7th's Summer Movie Round Up 2007 Part 3: Transformers
Posted by 7th on October 12, 2007

I've sat for for two months now thinking about what I should and shouldn't say about this movie. Having written what I have about Transformers in the past, I knew if I came across as too enthusiastic that I'd seem not only like a tremendous douche-leak but also appear to have tossed all objectivity out the window over my love for a twenty year old cartoon character.

But try as I might, I can't bullshit my way around how I feel on this one. You can mock me if you wish, the Michael Bay haters of the world can add me to their lipstick death wishlists, and the internet "punditocracy," to coin Jello, can kiss my ass.

Succinctly put, Transfomers was the best movie of the summer in every conceivable way.

I've been watching the development of this movie for many years. I can remember rumors starting to float around about it back in 1999 after Phantom Menace came out. But it wasn't until 2005 that I saw any definite chatter on it, that being that there was a completed script. Not long after that, it was announced that Michael Bay was taking the reigns, and that Steven Spielberg would be producing, with a story that was "about a boy and his first car."

You could hear the Transfans collective groan like the death rattle of Alderaan.

Michael Bay's name alone is often used as humor fodder on the Net. He puts out big budget actioners with a lot of sideways swipes, orange haze skies, and big explosions. He brought a blight on the world with the Bad Boys franchise. And while I personally love the Rock, and yes, Armageddon (fuck you), I immediately had reservations about this.

Okay yes, Transformers is a 20 year old cartoon about robots that turn into cars, trucks, and so on. It's not King Lear by any stretch of the imagination. I've heard it described as "a 30 minute toy commercial." On that count, I strongly disagree. Yes, when I watch the show now, I see plotholes, subpar animation, and so on. But the plot is there. A canon is established. And characters are defined.

The storyline in fact predates the television show. Cybertron, Autobots and Decepticons, Optimus Prime, Megatron, all of this storywise was conceived by the writers of the Marvel comic and was later adapted into the show. I remember stopping in a gas station on the way to Disney World the summer of 1984 and finding issue #1 on the comic rack. I must have read it cover to cover a dozen times before we made it across the Florida state line. By the time Optimus Prime had his swan song in Transformers: The Movie two years later, I was a diehard fan.

So you can imagine when Michael Bay popped up talking about how he was reimagining the look of the Transformers, how the story was going to be mostly about the human characters, and how he initialliy didn't want to do the film because he didn't want to do a "stupid toy movie," my heart just about fell down into my foot.

Most of my childhood loves no longer hold the appeal that they once did. G.I.Joe, Voltron, M.A.S.K., all those old Hanna Barbara cartoons, I can't stand to sit through most of them anymore. Not long ago I watched an episode of Blackstar and just wanted to flagellate myself for having ever enjoyed it. But for whatever reason, Transformers still appeals to me, and news that this blast-a-thon director would be "reimagining it" really irked me.

And apparently, I wasn't the only one. One of the film's producers that actually sold Spielberg and Dreamworks on the idea was Don Murphy. Murphy has produced a number of memorable films, including natural Born Killers, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (again, fuck you, I liked it) and the recent action film Shoot 'Em Up. In the process of getting the film greenlit and before the camera, Murphy did something that I highly doubt any film producer before has ever done. He laid the production bare before the Transfan community by opening a public forum on his website and basically said "tell me what we're doing wrong and how we can fix it." he even had Roberto Orci, one of the screenwriters, join the forum to answer questions and take suggestions.

There are Transfans out there who to this day refer to this film as TINO (Transformers In Name Only) and still whine about flames on Prime, Bumblebee being a Camaro and mute for most of the film, Megatron looking like a Bionicle, The entire "Ark crashing to Earth and laying dormant for millions of years" storyline being completely abandoned, and so on. But the truth of the matter is that no other big budget film in the history of American cinema has been so influenced by fan input DURING production. Optimus Prime's face, head, and color scheme were retooled because the fans demanded it. Megatron's head was remodeled because the fans demanded it. The Energon Cube was renamed the Allspark Cube because the fans demanded it. And perhaps most importantly (though the film was tweaked at fan suggestion in dozens of other ways), Peter Cullen, the original voice of Optimus Prime, was hired to reprise his role because the fans insisted on it (rumor has it Bay's first choice was Tom Hanks. Let that sink in for a minute.)

So while the film's ultimate success is from a combination of Bay's direction, Orci's script (I'm still waiting for my signed poster, Roberto) and Spielberg's obvious influence, the real hero of the film is Murphy, and it can't be stated enough.

But now, on to the review!

