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Directed by: Michael Bay Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox By all rights, this movie should suck. Michael Bay at the helm directing a movie that revolves around intergalactic sentient robots who transform into vehicles. There has never been a more ridiculous premise for a Hollywood movie. It works. It works incredibly well. The movie is funny without being corny. You come to care about the characters, a major failing in movies like these. The main character is a bit of an underdog, but he never does anything stupid, and you grow to like his character. That's not to say that the movie is jam packed with character development, but theres enough to care about the characters and root for them in the finale. The movie takes itself just seriously enough, but not to the point of looking idiotic. The CG. Well, it's pretty much perfect. I didn't see a single thing wrong, everything looked fantastic. The action was intense, the explosions plenty and the pace, overwhelming. It set out to be a perfect action blockbuster. It is the perfect action blockbuster. RATING: 5.5 PROS: CG, the fun, the silly plot, the characters, the CG, the sound effects, the CG. CONS: Some say it's too long, but the pacing was alright to me. It's a real boys movie, I mean, cars turning into robots turning into cars? But thats not really the movies fault. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418279/
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Jun 29, 2007 12:38
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I went into this hoping for a lot, given how much I loved Transformers in my youth, and I was vastly disappointed. The movie we have here is barely coherent, with a shocking story-line, awkward dialogue, and not enough focus on the title characters of the movie. The plot is vastly centralised on the humans. Most of it concerns the way that the humans react to the arrival of the Transformers, and it is completely absurd. There seems to be no trace of realism in their actions. The Transformers themselves act absurdly, get very little dialogue in comparison to the human characters, and well... Just aren't fleshed out. Their origins, motivations, the individual characteristics of each Transformer... None of that is really there. They are cardboard cut-outs. Some of the action is okay. However, this film suffers from shakey-camera syndrome, which is very distracting in some parts of the film. The CGI, I will admit, is very good. Again, there's not enough purely robot-on-robot action. I did not go into this movie to see US troops firing ineffectually at robots. A little bit of that is fine, but again, there seems to be more focus on them than on the Transformers themselves. Rating: 2.0. Not recommended. gently caress Michael Bay. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Jun 30, 2007 |
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Jun 29, 2007 19:58
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This movie managed to live up to every expectation I had of it. The plot stuck true to the original cartoons, and despite having a fairly large running time, It didn't ever feel boring or contrived. There were a few things in the plot that could have been slimmed down, and several of the human characters felt unnecessary, but the movie still managed to avoid falling into the trap of trying to cram too much character development into what is ultimately an action flick. Shia LeBouf is a great lead in the movie, and there's a fair amount of comedy placed in the movie whenever he's on screen, which is actually suprisingly funny. In terms of action, Transformers is definitely something you want to see on the big screen. The CGI was brilliant, and all the Transformers themselves look spectacular, especially during the fight sequences. The transformations look great, and are thankfully accompanied by the age old transforming sound from the cartoons. The highlights for me was any sequence involving Megatron, his animations were great, and actually felt intimidating whenever he was on screen destroying huge amounts of the landscape. The only problem was that during the action sequences the shaky camera effect was employed, which was fine for most bits of the movie, but at times it became hard to tell what was happening as the effect was used slightly too much. The movie is probably one of the best movies out this year, it's just plain fun, and stays very true to the franchise. It's some of the best action you'll see on the big screen. Rating: 5 Pros : The CGI, the comedy, enjoyable plot, Bernie Mac's cameo Cons : Certain characters that were pretty unnecessary, shaky camera effect going incredibly overboard in some scenes.
