, so it was hard to tell who was fighting whom on screen. They were instead just a mass of shapes and pointy things, moving far too quickly. That type of schizophrenic seizure-inducing mayhem might be just fine if you're afflicted by attention deficit disorder, or Japanese, but for all of the fucking rest of us, it's a bit much.
Furthermore, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the product placement. The lingering shot of the Panasonic flash drive. The slightly out of focus but still in the foreground Nokia phone. And General Motors & Ford everywhere. There was a Saleen-modified Mustang, and a Hummer H2, and a GMC pick-up, and a convoy of black GMC SUVs, and a sneak-peek of the new Chevy Camaro, a car that's about as desirable as a case of bird flu. It's bad enough that Bumblebee was a fucking Camaro instead of a classic VW beetle, but Michael Bay's creation had Jazz, a Porsche 935 Turbo, driving around as a Pontiac Solstice. Somewhere, a member of the Piëch family is rolling around in their grave.
Oh, and I should mention that Optimus Prime had rockabilly flames all over him. I'm fairly certain that my appearance at the sight of Optimus resembling a Nashville Pussy album cover was not unlike Iron Eyes Cody after spotting some solid waste.
So in summation, it was a poorly-written, badly-paced summer blockbuster that existed merely to show off how slick you can make ass-kicking robots with a computer rendering farm.
You may remember my film scale from previous entries, but if not, I'll state it again. If I'm interested in a film, I don't eat during it. If I'm not interested at all, I gulp down junk food like a fat kid escaping from fat camp and sneaking into a candy store for fatties. Fatty.
For Transformers, I went through 1 bag of popcorn, 1 box of Mike and Ikes (no relation), and a half of a box of Raisinettes. I should mention that Raisinettes, while delicious, are seemingly made with raisins, chocolate, and crazy glue; they won't come out of your teeth no matter how much you brush and floss, and a dental appointment is highly advised after consumption.
Using the patented* Mike Palumbo junk food scale, Transformers earns a 2.5 out of 5. It was just entertaining enough to make me sit still for two hours, but poor enough that I kept asking myself why I was still watching it.
*not actually patented.
I'll be honest, it wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting, but then again, I was expecting something only slightly more entertaining than a case of violent diarrhoea.
The theatre crowd was, shall we say, not quite as reticent as I prefer. I enjoy a boisterous laugh every now and again, but I can't think of a single film where screaming, "TAKE YOUR TITTIES OUT" at the screen could be considered prudent or worthwhile. But enough of that, let's move on to the film itself.
I'll get the nerd stuff out of the way first...the US Military and NASA use 24 hour time, kilometres, and Celsius. In Transformers, they don't. Sorry, but it irked me to a level that I didn't think was possible in the realm of irkitude.
Character development was awful, albeit expected from a Michael Bay film, and there's a certain sense of irony in the fact that the two main character leads were born after the show was off the air in some parts of the world, and just a few months before it was off the air in the US.
Yes, the special effects were incredible, though the film suffered from the same problem that Matrix Revolutions did, which is that the action sequences were simply overdone to the point that you could no longer tell what was going on. Furthermore, the Decepticons pretty much all looked the same when transformed, so it was hard to tell who was fighting whom on screen. They were instead just a mass of shapes and pointy things, moving far too quickly. That type of schizophrenic seizure-inducing mayhem might be just fine if you're afflicted by attention deficit disorder, or Japanese, but for all of the fucking rest of us, it's a bit much.
Furthermore, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the product placement. The lingering shot of the Panasonic flash drive. The slightly out of focus but still in the foreground Nokia phone. And General Motors & Ford everywhere. There was a Saleen-modified Mustang, and a Hummer H2, and a GMC pick-up, and a convoy of black GMC SUVs, and a sneak-peek of the new Chevy Camaro, a car that's about as desirable as a case of bird flu. It's bad enough that Bumblebee was a fucking Camaro instead of a classic VW beetle, but Michael Bay's creation had Jazz, a Porsche 935 Turbo, driving around as a Pontiac Solstice. Somewhere, a member of the Piëch family is rolling around in their grave.
Oh, and I should mention that Optimus Prime had rockabilly flames all over him. I'm fairly certain that my appearance at the sight of Optimus resembling a Nashville Pussy album cover was not unlike Iron Eyes Cody after spotting some solid waste.
So in summation, it was a poorly-written, badly-paced summer blockbuster that existed merely to show off how slick you can make ass-kicking robots with a computer rendering farm.
You may remember my film scale from previous entries, but if not, I'll state it again. If I'm interested in a film, I don't eat during it. If I'm not interested at all, I gulp down junk food like a fat kid escaping from fat camp and sneaking into a candy store for fatties. Fatty.
For Transformers, I went through 1 bag of popcorn, 1 box of Mike and Ikes (no relation), and a half of a box of Raisinettes. I should mention that Raisinettes, while delicious, are seemingly made with raisins, chocolate, and crazy glue; they won't come out of your teeth no matter how much you brush and floss, and a dental appointment is highly advised after consumption.
Using the patented* Mike Palumbo junk food scale, Transformers earns a 2.5 out of 5. It was just entertaining enough to make me sit still for two hours, but poor enough that I kept asking myself why I was still watching it.
*not actually patented.