As the film opens, Prime's voice, still recognizable after over 20 years, resonates through the theater, providing a brief description of "The Cube," which apparently brought life to all Transformers millions of years past, but was lost to the depths of space in a war between the Autobots and Decepticons. Eventually, the Cube fell to earth, with Megatron in hot pursuit. During re-entry, something went wrong, and Megatron crash landed in the frozen arctic. Many years later, he is accidentally discovered by an explorer named Archibald Witwicky. Witwicky falls into a chasm and discovers the frozen behemoth, and in the process of examining him accidentally acitivates Megatron's navigation system, which burns a sort of map to the location of the Allspark Cube into his glasses. Eventually, the U.S. Government finds the Cube, builds a top secret military base around it, and places Megatron in its largest hanger, still frozen solid. We know this base as the Hoover Dam. Archibald immediately starts blathering about the frozen metal giant he found, and is locked away in the nut ward for the rest of his days. The U.S. Government spends the next several decades studying Megatron and the Cube, basing all modern technology on what they learn.

We meet Archibald's grandson Sam (known as Spike in the cartoon.) He's one of the unpopular kids in high school, but that hasn't stopped him from having a huge hard-on for the hottest girl in class, Mikaela, who naturally spends her days as the quarterback's pussy pendant.

Sam wants a car in the worst way. So he's selling off some of his great grandpa's stuff on Ebay, one item being the aforementioned glasses with the location of the Cube burned into it.

Sam goes to a used car lot with his dad to buy his first auto. There's a not-so-subtle in-joke to those who hated Bumblebee not being a Beetle here, and through circumstances I won't get into, Sam goes home with Bumblebee.

Next thing you know, he's being assaulted by a mad police car that changes into a towering metallic monster, only to be saved at the last minute by his self-driving crappy Camaro that is also a giant alien robotic lifeform, and the rollercoaster takes off.

I'm not gonna lie to you. This is your typical Michael Bay actionfest at its core. But it also has a lot of heart, most of which comes from Shia's performance as Sam. He's totally convincing as this character who wants to be someone, to matter. It seems like an almost effortless transition for him, which should come as no surprise, as he had years of playing the optimistic reject on the Disney Channel's Even Stevens show. And what's most impressive is the character's arc. Many Transfans balked at the idea of the film's conclusion ("how DARE they!!") but in relation to Sam's personal development, it makes sense. It needed to happen. In fact, in the original script, this scene I'm going at great lengths to not spoil was directly linked to the flashback sequence where Sam tries out for the football team and fails miserably. His triumph at the film's conclusion is his Moment, his own personal affirmation that he's not a useless loser kid. So what if he didn't make the football team? He saved the world, and got the girl. What more could you ask for?

But there's also the relationship between Sam and Bumblebee. Spielberg's influence shines through here more than at any other point in the movie (especially during the scene at Sam's house with the Autobots trying to hide from Sam's parents.) It's clear that they were going for a real Elliot/E.T. relationship. Of course, this being a high octane action explodaganza(tm), there's not enough screen time to flesh (or metal) this dynamic out quite as much as I'd like. There's just too much to set up, as this is essentially a comic book origin kind of film.

The film score is dynamic, sweeping, and epic, but lacks a theme. This is not a movie where you'll be humming the music when you leave the theater. I've heard some argue that this is something that's mostly reserved for comic book films like Batman, Superman, or even a pulp actioner like Indiana Jones. But I point those people towards Independence Day, a movie summer blockbuster that has a certain kinship to this movie. Its score is quite memorable, and this film should have had the same. it's Armageddon good, but not Superman good.

ILM has really outdone themselves here. The transformations are seamless. You simply cannot tell where the vehicle was removed and the CGI creation put in its place. The metal looks like metal. The movement is realistic and flowing. If there is any shortcoming, its in the robots' faces. There's something almost approaching uncanny valley here that's hard to put a finger on, but it's somewhat distracting, especially in regards to Optimus Prime. he looks almost too human, if that makes any sense to you.

Transfans the world over have bitched and bitched about the look of these robots. In some ways, I agree. There is a lot going on in the transformations (the Transfans referred to this as "kibble") that makes it impossible to look at the vehicle vs robot form and figure out from looking at it how the robot converts (which was half of the fun with the toys, after all.) This is evidenced by the fact that the toys for the film have transformations that are very different from those in the film, because those in the film simply aren't possible in toy form. In some ways, it was like a more advanced take on the car transformation scene in the original Men-In-Black. You can see plates shifting, parts popping out, but there's no way you can sit down and say you understood where everything went. In the show, the robots' heads just popped out from hidden chambers in their chassis. In this film, the heads themselves seem disassembled and come together from thousands of moving parts in an effect that almost seems like a metallic rendition of Imhotep's reforming face from the Mummy. I do like how they worked the original Transformation sound effect into a few of the scenes, but the fact that they didn't do it with every robot makes it almost like an afterthought.

