CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
I put off watching this (despite having not paid for it!) for a long time because I thought Transformers 2 was literally the worst movie ever made. But THE PEOPLE demand the Wacky Review so...
The standard defence for these movies consists of the words "just switch your brain off!" Even the fans admit that they're really really dumb and the only enjoyment comes from the spectacular action scenes. Of course that argument doesn't work if you don't actually ENJOY the spectacular action. I didn't in Transfomers 2, other than the part where Optimus "died" fighting some Decepeticons in the woods (which was about three minutes of a three hour movie.) The other action parts were a confusing mess. I'd heard Transformers 3 was an improvement in that regard, so did I enjoy the action scenes with my brain switched off? I'll get to that...
BUT FIRST I don't see why I shouldn't talk about the actual plot and acting and bad comedy and all that. I mean even if you think the action scenes make everything worthwhile, the other stuff DOES take up quite a large part of the movie. And given the obscene amount of money these movies make, I really don't see why it's unreasonable to expect some degree of quality in the scripting, acting, etc. Can't they just spend some of the piles of money they make on good scriptwriters?
The plot starts off quite intereting as it's revealed that the space race in the sixties was actually because a Cybertronian spaceship had crashed on the moon. These scenes look pretty cool. I won't bother pointing out that they changed the geography of the moon as they changed the georgraphy of THE EARTH in the last movie so no one's going to care about the moon. The real Buzz Aldrin even shows up and that's nice I guess. Then the plot keeps rolling on and I lose interest and I'm not sure what the point was about humans working with the Decepticons (although the scene where the human collaborators are revealed is pretty good and the sleazey human villain is one of the better characters) and Sputnik being inside a cage inside the Chernobyl reactor (seriously, what the fuck was that about?) But to sum it up: Sentinal Prime was the leader of the Autobots before Optimus, he made a secret pact with the Decepticons and went to Earth to do something, but some other Decepticons shot him down. Oh and there was a Decpeticon army hidden on the moon too (not sure how that fits.) So the real reason the Decpticons went to Earth was because Sentinal was there, I guess. Even though in the first movie the reason they went was because the All Spark was contained in Sam's grandfather's glasses or something. And in the second movie there was The Fallen who was also waiting for them on Earth. I don't really know if the three plots can be reconciled.
Sentinal Prime is voiced by Leonard Nimoy and there's loads of Spock references. So many that it's a bit distracting. But I like Star Trek so I suppose I should appreciate it!
Megan Fox quit the movie after branding Michael Bay "Hitler" (see, she's not all bad!) so her role as the "hot babe" was hastily rewritten for a new "hot babe" played by Rosie Hutington-Whiteley. I didn't find her hot, really. I don't know if she's had plastic surgery or anything, but she just doesn't look very real and it's off-putting. She dresses in a way no woman dresses unless they're doing a shoot for Maxim. Even after various action scenes involving LOTS OF RUBBLE she still doesn't have a sratch on her and it's really stupid. There's a few hilarious shots of her staring in "awe" (with a blank expression) which Bay surely must have put in because he hates women and wants everyone to see how stupid they are. Her relationship with Sam isn't believable at all. And she is completely and utterly objectified to the most ridiculous degree in cinema history, probably. I mean, if they feel a "hot babe" character is essential to this movie about giant alien robots, fine, but why do characters need to keep drawing attention to her "hotness"? Shouldn't it be self evident? Was anyone amused by the scenes where male characters literally said "PHWOAR, SHE'S AN OBJECT!" while the camera focused on her arse? Anyway, despite all this she's STILL a more convicing human being and better actress than Megan Fox and considering the fact that RHW was an underwear model with no acting experience prior to the movie I'll say she did a "good job", all things consdiered.
(AND I BET SHE GAVE MICHAEL BAY A "GOOD JOB" TOO LOL SHE'S AN OBJECT.)
I need to mention some other things before I get to the spectacular action...
- I don't remember Shia LeBeouf being this awful in the previous movies. There's nothing likable at all about Sam here: he spends the first half of the movie moaning, goes on a really annoying rant about car ownership (which has nothing to do with the plot of course, but I guess Michalel Bay loves cars or something) and there's one part where he crashes his car and goes "WAAAAAAAAAAAH!" like Wario for literally thirty seconds. I have no idea why they thought it would be a good idea to make the main character (and he is the main character, not any of the Transformers who only get a fraction of his screentime) so easy to hate.
- Why is the annoying Sector Seven guy even in the movie? Why does a guy with a plunger walk across the screen when he's being interviewed on tv?
- What is Wash from Firefly's character even supposed to be? He certainly wasn't a leaf on the wind.
