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155 of 197 people found the following review helpful:
Transformers does have more than meets the eye, July 3, 2007
Pretty much almost every male kid who grew up during the 80's were glued to their TV sets on weekday afternoons watching just one thing. They were watching one of the best cartoon shows on TV which also happened to be Hasbro Toys' most popular line of toys at that time. I am talking about Transformers. I know I was pretty much hooked on the show with its tale of good versus evil as the noble leader (who also happened to be a Mack truck) Optimus Prime led his Autobots against the evil robot that was Megatron and his Decepticons. It had lots of fighting, explosions and most of all, it had toys of every Transformer in the show for kids to re-enact such battles.
In 1986 the first Transformers movie (animated) came out and pretty much scarred every kid who was ever a fan of the show for life as their beloved characters actually died on-screen to make way for a new generation of Transformers. Let's just say that as much as I enjoyed the original movie I also hated it. It is now 2007 and Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg and ILM have concocted a live-action version of Transformers. To say that this movie has erased some of the bad taste left by the first animated film is quite an understatement. What we have in this live-action Transformers is nothing less than pure robot-versus-robot carnage and mayhem done so well that it more than makes up for the weak story and the uneven performances from the cast.
The movie revolves around the search by both the Autobots and the Decepticons for the all-powerful AllSpark which would grant it's owner the power to rebuild the dying Cybertron (home world of the Transformers) or remake any planet into a new home. It's not too difficult to figure out what the Decepticons and their leader Megatron would do once they have it in their possession. As one of the Decepticons would have stencilled on its vehicle mode says: "To punish and enslave". The AllSpark is really just a MacGuffin which helps tie in the Transformers with the human aspect of the story and that's the time tested tale of a boy and his car. In this case, it's Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and his newly acquired 1974 Camaro who also happens to be the Autobot Bumblebee unbeknownst to him.
The first third of the film is where this boy and his car theme gets the most laugh as Sam tries to use his new car to get the attention of one Mikaela (played by the ridiculously hot and appropriately named Megan Fox). The laughs come from Bumblebee playing just the right song over the radio to try and bring the two kids together. Usually Michael Bay's handle on comedy is a tad more cynical and ham-handed which tell me the first third of this film had Steven Spielberg's influence all over it. One could just substitute E.T. for Bumblebee and Elliott for Sam and it's not difficult to see.
This first third also solidifies Shia LaBeouf as the foundation which keeps the movie from just becoming one long robot-on-robot action scene. This kid has some major talent and charisma which shows from the moment he steps on to the screen right up to the final scene with the sun setting in the background. It's no wonder Spielberg chose him to be in the next Indiana Jones movie. LaBeouf actually makes Sam Witwicky more than the awkward, geeky teen geek and instead makes it believable that he has a weird, charming chance to land the hot Mikaela. It's LaBeouf's performance as Saw which pretty much saves the very uneven performance by the rest of the cast.
Even with LaBeouf's performance and the funny and cute boy meets car meets girl first reel, people really went to see this movie for one thing and one thing only and that's the battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons. The humans are there to ground the story in a semblance of reality. But once the two sides begin to arrive and find their Earth forms the movie shifts into nitrous-injected overdrive and doesn't let up until the very end. People cheered wildly once Optimus Prime appears for the first time with the rest of his crew (Ironhide, Jazz, Ratchet). The cheering went especially wild once optimus spoke for the first time and the original voice was heard (Peter Cullen did the voice for the original cartoon and was hired to do the same for the moive). That scene really brought myself and, most likely, every male in the audience of the same age back 20 years. The Decepticons make their entrance soon after with Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving) being the final Transformer to hit the screen. The rest of the movie became one long action sequence after sequence with destruction being the norm.
