Transformers (2007)

Gotta disagree, especially when you make the comparison to Bay's other films. This is a very fun film, maybe the best spectacle of his career. It caters to all his strengths as a director, and the ridiculousness of the concept serves to nullify most of his weaknesses. Most of my thoughts are in the post-release thread, but basically, I don't see how one goes into a "Transformers" viewing honestly looking to enjoy it and comes away disappointed. If you watched it to get that much more anti-Bay ammunition, you likely weren't disappointed, but that has nothing to do with "Transformers".

As I watched it months back I thought it was okay. But just about every facet of the production left my mind the second the credits started to roll. I guess it involved eyeglasses at some point. I really have no desire at all to revisit it either on disc or when it hits cable.

I liked both SPIDER-MAN 3 and LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD more. There's my controversial stance of the evening.

Bad Boys II is many things, but any movie that, in its final act, launches a full-scale tactical operation of Cuba with no more than "my cousin in the underground" and Joey Pants' "buddies at the CIA" is not ass.

This is where you lost me. If you say that Transformers is bad even for Michael Bay, and then call Bad Boys II 'ass' I have to believe this film is not for you.

The complaint that the movie didn't focus on the Autobots more as characters is one that I heard a lot of fanboys whine about. I'm not necessarily lumping you in with them, but I would like to know how exactly the movie should have fleshed out these toys (admit it, that's all they've ever been)?

Personally, I went in expecting a bombastic film that contained some outlandish, over the top action with robots beating the shit out of each other. I was not disappointed.

Hey now, let's not say anything we can't take back. I'm all for dumping on ARMAGEDDON, or PEARL HARBOR, or even THE ISLAND which I've never seen.

BAD BOYS 2 is dynamite. I mean that literally. The film is actually a class of powerful explosive composed of ammonium nitrate dispersed in an absorbent medium with a combustible dope used in blasting and mining.

The Transformers are wholly uninteresting unless they're A) transforming or B) fighting. So the "complaint" that the movie is primarily told through the POV of humans is very strange to me. The big robots are there to be big friggin robots, and the movie exists solely to watch them fight one another. This is perhaps Bay's most effective movie because it has absolutely zero pretention.

And yeah, "Bad Boys II" is a ton of fun too, and for most of the same reasons. Bay works best when he isn't bound by reality.

Really the only complaint I had were that there was not near enough Starscream.

This constantly-heard complaint about Transformers being about the humans is (and I'm sorry to have to say this, Brendan) one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in a movie discussion. It's about on par with complaining that Godzilla movies should be told from the point of view of Godzilla. And I don't consider that an exaggeration. It's that silly.

Plus, it's very dangerous when it gets sweaty.

There is very little '80s action movie' in Bad Boys 2. There is nothing 80s about Michael Bay. Except maybe his hair, and even then only the tiniest bit. He's all about 90's sheen.

At any rate, I like Transformers, and yes if you think Bad Boys 2 is 'ass' this clearly isn't for you, but I was still a little disappointed upon a repeat viewing. Maybe due to the fact that when a guy gets shot in the face or hit in the ribs or bounced off of an above-ground parking structure's concrete support column (since we're on Bad Boys 2) you feel it, especially if it's filmed by Michael Bay. Big CG robots trading punches and shooting their big lasers and missles and machine guns at each other? I just didn't feel it. I mean when that SpecOps guy's face is peeling off due to the VX poison gas... or when Johnny Tapia falls onto the land mine after getting a hollow point through the forehead... that's visceral. That's a different kind of action. Transformers is tame as shit compared to that. It's much fancier looking, and that's not the same thing.

I found the turnaround on this movie pretty impressive, though. 3 1/2 months from theatrical debut to DVD.

I wanna bury Moltisanti in pos rep. DROWN him, even. Until he dies. Until he's dead. I wanna kill you, Moltisanti, is what I'm saying. That's how much I love ya!

That said, after multiple viewings you kinda wanna fast-forward through some scenes, but all in all Transformers is a fun movie. Lots of classic Bay stuff, from the women to the stereotypes, but the actors really sold the movie (most of 'em, anyways) and the effects were stunning.

The storyline was serviceable enough, if a tad crowded. Megatron was set up as a big baddie, but not as THE motherlovin' big baddie. He was supposed to be the series' Magneto or Green Goblin but they only got up to making him out to be kind of a Stryker/Doc Ock-level villain (even though the fans know better).

