Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 25

July 4 seemed like the ideal time to take my children to see the classic cartoon made into live-action movie. The cartoon used to be a favorite of mine (as it was for so many my age) and my children were eager to watch robotic-aliens “tranform” into everyday machines in an effort to save the planet. I admit that I was skeptical about the movie, after many favorites of my childhood have been butchered in their movie adaptations. I can assure you though, that Transformers did not disappoint.

In this movie the Autobots and Decepticons fight a war that leads to the destruction of their home planet Cybertron. The surviving robot aliens search the universe for the Allspark, a device which will give life to machines anywhere. Discovering the Allsparks where-abouts are on Earth, the Decepticons launch attacks on the World to uncover the location of the life-giving cube that will rebuild soldiers for their war. The Autobots are summoned to Earth in an attempt to not only save our planet, but to prevent the Allspark from landing into the hands of the enemy.

I was in awe just as much as my children were wactching the special effects that movie-magic unveiled in transforming Optimus Prime from semi-truck to giant robot. Tranformers managed to take me back in time and was pleased that the movie followed the sme basic story line shared by the cartoon. The movie even included some of my favorite characters in a more updated version of the classic.

The movie was an action-packed hit directed by Michael Bay (Bad Boys, The Island) and kept the story-line pumping from chase scenes to explosions with a little humore mixed in. Shia Lebouf gave a lovable performance of a teen kid who discovers his first car is a robot sent to Earth to become his protector. Bernie Mac even added to the movie in a small part as a car sales-men with no small role in adding comedy to the action flick.

Transformers was a great movie that you can feel good about taking your kids to see. I would recommend this flick to children of all ages (or if you want to feel like one again.)

Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 56

Michael Bay has scored big with The Transformers. Overall, this motion picture delivered time and time again where other classic cult cartoons turned live action have failed in the past. The hype for this film had been built up to epic proportions starting with the 1st nerd who caught wind of a rumor about preproduction, and amazingly, the movie lived up to all of it.

There was a serious risk factor when Michael Bay decided to take on this project. It is extremely difficult to grab hold of a cult favorite like Transformers and appease the obsessed fans by staying true to the original while modernizing and universalizing the theme to the point where non-fans of all ages can thoroughly enjoy it. This is a very thin tightrope Bay had to walk across. If the movie slips and falls toward the fans, then it will appeal solely to the action figure collectors and the only money made will be from special edition DVDs that feature a different colored robot on each case. If the movie falls to the other side, true fans in homemade robot costumes will revolt and they will only go see the 1st midnight showing instead of fourteen more times in the following weeks, bringing the ticket sales way down. This will also ruin any plans of a national convention for years to come. The worst case scenario would be a cheaply made hack-job inevitably turning out to be a failure and immediately sending the director down the road of making Lifetime Originals. This scenario was highly unlikely since Michael Bay requires an ungodly budget for every action movie he puts on screen.

In all, The Transformers succeeded at defining the quintessential summer blockbuster. With a steady of balance of fast-paced, eye popping action, a quenching amount of comic relief, and seamless computer-generated graphics, The Transformers is a beautiful piece of movie magic. It is definitely a refreshing alternative to all the pirate, spider, and wizard movies we’ve become accustomed to during the past few summers. If you’re looking for Academy Award winning performances, wait until The English Patient 2 comes out, but if you want to experience an action packed thrill ride for the whole family, take The Transformers for a spin.

New movies you really should see

Being a pre-teen to teen, all the way to flat out adulthood, I have practically waited a very long time to hear five simple words hit the big screen in “live action” and those words are “Autobots, transform and roll out!” Finally, it arrived! “The Transformers”, by far, has to be one of the best, if not the best movie I have ever seen. Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg did an excellent job of bringing a great toy and animation series to life for the summer. And it’s not all just about the great special effects, the action from start to finish, or the incredible story line of good versus evil. This film has a little something for everyone. It has comedy, action, heart, and soul. If you haven’t seen it yet….GO! Parents, kids, seniors, I guarantee you won’t be dissapointed. The critics always have their little clicks, you know, break it all down, technical this, impossible that, sometimes I think they have forgotten the real reason why we go to the movies in the first place….TO BE ENTERTAINED! This one delivers, on all fronts. To sum it up in just one word, for this summer, “The Transformers” in nothing but pure “FUN!”

Michael Bay: Destroying our childhoods? – Part 1

As near as I can tell, Michael Bay hates my generation and everything we stand for. I don’t know why. Did we wrong him in a previous life? Did he get beat up by the younger kids at school or something? To what do we owe this animosity, that he so suddenly desires to snap up films that he knows are going to be bringing my generation screaming into the theaters like lemmings to a cliff side, only to turn around and tell us that everything we loved in our youths is wrong and foul?

