protocomics part 6: more than meets the eye...in bed / movie review
I have a new Protocomic up this week, this time redubbing a classic Transformers comic...also guest-starring Spider-Man! Check it out and let me know what you think!
Also, I did see Transformers yesterday, and here is my spoiler-free review:
It fucking sucked.
Or as Soundwave might say: "Cartoon superior. Michael Bay inferior".
I watched the original Transformers movie from 1986 from the night before, and cheesy and extremely flawed as it is (and oh boy is it ever), I can now say with confidence (having seen them both within 24 hours) that it is far superior to the crapfest known as the Michael Bay version. I'm not wearing rose-colored glasses, I remember quite clearly how cheesy and full of glaring mistakes the original cartoons were. But they were fun, even when they were stupid (which was admittedly often). The classic 1986 film may be full of ridiculous shit, but at least it's entertaining ridiculous shit that I can laugh about now, unlike the drawn out bore that I saw yesterday. I've seen some disappointingly bad films this summer (Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer), but so far Transformers takes the crown as King of Them All.
I could actually feel my IQ points dropping off like old shingles at each new scene of the movie. I've been pretty vocal about my expectations that this movie would blow chunks of ass, so I'm sure some of you will feel that I wouldn't have liked this movie under any circumstances because I'm a bastardly curmudgeon who simply wanted to hate it, but I say thee, nay! I've gone into movies before with the certainty they would suck, but came out pleasantly surprised (Constantine comes to mind--as long as I ignored its connection to Hellblazer it was decent enough. Not having anywhere near as much depth as the comic, but still decent. Even when I pretend that Michael Bay's Transformers exists in its own little bubble though, it still wasn't enjoyable to me). Let me explain all the ways this movie utterly sodomized my childhood memories, much like the Star Wars prequels.
Okay, first off, every single fucking human being in this movie was annoying as shit and I wanted them to die. Sam Witwicky needed to die most of all. That horribly stupid, never-gonna-happen-in-a-million-years-in-real-life budding romance was retarded. Unfortunately, since the only Transformer who had any personality at all was Optimus Prime and the vast majority of them didn't get more than about two lines, you're going to be watching annoying humans you couldn't give a shit about for most of the movie.
Most offensively, they turned all the Autobots into bumbling retards, making them seem even more inept than in the most ridiculous episode of the old cartoon. The only one who was halfway competent was Optimus, and even he uttered a cringe-inducing "My bad!" during the embarrassingly stupid scene when they were hiding from Sam Witwicky's parents in the back yard. Bumblebee didn't talk at all until his one fucking line at the end of the movie, Jazz should have been called Hip-Hop with the way he talked, and Ironhide was the only other one with anything vaguely approaching a personality by expressing his apathy about killing or hurting humans. And Bumblebee actually urinated (or the robot equivalent thereof, anyway) on John Turturro until Optimus Prime scolded him like an exasperated parent. So clearly, these characters not only didn't look remotely like the old Transformers I knew and loved as a child, but they didn't act in a way vaguely resembling them either.
The Decepticons were hardly even in the movie until the very end, and none of them had any kind of personality at all (except for arguably Megatron). Frenzy was just stupid, making annoying little chirpy squeaky noises rather than talking for seemingly no other reason than to piss me off. Starscream uttered all of one fucking line that I remember hearing, and the writers of the script when asked in an interview if Megatron would insult Starscream answered "yes", hinting they would have a similar dynamic as in the old cartoon. Starscream saying "Megatron, I live to serve and suck your dick" and Megatron answering "You have failed me yet again" hardly qualifies as any sort of dynamic at all, given that Starscream did nothing beyond flying around and shooting shit for the rest of the movie. Most of the Decepticons were all called into action at the very end, showed up, and had no dialog at all beyond a single line in their Cybertronian language, which doesn't even count.
All the robots looked so similar (especially the Decepticons) that I couldn't even tell what the fuck was going on in the final battle scene. I couldn't tell who was who, who was shooting who, and I didn't really care. When Jazz was ripped in half (though at the time I only knew that someone had been ripped in half), I was relieved, and hoping that more robocorpses were going to follow. A couple more unidentifiable Decepticons seemed to be destroyed, but again, I have no idea who, because they all looked about the same to me. After Megatron died, the remaining Decepticons were completely forgotten by the Autobots and apparently the filmmakers, though there was a very pointless shot of Starscream flying out of the atmosphere during the credits.