If anything, it at least has going for it that it really seems like everyone (well, writers aside) was giving their 110% and really into the whole thing. Don't see that too much lately in many flicks, much less studio blockbusters.

Apparently, Cynic was expecting the Decepticons to decapitate people.

edit: I didn't realize how similar those words are until I read that sentence. Decapticons.

You do know that, technically, Transformers is a movie for kids/young adults, right?

I felt it was pretty damn violent as it was, all things considered.

I don't speak for soccer moms and their annoying little lollipop-sucking brats, I'm comparing this to other films in Bay's filmography.

And faulting it for being a family-oriented film, and therefore not being as violent as his R-rated action films. That makes a lot of sense.

It has nothing to do with the fact that it's not rated-R, and me 'faulting it' is a necessary ingredient of a conversation in which someone criticizes something.

It's an action movie, and the fact that it's CG robots running around hitting each other and not people hurts the otherwise top-notch action (which is why I'm there... I don't want to see Bay do his version of Killing of a Chinese Bookie). CG overload, you know? I'm not complaining because I wish it were something else.

Transformers was good. The films biggest sin is that it fumbles the Prime/Megatron showdown horribly (most of it is played in the background of other shots). The hacker storyline is garbage, though I kind of understand why they might have felt like it was necessary. The soldier characters actually bother me a lot more. Duhamel was really, really awful ("You're a SOLDIER now!")

Any remaining issues have to do with wanting more. More of each robot, and bigger scale conflicts (really, LA should have been left in ruins). This is what sequels are for. The action 'could' be clearer, but it's not a huge deal. I've seen it three times, and by this point it's crystal clear who's killing who and how. I notice something new every time I watch it, which is cool.

But seriously, what was there aversion to showing Prime actually fighting Megatron? It was like they were actively avoiding it.

On the current topic.... yeah, there's no gore. This is a surprise? I still think the amount of death or implied death is pretty substantial. Frenzy (is that who that chattery little fuck is?) ninja-stars the shit out of some dudes on Air Force One. A ton of innocent workers got pretty well screwed when Megatron woke up, as did anyone riding in a particular bus that got holycrapblownup by a skating robut. Also, when Megatron says "disgusting" and flicks that random guy, I'm always like "ouch, man." There's more but... yeah, plenty of humans get the short end in this film. Would I have liked to have seen Blackout shred a crowd of people with his chopper-blade thing? Yeah, sure. But be realistic.

Does anyone know what happened to the cop car Decepticon? I always look for him in the final battle, but he never seems to show up past the highway scene.

It's a bunch of robots kicking the shit out of each other. What the fuck did you expect? Shakespeare perhaps? A morality tale set in Dickensian London?

God I fucking hate people like you.

Only complaint I had about the movie was the strategy. "Hmm... Big bad robots want this device. Let's take it to a heavily populated area." Though I understand the plot device. Big robot fight in desert nowhere near as fun as big robot fight in a city.

Well, to be fair, taking the thing into a crowded, tight area was probably a lot smarter. Soldiers vs giant robots in a big, wide-open area would be suicide.

I like how their stated plan is "we'll hide it in the city". Hide it where in the city? Apparently in the middle of the main road with a bunch of army trucks, mounted machine guns, and dudes in uniform standing around. HOW DID THEY FOUND US??!

I just want to know what happened to the Mountain Dewbot and the Xbot. Bay left me totally hanging.

The United States Army formally told the producers of Transformers than in the event that Earth were attacked by giant robot aliens that transform into vehicles, their best strategy would be to do battle with them in a city.

They went on record as saying and recommending this.

Actually, let me clear something up before I'm misinterpreted.

I wasn't saying it in a "The U.S. Army said so, you ignorant fuck!" way, but more in a "Believe it or not, the U.S. Army actually said blah blah blah".

Apart from the shaky cam (surely the film must suffer even more when watched on a television screen?), my biggest problem was that the film just doesn't take itself seriously enough.

There is so much weird shit in this movie. I've tried to compile a list, but it doesn't work outside of context. But Bernie Mac, Shia LaBeouf, John Turturro and Kevin Dunn & Julie White as the parents are all hilarious.

Hysterical.