Case in point, in a recent news article in Wired Magazine (Issue 15.07, and posted on Wired.com on 06/27/07 “The Rebirth of Optimus Prime: Behind the scenes with Michael Bay” by Scott Brown) I must quote;

“I’ve heard so many people say, ‘Michael Bay, you’ve destroyed my childhood,’ ” says the man himself from the cathedra of his Santa Monica, California, editing bay. Appropriately, Bay is wearing a black Decepticons T-shirt. He’s aware of his image and, to some extent, relishes it. “I knew there were fans,” he sighs, shaking his shaggy blond power-mane. “I didn’t know there were people who’d hunt you down. I urge them to watch the 1986 animated movie, go watch the cartoon. You’ll want to shoot yourself.”

Well, now we all know what drove wrestler Chris Benoit to his tragic end; he must have been watching reruns of the Transformers cartoon! Thank goodness I haven’t had the chance to buy the DVD’s yet, as I wouldn’t want to suffer from any post-nostalgic suicidal tendencies.

Okay, yes, I’m taking what he said out of context, but obviously the sentiment is there. Clearly, Michael Bay feels that the shows that I watched when I was a child were garbage, even for their time.

Funny, I remember them being highly entertaining, fun, and if you owned the toys, even somewhat interactive. In fact, I did go back and watch my VHS copy of “Transformers: The Motion Picture” from 1986. And you know what? I STILL enjoy it, to this day. I’m not a father yet, but I can honestly say I watch in horror at some of the mindless drivel spouted out of today’s equivalent of cartoon entertainment. Frankly, I’d rather have my child watching the old Transformers cartoons than some of the more modern ones, like Spongebob Squarepants for example, which strikes me as the drug-induced rantings of a functionally-retarded insomniac poodle! It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Michael Bay watches it religiously.

At least Transformers made SENSE! It had a plot, an engaging story arc, characters that you loved

Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 46

Transformers: More Than Sliced the Eye

In 1929, Luis Bunuel shocked audiences in an early scene from his film Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) depicting a women’s eye being sliced open by a razor. The image, now nearly eight decades old, continues to twist viewers in their seats. In the realm of special effects, its achievement depends more on the expectations of the viewer than the technical production. The actual image shown on the screen is of a dead cow’s eye being sliced open, but through tight editing with the image of a razor passing before a women’s face, the cows head is rarely detected.

While Bunuel hoped to mask the mechanics of his craft, Michael Bay is depending on his craftsmanship of mechanical objects to awe rather than shock his audiences. Transformers, the film adaptation of a popular children’s toy and comic book series from the 1980s, progresses with the measured pacing of an inaugural film in what is sure to be a very lucrative franchise. The story maintains decent plausibility for adults while maintaining accessibility for younger audiences. Two warring factions of robots, the protective Autobots and evil Decepticons, are drawn to Earth in search of an all powerful power source, referred to as the All Spark. The tale follows two major plotlines: that of Sam Witwicky, the unsuspecting hero in possession of crucial information to the discovery of the treasure and another focused on a small Army unit that unwittingly entangles itself with the cruel Decepticons. Sam Witwicky, played by Shia Lebeouf (Disturbia), is the traditional teenage hero, beset by contemporary versions of age-old themes: frustrating parents, the unattainable girl and a lack of a car. We have seen all of these things before, but Bay does a nice job of layering these human interactions against the developing robot story. Similarly, the secondary plot following the Army unit appears to function solely as a means to introduce action in the early scenes of the film. Eventually, the two plots intertwine, with the much-anticipated conflict between the robots accompanied by their human allies.

It would be unfair to expect a film based on giant fighting robots to be character driven, which makes the performance of Shia Lebeouf as Sam Witwicky notable. This promising actor shined most when opposite engaging characters. His interactions with his quirky parents, played by Kevin Dunn and Julie White, had the glimmer of an interesting plot line that could have developed,

Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 14

More than meets the eye is right! Transformers the movie has shocked everyone. The moment it was announced that there would be a Transformers live action movie, it was met with a mixed bag of reactions. The first was excitement that such an awesome franchise would be coming to the silver screen, then there was confusion on how it would look as a live action film, lastly it was fear that it would have the potential to be bad if it weren’t done correctly. After all this was an 80’s cartoon and comic book with a very successful line of toys and other paraphernalia and here it is 2007 where many have forgotten or are unfamiliar with the franchise. There was a lot of room for error. Enter Michael Bay.

Michael Bay, a Transformers fan himself, knew what it would take to make this movie a success. On top of all that he had a personal interest to see Optimus Prime live again. Many fans of the Transformers may remember shedding a tear or two when Optimus died in the original Transformer movie. Optimus is the heart of the franchise brought to life by the outstanding voice acting of Peter Cullen who voiced the mighty Autobot leader in the original series. Bay found a way to keep the heart of the Transformers mythos and provide upgrades necessary to make this film a hit.