- Why is Ken Jeong - who seems like a cool guy and is funny in Community - so willing to completely disgrace himself and the asian race in roles like this?
- I guess John Malkovitch was supposed to be on cocaine? He at least seemed to be having fun and the bit with him and Bumblebee was kind of funny. The character disappears halfway through the movie, of course, so I'm not sure what the point was.
- Sam's fucking parents. At least they didn't get high again.
- Basically what I'm wondering is why do all the human characters have to be so completely and utterly over the top wacky all the time? Would it not be better if the humans were kind of normal and reacted with awe and wonder to the giant alien robots, instead of being all "YO, LET ME TOUCH YOUR ROBOT ASS! I'M A GOOFBALL!"? The characters in the eighties cartoon act more like real humans than these clowns.
So, anyway, the Decepticons plan is to enslave humanity and build a spacebridge that brings Cybertron to Earth (yes this was a plot in the cartoon too. Quit a few plot elements are taken from there.) The Autobots are exiled after Sentinal Prime goes evil, then Starscream shoots them out of the sky and they're all dead apparently. But wait! They were actually hiding all the time just to teach the humans a lesson. So the autobots let possibly thousands of humans die just to teach them a lesson. They're the good guys. This all leads to a big fight in some city. Now, I don't go to the cinema much because I have issues, but I imagine scenes like this are a lot more enjoyable on a massive screen (in 3D?) with the sound so loud that you can't think straight and you have no choice but to "turn your brain off" and enjoy them. BUT THEN AGAIN I do watch a lot of action movies on tv and on my computer monitor and enjoy them, so really there's no reason why I shouldn't enjoy this too. So is it any good? Kind of. It's obviously very impressive technically. There's a bit on a freeway (yes with reused footage from The Island) which is fun. There's some decent fights betweeen the transformers, though again there's still the problem of not really being able to tell which are autobots and which are decepticons. And one is spoiled by a ridiculous one-liner afterwards ("class dismissed!" How does that even make sense? He's not a teacher!) I do like all the parts with Bumblebee running up walls shooting guns. That seems to be his move. Of all the transformers he's about the most likable (possibly because he doesn't have an obnoxious voice.)
The biggest action scene involved a big glass skyscraper being destroyed by a decepticon drill (I think it's Shockwave?) which is certainly an impressive spectacle. I'm sure the physics of it don't make sense and I'm sure Mythbusters explained that you can't just charge into an office window and smash through without killing yourself, but it is a well done action scene and I'm sure was even more enjoyable in the cinema. Even if the whole thing only came about because Michael Bay thought to himself "I bet 9/11 looked AWESOME from INSIDE the towers!"
In a scene obviously written for Megan Fox's character, Carly talks Megatron (who does fuck all for most of the movie) into betraying Sentinal Prime and helping Optimus. It makes no sense as Carly hasn't had any scenes with Megatron before and there's no way she'd be able to understand his character and manipulate him so easily, but "making sense" seems to be viewed a bad thing in this movie. Optimus and Sentinal have a pretty decent fight scene which is ruined a bit by BLOOD spurting from Sentinal when Optimus is chopping him up. He's a robot! Megatron saves Prime's life and proproses a truth. Optimus responds by murdering him. He then murders the (literally) unarmed Sentinal. Oh, and earlier in the movie Prime and the autobots ride out to kill some muslims with a slow moition american flag blowing in the wind. I found it pretty depressing hearing Peter Cullen voice this horrible version of Optimus. He was my childhood hero. It's almost like he's been...raped (not really.)
So I really need to end this review because it's now longer than the actual movie: I didn't like it very much. It was better than Transformers 2. The action scenes were better and the racist transformers were gone (the sexism was much worse!) The plot was a bit better but still stupid. There's barely any likable characters. Many are actively dislikable. There are some cool things (some of which I missed, see below) and the special effects are generally amazing and I do see how it would have been better in the cinema...but still it could have been so much better. I love Transformers and have dreamed of a live action movie since the eighties so I really did WANT these movies to be good. After three of them I should just accept that they're never going to be what I want.
Oh, one other thing, when I was looking at the IMDB board to see the general opinion, I saw this thread. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1399103/board/flat/191509187 I thought it was nice to see people enjoying things about this movie without having to make excuses. It's mostly cool stuff the animators and sound people sneaked in there (I BET BAY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW) and I can't say I actually noticed much of it during the movie, but it's still nice! (And that thread brought to this even better thread http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/trans...s-jokes-references-hard-spot-things-dotm.html)
FINAL THING: I can genuinely say I enjoyed reading this issue of the new ongoing IDW comic more than this movie. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=user_review&id=4361
RIGHT I'M FINISHED NOW.