Doesn't do much with the titular characters, but it's a fun Bay film. Middle of the pack for him.

Yeah, it really should have tried harder to elevate itself to the kind of serious tone befitting the source material of glorified toy commercials.

Are you actually serious?

I was actually surprised at how charming and fun the Sam/Bumblebee storyline was. Definitely a touch of Spielberg there.

"You're a soldier now" is my favourite line of the year.

I'll agree that they didn't do much with the Decepticons, but come on, it's not like there won't be a sequel (or like Megatron's irreversably dead).

I hated this movie. It was so poorly written and mind boggingly stupid on every conceivable level that I had to weep for America for making this a hit. It actually reminded me of a 2 hour and 15 minute episode of Heroes: 3 or 4 completely unrelated, boring plots sloooowly coming together, all of which include shoddy acting and cringe inducing dialogue, all leaving you longing for nothing but a super cool fight scene, which ends up being completely anticlimactic and unfulfilling when it finally arrives.

Did Tim Kring secretly write this film?

Actually, I am. I think crazy concepts like Transformers can actually work brilliantly, if the director takes it seriously (Imagine if Ridley Scott or James Cameron had directed the film). Instead, Bay approaches this story with everything but seriousness. Fun, enthusiasm, wanting-a-new-house, all those emotions are in there, but wanting to make a serious film wasn't. I just can't accept a film that is trying to portray transforming robots fighting a secret war over an energy cube where literally every single scene is tongue in cheek.


edit: Also, the trailer for the film was pretty serious, as was Bay's previous film, The Island. So perhaps I expected the wrong thing, but I still think the film would have been better if it had been taken seriously.

I would weap if Ridley Scott wasted his time on something like this.

Pray tell, how can crazy concepts like this work brilliantly if taken seriously?

The Island is a bit higher concept than Bay's other films, but it's still just as silly as anything else he's done. You want a serious Micheal Bay film? Two words: Pearl Harbor. No one wants that kind of melodrama from a film about giant robots that turn into vehicles.
While I agree Transformers would have been better if stripped of at least half it's comic relief, what can you really expect from Transformers? I'm amazed at how well it turned out, all things considered. Bay is Bay though, all of his films are chock-full of silly shit, cliche comic relief, and BIG over the top action. My expectations were totally in check, I guess yours weren't. It happens.

You'll get your James Cameron giant robot movie soon enough. Well, if Avatar doesn't bomb, anyway.

I enjoyed my first viewing of this. The next two times I saw it (had different groups of friends who wanted to go), it was an example of diminishing returns. All the postives (robot action) were less positive and the negatives were only ampilfied. Clearly, this movie is nothing more than a fireworks show and I think it's alright to enjoy it on that level.

But there are people who genuinely think that this is a good movie! This thing is barely a movie. And the excuse, "It's Transformers! It's based on toys! How much better do you think it can get!?" doesn't fly with me. A Transformers movie could never be a work of high art, sure. But it can certainly be a good piece of escapist entertainment. If a movie about a man-eating shark can be a great film, Transformers can be a good summer movie.

More than anything, what disappointed me was that Bay did not deliver on the action as well as he usually did in previous movies. Aside from a few money shots (slow-mo robot tackles, punches, flying through buildings), what action is there other than humans shooting bullets that have no effect and a lot of explosions? Bay coasted on the fact that his movie had huge robot action.

Whenever there was an excuse for some good robot carnage, Bay botches it by having all the action centered on the humans while the robots fumble around in an orgy of CG motion blur in the background (similar to the Megatron/Prime fight). Was there a reason why we didn't see how Bumblebee won the first fight against Barricade? The teens defeat Jar-Jar-Bot and then we see Bumblebee emerge victorious. As the excuse goes, this is a Transformers movie! Show me some more Transformers doing what they do!

I defend the Bourne shakey-cam. But I don't defend it here. Bay, you're not Greengrass. Your movie has giant robots. Show me them in action, not their after-images.

The only action sequence worth my money was the freeway chase between Devestator (was that the one?) and Prime. A very satisfying sequence of car chases, explosions, transformations, and a bad-ass sword kill. The camera is active, but you know what's going on. Nothing else in the movie tops this.

