… have you seen the movie yet? As a long time fan, I have a variety of mixed emotions. If you’ve already seen it, read on for my opinions if you’re curious. If you haven’t seen it, then I can heartily recommend it as an overall great summer action movie. Go see it, then come back and compare your thoughts with mine, and leave me a comment if you’re in the mood.
So, what did you think? Before you go too far, go ahead and post a comment about what you thought. Don’t let my opinions influence yours. Everyone can like or dislike all or parts of the movie as they see fit. This post isn’t telling anyone else how to feel, only how I feel, mmkay? K.
First off, I want to make it clear that I did enjoy the movie very much. My whole family did. We went to the first showing in the area, the 8pm show on the 2nd. We tried a new theater nearby, the Kent Station theater in… well, Kent. I’ll be honest… this was one of the best theaters I’ve ever been in. The seats were generous, and comfortable. I didn’t feel cramped at all as I often do, given my girth. The theater is obviously pretty new, and it was pretty swanky, too. I even splurged on theater junk food, getting the boys both a “kids pack” that had a small popcorn, drink, and candy, and then a large popcorn and drink for Ingrid and I to share. The movie going experience was superb.
The movie itself was also really good. Overall, I’d probably give it a weak 9, or a strong 8 out of 10. An 8.5, if you will. As a long time fan, it was hard to view the film as it was truly intended, for a completely new audience, or at least for those who haven’t loyally kept with the mythos for the last 20+ years. I knew that it was meant for a new audience, and that there would be a lot of changes in “how things are” with some of my favorite characters and even their background, their “universe”, but knowing that doesn’t make all the big pills easier to swallow. With all this in mind, I brought my spoons and my sugar and I took my medicine the best I could. 😉
Ok, I’m already sounding all doom and gloomy, and I don’t want to come across that way. Maybe a couple bulleted lists would work better than stream of thought prose.
The stuff I dug:
- Shia LaBeouf’s portrayal of “Sam” (not Spike) Witwicky, the youth who first makes contact with Transformers on earth. He nailed it. The previews showed some good scenes, but there’s always the possibility that those were his best. Not so for this movie. He’s a good actor anyway, so I wasn’t really worried. But he was great.
- Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime’s voice. Peter Cullen was the original Optimus Prime from 20 years ago. No fan, old or new, is likely to complain about Peter reprising his role in the new movie. He might have tried too hard, but it didn’t detract. I’ve met the man. Short man, but great. Very nice man. I didn’t want/need an autograph, but I got a picture taken with him, and I recorded a message to my boys that he graciously spoke as Optimus Prime for me. This all happened at BotCon 2004, and it looked like Peter hasn’t changed a bit.
- The CGI. Holy crap, man! You simply cannot see this movie without being wowed by the CGI half the time. The best part is not that it was spectacular, but that is was believable, AND the live actor/CGI interaction was spot on. I don’t remember any parts where I thought the actor was trying too hard to “see” the CGI that wasn’t there. This is partly the skills of the actor, but also of the director, crew, and CGI artists. It all came together quite nicely.
- The basic story. The “Allspark Cube” is Yet Another Origin Story for the Transformers. We certainly didn’t NEED another origin story, but we’ve had so many at this point, that new ones don’t phase me. A lot of fans have a hard time with this, but that’s their loss of time and energy. So, the cube created life all over the galaxy, and it is of unknown age and origin. It’s basically God. The Autobots have been warring to prevent the Decepticons from gaining control of the Cube, which would give them enough power to dominate the Galaxy. It ends up on Earth, and they follow. Humor and Action ensue.
- The toys. Sure it’s a blockbuster meant to make money like any movie, but it’s also meant to sell product like the original movie and cartoons. And I must say that the toys for this movie are top notch. Not only are the transforming toys really good overall (which I’ve been gleefully collecting), but also there are toys for all ages and types. There are PLUSH Transformers, for goodness sakes!
- The music. This is probably more opinionated than even the movie itself, but I enjoyed pretty much all the music. I already picked up the soundtrack as well. The soundtrack has songs not in the movie… I get WHY they do that, I just don’t like it, and 3 out of the 4 songs added to the soundtrack suck in my opinion. I’m also a little miffed they didn’t include some of the instrumentals and tunes that Bumblebee strategically played on his radio at all the right times. Hopefully there will be a second CD with that stuff. Overall, the songs were well chosen and placed in the movie.
- Hugo Weaving as Megatron. N A I L E D I T ! Simple as that. He did a better Megatron than Welker ever could. I wasn’t ever a big Welker fan any way, but I certainly prefer Weaving from now on. David Kaye, from the last several Transformers shows as Megatron, is a very close second. Ironically, David will be playing Prime in the new animated cartoon this fall/next spring.
Stuff I would have left out:
-  Megan Fox as the love interest. She’s hotter than hot, I won’t deny that, but her acting was nothing to write home about. I’m betting she was the hottest actress that could act her way out of a wet paper bag successfully. As the hot chick, she did well, but I’m sure there are many other actresses that would have done just as well or better than her. IMHO, Megan is eye candy in this movie. If she gets an award for anything but “Best Belly Shot” for this movie, it will have been fixed.
- The Allspark Cube was insanely huge, so big that the humans couldn’t move it, but built Hoover Dam AROUND it… but when Bumblebee worked his hands on a mysterious spot, it mass-shifted down to a box small enough for Sam to run around with like a football. This in itself doesn’t bother me, but the directors specifically said that they would not be making any characters mass-shift, meaning we don’t get Soundwave, ‘cus he converted from a big-ass robot into a cassette player, or Megatron as a gun, since he was also a huge-ass robot that couldn’t possibly be a little gun for humans or other robots to hold. OK, Megatron into a gun was always a little silly, but the hypocrasy of them making the Allspark Cube mass-shift irked me. Why couldn’t it have just been small in the first place? Why not protect its location if it’s really big? Whatever.
- The INSANE CLOSEUPS!!! WOO WOO WOO!!!! I’m sure this was a director thing, trying to make the robots seem bigger and whatnot, but there were so many fight scenes shown from so close to the fighting robots as they tumbled around that you had no idea what you were seeing. All you know is “big robots fighting”. You couldn’t even tell which was which, since these scenes often included clouds of dust, people or other vehicles running around, or too short to get your bearings.
- The secondary story line of the hackers and stuff was superfluous. I’m not even sure why they left it in there other than to portray a good looking woman who was also smart, and to add some comedic relief with the fat black dude. It really could have been completely left out and not change the movie at all.
- Frenzy. I know a lot of people like him, but he was just too over the top for me. If there was less of the Gremlin inspiration so obvious in him, I probably would have liked him better, but the Cybertronian swearing and crazy antics didn’t sit well with me. He was obviously meant to be comedic relief as well, and he managed to elicit a few chuckles from the audience I watched it with, but there was just too much of him for me. I won’t be sorry if he bites it in the next movie.
With all that said, I still think it’s a great movie. I’ll be seeing it again after CybCon next Saturday, and I’ll be getting the DVD when it comes out for sure. I’m certain it will be viewed many times here at home soon after that, if not by me, then by my boys.
So… have you seen the movie yet?