I don't have a problem with flames on Optimus. I thought it was a cool look, and a good way to maintain the red and blue color scheme. I also had no real problem with Megatron's monstrous vissage (which resembled Treebeard from LOTR with a metallic sheen.) He never takes an earth form, hence there's no reason why he'd look like anything but what he does: completely alien.

I do, however, have a problem with Starscream. Starscream was always shown as being more slight of frame than Megatron, because they wanted to put across the idea that, were he to ever successfuly surplant Megatron as leader, it would be through treachery, not brute force. In this film, he's just as large and powerful as his leader. He also has these weird reverse-hinged chickenlike legs that not only don't add anything to the design, but also don't really look like they'd support his upper girth.

Another problem I will bring up is color scheme. Like Optimus, most Transformers had multi-colored bodies, which made it easier to distinguish one from another and to figure out how they transform. Optimus, Ratchet, and Bumblebee look fine, as Op has a red/blue motif, and Bumblebee is a combination of yellow and silver, Ratchet is green, red, and black.

But then there's Ironhide. Ironhide is a black pick up truck, as opposed to the red minivan design from the show. And I mean ALL black. There are moments during the film where you can't really tell what is his head, a leg, etc because it all kind of blends into a big pile of black metallic mush when in motion. He needed some color somewhere to make him more easily "translatable' to the eye.

And while there's nothing inherently wrong with Jazz's design, they gave him a rather plain-jane silver color scheme. What's wrong with that? Well... Megatron's silver, Starscream is metallic gray, Frenzy is silver, etc etc etc. There's a lot of earth toneage going on here. I don't know if the designers felt using too much color would make the film cartoony/campy, but they needed more diversity in the color choices, especially with Ironhide.

As far as unnecessary plot elements, I can't fucking stand the hacker guy. He serves absolutely no point to the plot that couldn't have been delegated to another character, like, you know, the blond computer expert. He's just lame sidekick humor at its worst and should have been cut from the get go. Sorry Anthony. Maybe you'll have better luck exploiting New Orleans in your new shitty "breakthrough" Fox suck-a-thon.

I did notice a couple of plot problems, one particularly glaring. First off, how did the other Decepticons know that Megatron had burned a map onto the glasses in the first place? Archibald Witwicky himself didn't seem to know, so I doubt any mention of it would be in his medical files. This is never explained to any degree of satisfaction.

Secondly: During the incredible climactic battle scene (the reasoning for it taking place in Los Angeles seems kinda thrown in just to have it take place in a downtown area, but I can forgive that) you see all the Decepticons heading to join Megatron, including a shot of Barricade (the evil cop car) heading onto the freeway... and then you never see him again for the rest of the film. He's not involved in any of the fights, you don't see him flee the scene ala Starscream, he just vanishes, which I suppose is a screw-up caused by a rushed edit, that or they simply forgot to write in a resolution for him.

Thirdly: In all the promotional materials for the film, the tank Decepticon is called Brawl, so named after one of the Combaticons from season two. He was originally named Devastator, but Murphy's forumites boo-hooed this because none of the Constructicons were tanks, so it was changed to Brawl. Even the toy versions are named Brawl. But in the movie subtitles, he's still referred to as Devastator, yet another sign of a rushed editing process. I'm told the film was still being worked on just a couple weeks before its release date, so this doesn't really surprise me. Hopefully they'll fix this on the DVD release.

Fourthly: what the fuck is up with Scorponok? The whole point of taking Earth forms is to avoid detection. So did Scorponok really think no one would take notice of a 20 foot long metal scorpion? And he doesn't appear to even HAVE a robot form. This just seems to be thrown in to have a cool effect during the desert scenes more than anything else. His battle scenes reminded me of that old Tom Selleck movie Runaway and all those little poisonous spider robots for some reason. This was just a weird idea that doesn't really serve any other purpose than to look cool and work the military characters and Iraq into it.

Fifthly (is that a word?): Bumblebee's voice. The whole mute thing sounded like a bad idea and Christine rip-off when I first heard about it, but it works well here. He spends most of the film talking though radio snibits because his voice processor was damaged in a battle and he rushed to Earth before Ratchet could repair him.

And yet at the end of the film, he speaks two lines of dialogue. Yes, this adds drama to the scene, but how did this miraculous recovery occur? Did he pray to Jesustron and receive a cyber-healing? Some have pointed to the fact that Ratchet scans his neck with some laser doohicky while explaining what happened to his voice during the alley scene, but if that's the case, why does he still not speak until the last 5 minutes of the film? If I missed something, someone please write in and let me know.