Most of the Transformers looked pretty dumb among mundane surroundings (the shot of the Autobots on the Hoover Dam is a perfect example), but when they actually talked, they looked even dumber. I realize I complained that they didn't have enough dialog and now I'm complaining that they looked dumb when they did talk, but that's just one of my big reasons that I feel the movie shouldn't have been made in the first place. It's a no-win situation. Or at least a no-win with Michael Bay involved.
Why did the little Borg cube they were after only seem to create bad guys? All the Transformers it created were automatically evil. How convenient!
There were three things about the movie that I actually LIKED: 1) The transforming sequences themselves actually looked pretty cool. Unfortunately, they only lasted a moment before the vehicle turned into a ridiculously horrible looking robot. I wish they could have stayed in their transformy state of flux forever, because they would have remained cool-looking and wouldn't have been able to go and do all the stupid shit they did after transforming. 2) Optimus Prime saying "One shall stand, one shall fall" may have been cheesy, but it was a nod to the original movie that I didn't expect and it made me smile for a moment (and of course Peter Cullen doing the voice was great). 3) Hugo Weaving was surprisingly good as Megatron. I mean, I know he's a good actor and all, but I still wasn't convinced he could pull off Megatron like ol' Frank Welker. I was surprised and pleased by how well his voice fit.
Too bad the rest of the film totally sucked as much as something that sucks can possibly suck. I was never expecting Shakespeare; I only wanted something that was fun to watch. Something I could check my brain in at the door and enjoy, but because I couldn't possibly give a shit about any of those annoying characters, I didn't give a damn about anything that was going on. Pretty explosions without any kind of context or reason to care get old real quick. Out of the seven of us who saw the movie together, five of us thought it totally sucked, one liked the first half but was bored by the second half, and one thought it was "okay".
Here's hoping they never make a sequel, but my inner child already feels the creeping dread inside that tells me they will. Because this movie will make millions upon millions, as people continue to line up to be spoonfed shit by Michael Bay. Me, I'll stick with my old cartoons with simplistic and repetitive "let's go get some energon!" plots that are still more realistic and interesting than the live-action movie.
Also, I did see Transformers yesterday, and here is my spoiler-free review:
It fucking sucked.
Or as Soundwave might say: "Cartoon superior. Michael Bay inferior".
I watched the original Transformers movie from 1986 from the night before, and cheesy and extremely flawed as it is (and oh boy is it ever), I can now say with confidence (having seen them both within 24 hours) that it is far superior to the crapfest known as the Michael Bay version. I'm not wearing rose-colored glasses, I remember quite clearly how cheesy and full of glaring mistakes the original cartoons were. But they were fun, even when they were stupid (which was admittedly often). The classic 1986 film may be full of ridiculous shit, but at least it's entertaining ridiculous shit that I can laugh about now, unlike the drawn out bore that I saw yesterday. I've seen some disappointingly bad films this summer (Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer), but so far Transformers takes the crown as King of Them All.
I could actually feel my IQ points dropping off like old shingles at each new scene of the movie. I've been pretty vocal about my expectations that this movie would blow chunks of ass, so I'm sure some of you will feel that I wouldn't have liked this movie under any circumstances because I'm a bastardly curmudgeon who simply wanted to hate it, but I say thee, nay! I've gone into movies before with the certainty they would suck, but came out pleasantly surprised (Constantine comes to mind--as long as I ignored its connection to Hellblazer it was decent enough. Not having anywhere near as much depth as the comic, but still decent. Even when I pretend that Michael Bay's Transformers exists in its own little bubble though, it still wasn't enjoyable to me). Let me explain all the ways this movie utterly sodomized my childhood memories, much like the Star Wars prequels.
Okay, first off, every single fucking human being in this movie was annoying as shit and I wanted them to die. Sam Witwicky needed to die most of all. That horribly stupid, never-gonna-happen-in-a-million-years-in-real-life budding romance was retarded. Unfortunately, since the only Transformer who had any personality at all was Optimus Prime and the vast majority of them didn't get more than about two lines, you're going to be watching annoying humans you couldn't give a shit about for most of the movie.