The standard defence for these movies consists of the words "just switch your brain off!" Even the fans admit that they're really really dumb and the only enjoyment comes from the spectacular action scenes. Of course that argument doesn't work if you don't actually ENJOY the spectacular action. I didn't in Transfomers 2, other than the part where Optimus "died" fighting some Decepeticons in the woods (which was about three minutes of a three hour movie.) The other action parts were a confusing mess. I'd heard Transformers 3 was an improvement in that regard, so did I enjoy the action scenes with my brain switched off? I'll get to that...
BUT FIRST I don't see why I shouldn't talk about the actual plot and acting and bad comedy and all that. I mean even if you think the action scenes make everything worthwhile, the other stuff DOES take up quite a large part of the movie. And given the obscene amount of money these movies make, I really don't see why it's unreasonable to expect some degree of quality in the scripting, acting, etc. Can't they just spend some of the piles of money they make on good scriptwriters?
The plot starts off quite intereting as it's revealed that the space race in the sixties was actually because a Cybertronian spaceship had crashed on the moon. These scenes look pretty cool. I won't bother pointing out that they changed the geography of the moon as they changed the georgraphy of THE EARTH in the last movie so no one's going to care about the moon. The real Buzz Aldrin even shows up and that's nice I guess. Then the plot keeps rolling on and I lose interest and I'm not sure what the point was about humans working with the Decepticons (although the scene where the human collaborators are revealed is pretty good and the sleazey human villain is one of the better characters) and Sputnik being inside a cage inside the Chernobyl reactor (seriously, what the fuck was that about?) But to sum it up: Sentinal Prime was the leader of the Autobots before Optimus, he made a secret pact with the Decepticons and went to Earth to do something, but some other Decepticons shot him down. Oh and there was a Decpeticon army hidden on the moon too (not sure how that fits.) So the real reason the Decpticons went to Earth was because Sentinal was there, I guess. Even though in the first movie the reason they went was because the All Spark was contained in Sam's grandfather's glasses or something. And in the second movie there was The Fallen who was also waiting for them on Earth. I don't really know if the three plots can be reconciled.
Sentinal Prime is voiced by Leonard Nimoy and there's loads of Spock references. So many that it's a bit distracting. But I like Star Trek so I suppose I should appreciate it!
Megan Fox quit the movie after branding Michael Bay "Hitler" (see, she's not all bad!) so her role as the "hot babe" was hastily rewritten for a new "hot babe" played by Rosie Hutington-Whiteley. I didn't find her hot, really. I don't know if she's had plastic surgery or anything, but she just doesn't look very real and it's off-putting. She dresses in a way no woman dresses unless they're doing a shoot for Maxim. Even after various action scenes involving LOTS OF RUBBLE she still doesn't have a sratch on her and it's really stupid. There's a few hilarious shots of her staring in "awe" (with a blank expression) which Bay surely must have put in because he hates women and wants everyone to see how stupid they are. Her relationship with Sam isn't believable at all. And she is completely and utterly objectified to the most ridiculous degree in cinema history, probably. I mean, if they feel a "hot babe" character is essential to this movie about giant alien robots, fine, but why do characters need to keep drawing attention to her "hotness"? Shouldn't it be self evident? Was anyone amused by the scenes where male characters literally said "PHWOAR, SHE'S AN OBJECT!" while the camera focused on her arse? Anyway, despite all this she's STILL a more convicing human being and better actress than Megan Fox and considering the fact that RHW was an underwear model with no acting experience prior to the movie I'll say she did a "good job", all things consdiered.
(AND I BET SHE GAVE MICHAEL BAY A "GOOD JOB" TOO LOL SHE'S AN OBJECT.)
I need to mention some other things before I get to the spectacular action...
- I don't remember Shia LeBeouf being this awful in the previous movies. There's nothing likable at all about Sam here: he spends the first half of the movie moaning, goes on a really annoying rant about car ownership (which has nothing to do with the plot of course, but I guess Michalel Bay loves cars or something) and there's one part where he crashes his car and goes "WAAAAAAAAAAAH!" like Wario for literally thirty seconds. I have no idea why they thought it would be a good idea to make the main character (and he is the main character, not any of the Transformers who only get a fraction of his screentime) so easy to hate.
- Why is the annoying Sector Seven guy even in the movie? Why does a guy with a plunger walk across the screen when he's being interviewed on tv?
- What is Wash from Firefly's character even supposed to be? He certainly wasn't a leaf on the wind.
- Why is Ken Jeong - who seems like a cool guy and is funny in Community - so willing to completely disgrace himself and the asian race in roles like this?
