Transformers

Since I watch quite a few movies, I thought I would start to offer up my thoughts and impressions of the different movies I see. I don’t know if I should call them “reviews”, because if anyone wants a review of a movie they should read one from a professional on Rotten Tomatoes or some other such site. I’ll just be giving my two cents about any movies I see that I feel moved to comment on. So here goes…

Whenever it comes up in conversation that I saw Transformers and someone asks me if I liked it, I have mixed emotions about how to respond. For starters, Transformers were an integral part of my childhood, in both the action figure and the cartoon form. And because this was a movie based on such an idealized part of my childhood, it was pretty much unavoidable that I would enjoy it.

But then there was the fact the Michael Bay directed it. This did not bode well.

This is the man that directed such classics as Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II, and Armageddon. His insanely kinetic camera work combined with extreme close-ups and lots of explosions is the worst kind of directing. He pretty much ruined The Island and he only barely managed to not destroy The Rock (thanks to Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery).

In a similar way, Bay was saved this time around by Optimus Prime and the rest of the Transformers (alas, a CGI character does what Ben Affleck could not).

Plus, the digital effects of the transformers themselves were truly amazing. I was blown away by how real the textures and animation looked. It used to be you could look at a computer generated image in a film and just tell it didn’t look right; it looked fake – like it didn’t blend in with the world surrounding it. But I believe those days are behind us (at least, for the highest quality effects that exist today).

Still, there were some painful moments. One scene shows the Autobots (Autobots = good Transformers; Decepticons = bad Transformers) sneaking around the house of Shia Lebeouf’s character trying not to wake his parents. I can see how this situation could be used for a few good laughs (speaking of, the movie was surprisingly funny!), but it went on for an unbelievably long amount of time while being very repetitive and making the Autobots look like a bunch of fools (yes, even – or most especially – Optimus Prime…oh, the horror!).

That was painful.

Plus, was it just me or was anyone else incredibly annoyed by Shia Lebeouf?

In the end, I’ve come to the conclusion that I liked the movie despite itself.

P.S. — Michael Bay isn’t all bad. He did direct that “Got Milk?/Aaron Burr” commercial, as well as one of the finest music videos (for the best song EVER): “I Would Do Anything For Love” by Meatloaf. Perhaps he should go back to commercials and music videos…?

And that’s not even the full version of the song.