Movie Review: The Transformers

The short of it:

Relative to The Transformers of my seemingly distant childhood: 2 out of 8 Nations.

On its own, 5 out of 8 Nations.

The long of it:

So there I was, sitting in the theater with Wetseel, Danny J and Architect Julie, and at about the 30 minute point of The Transformers, something dawned inside my noggin. I wouldn't call it divine revelation or anything; but it was at that point, exactly 3 months after my 31st birthday, that I realized I have become an old coot in more ways than one.

I used to laugh and/or cringe whenever my parents or aunts and uncles would talk about how things were back in "their day", or whenever Dana Carvey would do his grumpy old man skit on Saturday Night Live ("That's the way it was, and we liked it! And we loved it!"). And now, I find myself doing the same exact thing more and more, especially when it concerns matters related to my childhood.

So when that realization was made while watching the movie (and it was probably because I ran out of popcorn already), I decided to try to judge this movie on 2 standards: against the idyllic memories of the Transformers of my youth, and on its own, knowing full well this wasn't targeted to the more intense childhood Transformers fans.

Against the Transformers of my youth, this movie was woefully lacking. Sean said it best when he remarked: "They could have named this movie The Gobots and it wouldn't have made much difference". It would have been nice to have more of the Autobots and Decepticons, as opposed to "Shia LaBeouf co-starring The Transformers". This was what would have happened if they made Spike or Daniel Witwicky the main focus of The Transformers series or animated movie respectively, with the Transformers as supporting cast. Dammit, the 10 year old Transformers fan in me wanted the main focus on Optimus Prime (without the lame flaming racing stripes) and Megatron, along with their respective allies. I really didn't care for the slapstick comedy involving the Autobots in the garden scene, nor the "current day" lingo they used either.

The 31 year old in me though enjoyed the movie if I separated my own personal memories towards the source material. And there were some cool scenes; Industrial Light and Magic proved once again that they are still the tops in CGI with the amazing seamless transformations they pulled off for the Robots. It was rather annoying though to have all the Decepticons in silver. It was tough to tell them apart, and you could not see the details on the robots. The more colorful Autobots were easier to appreciate visually.

But can someone please tell Michael Bay to stop using the super slow mo so much? Every time he uses it, it's almost a parody of himself (even more than the loud explosions he is just as known for). It's like every time you see a John Woo super slow mo scene as white doves fly in the background, you know what I mean?

But I had no major problems with some of the tweaks they made in the character. Bumblebee would have been nice as a VW beetle, but General Motors had the exclusive deal on the cars. Wish that the plane trio of Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp were all there instead of just being Starscream, but that's no big deal either. Megatron not as a gun (or maybe a cannon like Galvatron) was fine; the whole transforming into a tiny gun or huge gun sometimes was never the best logically in the cartoons anyway. Soundwave became a little mechanical Gremlin, but what can you do? Cassette players are a thing of the past now unfortunately; would have liked to see Ravage, Laserbeak, Rumble, Frenzy and Buzzsaw though! But I do wish Devastator was actually the 6 Constructicons coming together to form an even bigger robot instead of being a tank.

All in all, my common complaint across the two different standards is that I wish there was more focus on the robots itself instead of Shia and company (Megan Fox notwithstanding). A lot of character development could have gone to the Autobots and the Decepticons, instead of Shia's and Megan's teenage angst, or Josh Duhamel, or Jon Voight... you get the point. A movie about the Transformers really should not have made them supporting cast members.

Anyway, in a nutshell: 10 year old Transformers fan in me is crying, the more logical 31 year old that I am now enjoyed the movie for what it was.