And now that that's out of the way, I just want to say thank God for Peter Cullen. Cullen makes this movie in a lot of ways. He lends it legitimacy and elevates it above other "brainless" summer action films. And he expands the character. Optimus is shown to have a sense of humor here, and even to be "imperfect" at times. The much talked about scene at Sam's house is a good example. As the scene ends, you can hear Optimus actually bitching out the other Autobots about not being inconspicuous enough in a kind of fatherly "How many times have I told you..." kinda way. It was a really fun moment. Thanks for trying out for the roll, Peter. You really brought the character alive for me in a way that he hasn't been since I was a kid. It's the first time I've been excited about Transformers in a long, long time. And even better, I got to share that with my kid, who is now a diehard Optimus Prime fan.

I wasn't as optimistic about the other voice acting choices, though there were no poor performances. None of the actors will cause problems for anyone who isn't a diehard Transfan, by any means.

Ratchet is just fine. He's voiced by Robert Foxworth, the actor who played the alien doctor on Enterprise. He's a good fit, and though he has few lines, he does the role justice. (Note:I find it funny that they now have a alt scheme toy of him in the classic red and white. I would have preferred this in the film, but oh well.)

Ironhide sounds nothing like Peter Cullen's cowboyish interpretation. He sounds almost British, voiced by Jess Harnell, a cartoon voice actor who's been in everything from Surf's Up to Lilo and Stitch: The Series to voicing one of the Warner Brothers on Animaniacs. Ironhide in this film says things like "This new chassis seems more than adequate for battle," wheras the original Ironhide would have said it more along the lines of "I'll really be able to clobber some Decepticon ass with this new chassis, Prime!" So not only is the voice off, but the character is as well.

Many have complained about Jazz being portrayed as the token black Transformer. Of course, that's essentially what the original Jazz was, as voiced by the late Scatman Caruthers, but not to this extent. Voiced by Darius McCrary, most famous for his role as Eddie Winslow on Family Matters, aka Urkel Does Something Stupid To Bag Laura, the performance itself is fine. But he breakdances, and says things like "What's crackin' bitches?" and "Decepticon punk!" and "You wanna piece o' me?!" From a Transfan's perspective, this Jazz is far more similar to Blaster in character and voice than the gravely voice I remember.

Bumblebee only has two lines in the film, and when he finally speaks, after spending the entire movie being portrayed as the youthful, headstrong and brave "kid" of the group, he comes across sounding like a 50 year old man. And no wonder, since he was voiced by Mark Ryan, a longtime character actor and sometimes fight director for films like King Arthur. Not sure what happened there.

Starscream has one line, and well.. he sounds like Starscream. No complaints there.

Same with Barricade. He sounds like an evil angry guy, just like you'd expect.

Megatron... well... Hugo Weaving does a fine, fine job, making him sound just as evil and megalomaniacal as he should... but it's a bland performance. He sounds more like a Bond villain, or even worse, like the guy whose been doing Megatron on Armada/Robots In Disguise/Cybertron, etc. It lacks the over the top menace that Frank Welker, perhaps the second greatest cartoon voice actor of all time behind Mel Blac, would have brought to the role. In fact, Welker plays Megatron in the video game, and he sounds far more evil and raspy than he did in the cartoon. But we got Peter, so I can't complain TOO much, even though I just did.

If I could say there's any one MAJOR wrong thing about this movie, it's that there's not enough of it, especially with the Decepticons. Out of all the Decepticons on screen, only Barricade, Megatron, Starscream, and (sort of) Frenzy have speaking roles. The rest make metallic grunting noises and little else. And even then, Megatron only has a handful of lines, and Starscream just ONE, though their interaction is classic Megatron/Starscream back-and-forth. Would have loved for more of that to make it into the film, to really flesh the villains out more than simply cannon fodder for the Autobots to blow up.

And while I loved every moment that Cullen was speaking, one line bothered me somewhat. One of his most famous lines is "One shall stand, one shall fall." This is a line spoken to Megatron just before their final battle in the original animated film. As he utters it, he takes a heroic stance. It was a defining, iconic moment for that character. Here, during an epic mano-a-mano between Prime and Megatron, just as things are really starting to get dirty, the camera switches to a shot of Sam sneaking along through a trench carved into the road, and you hear Optimus utter the line in the background. This needed a close up, plain and simple.

Overall though, these few things do not detract from the overall film. It's the most fun I've had on a summer movie outing in a long, long time. I never thought I'd see the day when I would say this, but Michael Bay has officially made one of my favorite films. Thanks for your hard work in helping to make this childhood dream project a reality, Mr. Bay. You did a good job, I don't care what the rest of the world says about you. You did more than just make a "stupid robot toy" movie. At least for this movie goer, you made me believe in summer blockbusters again.

Till all are one!

...Jesus I can't believe I just did that...

-=7th=-