Most offensively, they turned all the Autobots into bumbling retards, making them seem even more inept than in the most ridiculous episode of the old cartoon. The only one who was halfway competent was Optimus, and even he uttered a cringe-inducing "My bad!" during the embarrassingly stupid scene when they were hiding from Sam Witwicky's parents in the back yard. Bumblebee didn't talk at all until his one fucking line at the end of the movie, Jazz should have been called Hip-Hop with the way he talked, and Ironhide was the only other one with anything vaguely approaching a personality by expressing his apathy about killing or hurting humans. And Bumblebee actually urinated (or the robot equivalent thereof, anyway) on John Turturro until Optimus Prime scolded him like an exasperated parent. So clearly, these characters not only didn't look remotely like the old Transformers I knew and loved as a child, but they didn't act in a way vaguely resembling them either.
The Decepticons were hardly even in the movie until the very end, and none of them had any kind of personality at all (except for arguably Megatron). Frenzy was just stupid, making annoying little chirpy squeaky noises rather than talking for seemingly no other reason than to piss me off. Starscream uttered all of one fucking line that I remember hearing, and the writers of the script when asked in an interview if Megatron would insult Starscream answered "yes", hinting they would have a similar dynamic as in the old cartoon. Starscream saying "Megatron, I live to serve and suck your dick" and Megatron answering "You have failed me yet again" hardly qualifies as any sort of dynamic at all, given that Starscream did nothing beyond flying around and shooting shit for the rest of the movie. Most of the Decepticons were all called into action at the very end, showed up, and had no dialog at all beyond a single line in their Cybertronian language, which doesn't even count.
All the robots looked so similar (especially the Decepticons) that I couldn't even tell what the fuck was going on in the final battle scene. I couldn't tell who was who, who was shooting who, and I didn't really care. When Jazz was ripped in half (though at the time I only knew that someone had been ripped in half), I was relieved, and hoping that more robocorpses were going to follow. A couple more unidentifiable Decepticons seemed to be destroyed, but again, I have no idea who, because they all looked about the same to me. After Megatron died, the remaining Decepticons were completely forgotten by the Autobots and apparently the filmmakers, though there was a very pointless shot of Starscream flying out of the atmosphere during the credits.
Most of the Transformers looked pretty dumb among mundane surroundings (the shot of the Autobots on the Hoover Dam is a perfect example), but when they actually talked, they looked even dumber. I realize I complained that they didn't have enough dialog and now I'm complaining that they looked dumb when they did talk, but that's just one of my big reasons that I feel the movie shouldn't have been made in the first place. It's a no-win situation. Or at least a no-win with Michael Bay involved.
Why did the little Borg cube they were after only seem to create bad guys? All the Transformers it created were automatically evil. How convenient!
There were three things about the movie that I actually LIKED: 1) The transforming sequences themselves actually looked pretty cool. Unfortunately, they only lasted a moment before the vehicle turned into a ridiculously horrible looking robot. I wish they could have stayed in their transformy state of flux forever, because they would have remained cool-looking and wouldn't have been able to go and do all the stupid shit they did after transforming. 2) Optimus Prime saying "One shall stand, one shall fall" may have been cheesy, but it was a nod to the original movie that I didn't expect and it made me smile for a moment (and of course Peter Cullen doing the voice was great). 3) Hugo Weaving was surprisingly good as Megatron. I mean, I know he's a good actor and all, but I still wasn't convinced he could pull off Megatron like ol' Frank Welker. I was surprised and pleased by how well his voice fit.
Too bad the rest of the film totally sucked as much as something that sucks can possibly suck. I was never expecting Shakespeare; I only wanted something that was fun to watch. Something I could check my brain in at the door and enjoy, but because I couldn't possibly give a shit about any of those annoying characters, I didn't give a damn about anything that was going on. Pretty explosions without any kind of context or reason to care get old real quick. Out of the seven of us who saw the movie together, five of us thought it totally sucked, one liked the first half but was bored by the second half, and one thought it was "okay".
Here's hoping they never make a sequel, but my inner child already feels the creeping dread inside that tells me they will. Because this movie will make millions upon millions, as people continue to line up to be spoonfed shit by Michael Bay. Me, I'll stick with my old cartoons with simplistic and repetitive "let's go get some energon!" plots that are still more realistic and interesting than the live-action movie.