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Jun 29, 2007 20:25
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Really enjoyable movie, pretty much has everything. The special effects were brilliant, the actual transformations were flawlessly done. The action was fantastic, with plenty of it in the movie. Luckily I found the shaky camera not to be much of a problem for the most part. The performances were good, particularly Shia Leboeuf, bringing some humour into the movie. Overall a very enjoyable action film, Michael Bay's best yet. 4/5 Wandle Cax fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jun 30, 2007 |
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Jun 30, 2007 03:23
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I thought the CG was impressive but that's about it -- there was about 15 to 20 minutes of decent action surrounded by 120 minutes of terrible movie. I was never really into Transformers as a kid so I didn't have any preconceived notions about the film, I just didn't like it. The dialogue between the various human characters was obviously never going to be Oscar-worthy or high art, but it was atrociously bad and had me cringing in my seat, much worse than, say, Spider-Man 3 which had its tongue firmly in its cheek. The scene in which Megan Fox's character cries "Don't you judge me, you've never had to sacrifice anything with your perfect life, Sam!" (I'm paraphrasing here) had quite a few people in the theatre chuckling. That said, it's still Bay's best film since The Rock. 2/5 frumpsnake fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Jun 30, 2007 |
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Jun 30, 2007 16:09
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Great summer action movie. All my friends that went loved it as well. As a fan of the source material and not so much of a Michael Bay fan I was initially worried. I'm relieved now that I've seen it as it far surpassed my excpectations. Most of my friends weren't familiar with the original series and had no connection yet I found they liked it just as much as I did. I don't think I've seen a movie that fun all summer. Maybe in a few summers. Kicked the ever loving poo poo out any other action movie that came out this year. 5/5 Don't miss it.
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Jun 30, 2007 17:38
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I just saw the movie at a pre-screening here at Holloman Air Force Base, one of the filming locations. I'm not usually into action movies and I've never been a fan of Transformers; that said, this is one good movie. The CG imagery is amazing; the fluid motions and attention to detail were astounding. The writing is fairly solid considering the premise of such a movie. As mentioned above, the dialogue isn't Oscar worthy, but it's by no means bad--and there were some rather amusing scenes. 4/5 Razor fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Jun 30, 2007 |
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Jun 30, 2007 21:39
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Just got back from an 8pm showing; it was awesome. And it was also unexpectedly hilarious, but in all the right ways. Seriously this movie is fun, funny, action packed, and loving awesome. To top it off I saw it about an hour after Live free, die hard so I was already pumped for some city destroying goodness. Easy 4.5/5 See it.
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Jul 3, 2007 04:05
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Wow, what a ride. I know this is a PG-13 movie about a bunch of kids toys, but there is more action per minute than any of the Terminator flicks combined. You don't get to see humans dying (I think there was one gruesome death, but no blood) but if you read between the lines you can sure imagine buckets of gore painted all over the debris. The action is very well done and there is a lot of debris. A lot of explosions, bullets, grenades, rockets, more explosions, robots getting ripped apart, stabbed in the face, blown up, buildings getting destroyed, people screaming, running, screaming and running, running from explosions etc. etc. etc. I didn't know anything about Transformers before I went so I can't really say whether or not it "raped" my childhood or just molested it a bit before bed, or whether it indeed enhanced it, but I can safely say I care more about Optimus Prime and his deep sexy voice (not gay) than I did yesterday. Given that I didn't know squat I always wondered why these freaky alien robots could transform into strictly human inventions but all that was explained. The movie was surprisingly funny. I found myself laughing out loud far more than I did for any of those lovely and boring Spiderman movies. In fact a few lines there were worthy of any comedy blockbuster you know and love. Bernie Mac was hilarious as was that one fat black guy who always plays the comedy foil in these kind of things. The mother was good too. poo poo, just about everyone had a few fun lines, except the girl who made up for it by prancing around in a very short mini skirt for a good 10 minutes. Yummy. Addressing what Neurosis, said, yeah the personalities of the Transformers aren't really explored too much and you definitely experience them through the eyes of the humans. I guess if that bothers you, you can always read a comic or something. Bumblebee and Optimus were about the only characters that were even marginally fleshed out, and since Bumblebee couldn't even talk you came to know him through the things he did rather than the things he said, but it was pretty effective and you did end up sympathizing with him. The decepticons were pretty much a faceless menace in the way that the Xenomorphs were in Aliens, which worked IMO. Still, a more in depth sequel would be fun... So yeah. Recommended. Pros: Lots of action, engaging characters, funny. Cons: The big man, Optimus Prime didn't seem to get enough action and the big final climactic scene was a bit of a fizzler and over quickly. 4.5/5