This is where Michael Bay's hand truly shows as his handle on the sturm und drang he's well-known for matches well with the premise of giant alien robots fighting each other with no thought for collateral damage to populace and property. Unlike, his previous films he actually holds himself back from using his usual tricks of using low-angled slo-mo scenes too much and the ultra quick editing style which makes his movies sometimes difficult to keep up with. Again, it might be Spielberg's influence in addition to Bay actually growing as a filmmaker to thank for this. The action scenes wouldn't be as great as it was if it wasn't for the work of ILM and its team of computer animators. The Autobots and Decepticons look so real that they join Gollum and Davey Jones as fully-realized CGI-characters who blend into the scene as if they're made of real flesh and blood. In the case of the Transformers made of steel, oil and rubber. Their battles from the Hoover Dam all the way to the nearby Mission City didn't look artificial. There's a sense of weight and depth to the battle. It atually looked like the city with it's small humans was actually being ripped apart by these giant robots. Industrial, Light and Magic truly deserve every award they'll get come awards time. In the past it was said that a live-action Transformers would come off as cheesy and fake, but technology and the expert use of it by ILM's team of artisans has made it a reality.
Transformers really brings the word blockbuster and brings it like storm and thunder. There's no other way to say it than this was a movie which was a kickass rollercoaster ride with just enough human interaction to keep it from becoming cartoonish. It's not a perfect film as the weak script and uneven performances by most of the cast would show, but it's all balanced out by the work put in by Shia LaBeouf and the action scenes with the Transformers that this movie marks the highlight of the 2007 summer blockbuster season. Michael Bay has finally found the one film he looks to be tailor-made to do.
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38 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
when humor trumps even special effects, July 16, 2007
The thing that strikes you the most while watching the movie "Transformers" is not how spectacular its special effects are or how ferociously its action sequences come across on screen, but rather how very FUNNY so much of the movie manages to be. After having sat stone-faced through many of the alleged "comedies" foisted upon us in recent months - "Evan Almighty," "License to Wed," even "Shrek the Third," to name just a few - I'm pleased to announce that I laughed quite a bit throughout the course of "Transformers" - and I do mean good-sized belly-laughs, not mere titters or snickers. Prime credit for that obviously goes to screenwriters, Roberto Orci and Ales Kurtzman, but I would be remiss if I didn't also acknowledge Shia LaBeouf's contributions in this regard. In this his first certified blockbuster, LaBeouf finally achieves the superstardom he`s been steadily heading towards the past several years.
As everyone already knows, "Transformers" is based on a phenomenally successful line of Hasbro toys as well as the animated series derived therefrom. Transformers are giant robots from outer space who have the ability to metamorphose into the shape of virtually any everyday mechanical device - cars, cell phones, boom boxes etc. - they so desire. In the film, the transformers have just arrived on earth in search of a mysterious box that has the power to create an army of such robots that, given unbridled freedom, would be able to take over the world. Some of the transformers have evil intentions while others have an affinity for mankind and do their best to keep us out of the clutches of the bad guys. LaBeouf plays Sam Witwicky, a brainy, perpetually tongue-tied (especially when he's trying to impress the unreachable girl of his dreams), social outcast whose father agrees to help him buy a rundown Camaro that, unbeknownst to either of them, is actually a good transformer in disguise just waiting for Sam to become his owner.
It goes without saying that, on a strictly technical level, the transformers have made a stunning transition to the live action format. There are brief moments when they appear a trifle fake, but director Michael Bay keeps the action moving along at such a dizzying pace, that we rarely have time to notice that flaw. I'm not one who normally goes in for Bay's cuisinart style of moviemaking - near-subliminal quick cuts mixed in with endless explosions and rafter-rattling sound effects - but I think it works quite well in this instance. He's also blessed in having LaBeouf as his lead actor, for it is LaBeouf's non-threatening All-American Boy looks and wide-eyed innocence that give the movie the emotional grounding it needs to be more than just the lumbering mechanical creation it could easily have become without him. In fact, whenever he isn't on screen, the movie does, indeed, threaten to devolve into just the standard popcorn action movie filled with jaw-dropping special effects but minus a heart or soul (the transformers themselves are never very interesting as characters and they are stuck mouthing sappy platitudes whenever they do get a chance to speak). But LaBeouf brings to the movie the human dimension it needs to keep our interest.