In the movie, it speak of an age old struggle between the Autobots led by Prime and the Decepticons led by the evil Megatron that once took place on their planet Cybertron but has now shifted to planet Earth with humanity in the middle. Whether its the Transformers fighting the other Transformers or the Transformers fighting the humans the action is intense. While most will see the movie for the Transformers, the cast is complemented and rounded off with performances by Shia Lebouf, Anthony Anderson, John Voight, John Tuturo, Meagan Fox, Tyrese and several others. The action is epic and the comedy is side splitting. So for those who feel nervous about how the movie will treat the franchise, don’t worry, thanks to Michael Bay and company, Transformer refuses to disappoint. Grab your movie ticket and roll out to see the battle for planet Earth in Transformers the movie.

Michael Bay: Destroying our childhoods? – Part 3

Michael Bay didn’t destroy anyone’s childhood.

Transformers is and remains a product of the 80s, a glorified advertisement for the product they’re selling. As G.I. Joe was, as TMNT was, as Pokemon was, as Naruto is now. The product may change over time (toys to cards to comics) but there’s always a product attached to the show.

To say that Transformers was lacking in depth of story is to be ignorant of the show as it stands now. I’ve seen several episodes of the show recently and they do not hold up at all. The thing that makes them great is the memory of how great they were at the time. Even the much-heralded movie from 1986 doesn’t stand up to a repeat viewing, other than as a time capsule of “remember when this was cool?”

I personally was a huge Ninja Turtles fan growing up. I’ve been buying the DVDs of the old cartoon that they’ve been releasing, but I don’t watch them. I saw a few episodes and couldn’t believe I enjoyed it back then. But it’s not made for me as I am now. It was made for who I was when I was 12. I can’t fault the show for not growing with me, it was made for a certain time and a certain audience and both of those are now gone. All that remains is nostalgia.

This same argument showed itself when the new Star Wars movies came out. And the same idea applies, the attachment of nostalgia to something that was there already will cloud your judgment of the new something, no matter what. Show a 12 year old the new Star Wars movies now and they’ll love them. Show them the old trilogy and they’ll enjoy those too, as did everyone else at the time. You can’t blame Star Wars for you growing up, but it’s still entertaining for a certain audience.

You can’t blame Transformers for you growing up, but it’s still entertaining for a certain audience. Destroyed childhood or not, it made enough money that, in the end, there will be more. And with rumors of G.I Joe and Thundercats in the works, it’s something that’s not stopping anytime soon.

Get used to your shattered childhood.

Movie previews: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Not due out at the cinemas until June 2009, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is a movie which all science fiction fans of the world will most definitely be eagerly anticipating. After the success of “Transformers” in 2007, audiences now know to expect special effects of an exceptional standard and a fine storyline to boot. Once more the movie is to be directed by Michael Bay, produced by Spielberg, and written by a wonderful team of three. The writers this time around are those of Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Ehren Kruger (only Ehren Kruger was not involved with the writing process of the first film, and here replaces John Rogers in the role of third writer). The film shall again star Shia LaBeouf, and for all those that enjoyed the first movie then it’s time to once more prepare for something truly special.

Apparently we can expect the tone of this second movie to be very similar to that of the first; this time round however writer Roberto Orci has stated that rather than seeing things from a human perspective as opposed to a robot perspective; things will be much more evenly balanced (he announced this on the Don Murphy internet forum). It’s to be a very interesting second Transformer telling, and this time round it has also been announced that the plot progression will be far more flowing than it was with the first film.

It definitely seems as though it’s to be an improvement upon the original “Transformers” film, and as the release date draws ever closer I’m sure that we’ll find out far more about the movie and a lot more will be revealed. It has more or less the same team behind it and with a great cast again I see no reason why this second Transformers movie should not outshine the first. The first film was very good, this time around it seems as though all those involved are even more on the ball however and are working to make 2009s Transformers movie an even greater offering than the last.

$8 million has here been shelled out in order to get the three writers on board alone. A lot of money is going into this movie and everyone involved is doing their utmost to make sure that this movie is as amazing as it possibly can be. A lot of money is being spent, the best professionals possible are being employed to make sure that the movie shines, and in every area director Michael Bay is looking to impress with the “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” movie.

I’ve always been a great fan of Shia LaBeouf and very much look forward to witnessing his involvement within this second Transformers movie; he’s just one of a number of talented cast members that will here be involved however and I’m sure that all those cast within this movie will be absolutely exceptional in their roles.

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” looks set to be the movie to see in summer 2009, it has a very big budget and it’s excellent to see that all those involved are doing their very best to make sure that the movie does not disappoint. The first movie was brilliant, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” looks all set to outshine it strongly however and when the movie sees its release in June 2009 I am entirely sure that it will astound and amaze all those that see it. “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” will most definitely be a hugely exciting movie, and all I’ve now got left to say on the matter is roll on summer 2009!