The first major action sequence in the movie is not an action sequence at all. You're tricked into thinking that it's a car chase between Bumblebee and Barricade, but this is another moment where Bay coasts on the simple fact that his movie has big robots. All that chase features is shots of cars driving fast to a rock soundtrack. There is no geography to it. No structure. No ending, as a matter of fact. They drive for a bit and then suddenly the movie cuts to nighttime where Bumblebee has somehow lost Barricade and now they're sneaking around some industrial complex. What happened to the Bay that gave us the San Fransisco chase in The Rock?

I thought the Spielbergian aspects (the boy and his robot) were done well enough at the beginning to get me invested in the story. LaBeof sells it. Once the government comes into it (despite my enjoyment of Tuturro), the movie loses sight of that whole angle. It tries to get it back with Bumblebee's capture as well as the loss of his legs ("I won't leave you."), but the movie hadn't done enough to earn the emotion those scenes were going for.

I don't think I'm asking the movie to do something it was never meant to do. These are scenes that are meant to connect and they do not (I have a friend who cries at these scenes, she loves Bumblebee so much). I just want the movie to work on its own terms. I wanted Megatron's defeat to be a satisfactory climax. Instead, I was left scratching my head since the movie never made the effort to show me why simply holding the cube up to Megatron's chest would kill him. This was only the capper to a fight where Prime and Megatron were treated like the out-of-focus members of Stillwater.

The execution of the theme, "No Sacrifice, No Victory" was also weak. Sam sacrifices nothing by the end of the movie. He saves the day, wins the girl, and gets a shitload of Transformers. Sure, the movie has him 'sacrifice' his life to hold onto the cube, but who thinks that Megatron wouldn't have killed him even after he gave it up? That's not the kind of sacrifice that matters in hero stories.

Transformers just narrowly defeats Shoot 'Em Up as the most aggressively tedious film I saw this year. I've no nostalgia for this material at all, and had no plans on seeing it, but it was CHUD that more less convinced me that it would at least be a great spectactle movie if nothing more, so in a last minute change of heart, I saw this on a Sunday afternoon.
It's not even terrible, it's just utterly forgettable and for being such a busy film, completely boring. LeBeouf's charisma only took me so far through this thing before I mentally and emotionally checked out of the whole affair.

I wish I understood why this was so fucking funny. Maybe then I'd stop laughing.

Scott and Cameron were a bit of a clue: I was thinking about the Alien movies. Especially in relation to Alien Resurrection.


I liked Pearl Harbour, mostly, I think the biggest problem (though not the only problem) was that it was too damn long.

I think you just sunk yourself around here with that statement. Heheh.

I get what you're saying about wanting the movie to take itself a little more seriously, but I think general audiences would've hated the movie if it had taken such a serious tone.

If Transformers went for a more serious approach, you would need to change a lot more than the tone. The very concept of alien robots that come to earth and disguise themselves as vehicles would stretch my ability to take it seriously. And keep in mind that Bay also wanted the fan support so he couldn't change the concept of Transformers too much.

As it is, there's just too much stuff that doesn't make sense in the concept of Transformers to make a more serious movie. Better the movie take the easier path of making fun of itself as it goes along.

We will not be discussing this film at all in 2009, except in the way we discuss "Independence Day". Which is, mockingly, and with the right level of "I liked that?" incredulity.

...

You haven't been paying much attention to the films released this year, have you?

That's always happened, though. I'm sure that the year Citizen Kane was released, everybody was going on and on about some pop confection of the time (probably a screwball comedy, I'm guessing), and how they knew they should see Citizen Kane, but it just seemed so depressing. Because, you know, they go to movies to be entertained, and maybe they'll catch it one day after somebody invents home video.

Just saw this again for the first time since seeing it in theaters and you know what?   It's a pretty charming movie all things considered.    Alot of this is due to Bay being put on a very short leash by Spielberg I'm sure but it does work.   Even the characters are somewhat like the cartoons.   Too bad this same level of restraint was gone by the second movie but the first one is a genuinely good movie with a plot you can follow.  

I just saw Revenge Of The Fallen for the first time today. It's a terrible movie made by terrible people.

 

With all of the sun drenched, globe-trotting, sci-fi-ish military action, I think Michael Bay is on the wrong toy franchise. He's so right for a GI Joe franchise it isn't even funny.

I kinda liked this movie when it came out. But it just gets worse and worse, aging like a fine corpse.