Kevin Dunn and Julie White are thoroughly delightful as Sam's well-meaning but utterly befuddled parents, while Bernie Mac and Anthony Anderson also score high on the laughter meter. For purposes of gravitas, movie veterans Jon Voight and John Turturro are also along for the ride.
And quite a ride it turns out to be, I must say. "Transformers" has pretty much everything a modern-day blockbuster needs to be successful. But it is the rare good humor with which the movie plays its hand that is so completely unexpected - and so very much appreciated in this quarter.
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45 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
Best film of Summer 2007, July 28, 2007
Despite the fact that, in my opinion, Michael Bay has directed two of the worst films of all time (that would be Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys II) I knew, from the beginning that his glossy, high-key style of film-making would be PERFECT for a live-action Transformers movie. Since The Rock in 1996, all of Bay's films have been 2-hour plus epics and that is surely the kind of treatment that a Transformers movie deserves. No 90-minute piece of crap here.
I was a fan of the animated show and toys as a kid, but viewing them now I can see how clumsy, poorly animated and just plain impractical it was. There was no reason for it to exist other than to market toys, which is fine when your five-years-old, I guess. Despite the family-friendly rating, the showing I went to had absolutely ZERO kids in the audience as it was mainly made up of twenty-somethings who had watched the show in their childhood and who would appreciate it better.
Well, where to begin about how good it is. I regard this as an 'Event' movie way more than endless, tiresome Spider-Man and Shrek sequels. The Transformers movie was anticipated for a long, long time and only in the past few years has the technology to realize the giant, alien robots on film been advanced enough. The Transformers are so photo-realistic that I'm beginning to suspect that they actually exist and are being kept secret by Sector 7. This film will SURELY win the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects next year. Nothing can rival this.
The story (written by the team that wrote the Goonies II video game, would you believe) and characters are rather medium-sliced. Nothing superficial yet nothing heavy enough to slow the film down. The Transformers mythology has been altered somewhat from the TV series but only to tie-up loose ends and plot holes and to give it a more contemporary feel. If you were really cynical you say that it's just a big chase movie, but so many plot threads building at once there's enough complexity to keep most cynics quiet.
Shia LeBouf (who seems to be Hollywood's biggest young star right now) plays Sam Witwicky, a nerdy high-schooler with dreams of being a popular ladies man. His dad buys him a mysterious, banged-up yellow Camaro for getting good grades but the car seems to have a mind of it's own. Of course it does-it's Bumblebee and he's been sent to Earth to protect Sam from the Decepticon's who want an old artifact of Sam's that belonged to his great-grandfather, an explorer who discovered the long, long frozen Megatron in an underground Arctic cave.
Over the course of his adventures Sam encounters a showcase of actors including Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Anthony Anderson, John Turturro, Bernie Mac and, eventually Optimus Prime, who is a star in his own right. All of these actors try to run away with the film, which helps since the characters, like I said, are not densely written so their energetic performances make up for this. Though Megan Fox looks a bit older than her years and has an unlikeable 'attitude'. Did she really have a good reason to be knitting her eyebrows like that for the whole film or is she just posing for the camera?
My only other complaint is that Steve Jablonsky's dull score is basically a carbon-copy of Klaus Badelt's score for Poseidon. Both men are protégé's of Hans Zimmer I believe and their imaginations have so far proved to be rather meagre for every film they have scored. Transformers reminded me a lot of ID4. Now how cool was David Arnold's score for that? Steve Jablonsky could have really made something out of this but instead he just goes for dull synthy sounds and jarring sound effects. Yeesh!
Transformers is definitely an epic, must-see movie and is surely bursting at the seams with amazing set-pieces and breathtaking action. I impatiently await a sequel and look forward to owning it in glorious HD. The best film of the summer, no doubt.
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