- I guess John Malkovitch was supposed to be on cocaine? He at least seemed to be having fun and the bit with him and Bumblebee was kind of funny. The character disappears halfway through the movie, of course, so I'm not sure what the point was.
- Sam's fucking parents. At least they didn't get high again.
- Basically what I'm wondering is why do all the human characters have to be so completely and utterly over the top wacky all the time? Would it not be better if the humans were kind of normal and reacted with awe and wonder to the giant alien robots, instead of being all "YO, LET ME TOUCH YOUR ROBOT ASS! I'M A GOOFBALL!"? The characters in the eighties cartoon act more like real humans than these clowns.
So, anyway, the Decepticons plan is to enslave humanity and build a spacebridge that brings Cybertron to Earth (yes this was a plot in the cartoon too. Quit a few plot elements are taken from there.) The Autobots are exiled after Sentinal Prime goes evil, then Starscream shoots them out of the sky and they're all dead apparently. But wait! They were actually hiding all the time just to teach the humans a lesson. So the autobots let possibly thousands of humans die just to teach them a lesson. They're the good guys. This all leads to a big fight in some city. Now, I don't go to the cinema much because I have issues, but I imagine scenes like this are a lot more enjoyable on a massive screen (in 3D?) with the sound so loud that you can't think straight and you have no choice but to "turn your brain off" and enjoy them. BUT THEN AGAIN I do watch a lot of action movies on tv and on my computer monitor and enjoy them, so really there's no reason why I shouldn't enjoy this too. So is it any good? Kind of. It's obviously very impressive technically. There's a bit on a freeway (yes with reused footage from The Island) which is fun. There's some decent fights betweeen the transformers, though again there's still the problem of not really being able to tell which are autobots and which are decepticons. And one is spoiled by a ridiculous one-liner afterwards ("class dismissed!" How does that even make sense? He's not a teacher!) I do like all the parts with Bumblebee running up walls shooting guns. That seems to be his move. Of all the transformers he's about the most likable (possibly because he doesn't have an obnoxious voice.)
The biggest action scene involved a big glass skyscraper being destroyed by a decepticon drill (I think it's Shockwave?) which is certainly an impressive spectacle. I'm sure the physics of it don't make sense and I'm sure Mythbusters explained that you can't just charge into an office window and smash through without killing yourself, but it is a well done action scene and I'm sure was even more enjoyable in the cinema. Even if the whole thing only came about because Michael Bay thought to himself "I bet 9/11 looked AWESOME from INSIDE the towers!"
In a scene obviously written for Megan Fox's character, Carly talks Megatron (who does fuck all for most of the movie) into betraying Sentinal Prime and helping Optimus. It makes no sense as Carly hasn't had any scenes with Megatron before and there's no way she'd be able to understand his character and manipulate him so easily, but "making sense" seems to be viewed a bad thing in this movie. Optimus and Sentinal have a pretty decent fight scene which is ruined a bit by BLOOD spurting from Sentinal when Optimus is chopping him up. He's a robot! Megatron saves Prime's life and proproses a truth. Optimus responds by murdering him. He then murders the (literally) unarmed Sentinal. Oh, and earlier in the movie Prime and the autobots ride out to kill some muslims with a slow moition american flag blowing in the wind. I found it pretty depressing hearing Peter Cullen voice this horrible version of Optimus. He was my childhood hero. It's almost like he's been...raped (not really.)
So I really need to end this review because it's now longer than the actual movie: I didn't like it very much. It was better than Transformers 2. The action scenes were better and the racist transformers were gone (the sexism was much worse!) The plot was a bit better but still stupid. There's barely any likable characters. Many are actively dislikable. There are some cool things (some of which I missed, see below) and the special effects are generally amazing and I do see how it would have been better in the cinema...but still it could have been so much better. I love Transformers and have dreamed of a live action movie since the eighties so I really did WANT these movies to be good. After three of them I should just accept that they're never going to be what I want.
Oh, one other thing, when I was looking at the IMDB board to see the general opinion, I saw this thread. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1399103/board/flat/191509187 I thought it was nice to see people enjoying things about this movie without having to make excuses. It's mostly cool stuff the animators and sound people sneaked in there (I BET BAY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW) and I can't say I actually noticed much of it during the movie, but it's still nice! (And that thread brought to this even better thread http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/trans...s-jokes-references-hard-spot-things-dotm.html)
FINAL THING: I can genuinely say I enjoyed reading this issue of the new ongoing IDW comic more than this movie. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=user_review&id=4361
RIGHT I'M FINISHED NOW.