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Jul 3, 2007 04:09
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Ok, the action was good, when you could actually tell what was going on. The jokes hurt me. There was not a single character, all characterizations. Sub plots ala Pearl Harbor. I've never before seen a movie I can say I was so entertained by, yes actually disliked. Must be the explosions. 2.5/5
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Jul 3, 2007 04:16
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I'm not a huge Transformers fan so I don't particularly care whether they followed the metaverse to a "T" in the movie. THe action scenes were great, a lot of the comedy worked, and the acting was good enough for a Michael Bay movie. There were a lot of "huh???" moments and a few scenes dragged on far longer than they had any reason to, but overall I really enjoyed the movie. If you are a huge Transformers fanboy/hate Michael Bay you'll hate this movie, but I don't care about either particularly so I could enjoy it without a preconcieved bias. 4/5
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Jul 3, 2007 05:24
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I watched the Transformers growing up and enjoyed the show a good bit. I had a few toys and generally remember the show fondly. I'm a bit older now and while I still consider myself a fan, I only have the original movie on DVD and maybe a sticker in terms of merchandise. You can read this as me not being a diehard fan, avoiding consumerism or whatever; I enjoy Transformers but after being hit over the head with 80's nostalgia, I was not expecting a whole lot out of this movie. The bottom line: I really enjoyed it. I will be frank, the movie had a few problems. There was one scene revolving around sneaking that could have been removed entirely and the movie would not have lost anything. There were also a few extraneous characters that the same could have been said for, but the overall thrust of the movie was well done. The main character felt like someone ripped out of a bad Fox sitcom but he warmed up to role through the course of the film. Most of the other human characters seemed comfortable enough in their roles to move everything along nicely. The transformers themselves could have used more individual characterization to bring out their personalities and motives more clearly but there was solid explanation of their goal as a group. It is obvious here that the filmmakers were relying on, at least somewhat, the viewers having previous knowledge of the material. With that said, I did get flashbacks of Jar Jar Binks thanks to one Decepticon although he was not in very many scenes. Speaking of that, there are many, many nods to the original cartoon and they fit in the movie well. There were even a few lines pulled straight from the original animated movie and they matched the scenes great. The CG was PERFECT. Computer graphics have always been great at representing mechanical objects so it should be no surprise that everything looked fantastic. The animation was smooth and all the characters had an appropriate sense of mass. The transformations were as realistic looking as one could hope for and nothing seemed to be out of place in that regard. One thing I totally did not expect what that the movie, particularly the second quarter, would be HILARIOUS. There are grade-A comedy movie moments in there that made me double over in laughter. There are a few inside-joke moments that will make Transformers fans bust a gut while still providing enough material for newcomers to chuckle at. If this movie had been horrible, it wouldn't have raped my childhood, I could have just put it out of memory as another bad movie and walked away. I enjoyed it for what it was, a solid action movie with familiar character and great special effects. I feel they struck a good balance between fan service and accessibility and crafted an overall entertaining movie. 4/5 One little note, two of the main characters in this movie are two of the main characters in "Holes" which makes for an entertaining juxtaposition.
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Jul 3, 2007 05:58
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I thought it was fantastic. I never felt bored or disconnected from the film at all. During the opening voiceover, Peter Cullen's voice as Optimus Prime gave me chills. I actually teared up a bit the first time Optimus rolled up on screen and transformed. Transformers were a huge, huge part of my childhood and it thrilled me to death to see them given such a great treatment on screen. Did anyone else notice that they changed Brawl's name to Devastator in the movie? Must have been a last minute change because the toys still call him Brawl.
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Jul 3, 2007 08:02
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When this movie began, I fell in love with it. Beforehand I was sort of skeptical and apathetic towards it, but in the first ten minutes when The Decepticon helicopter attacks the military base, I suddenly realized I was watching a movie where giant, transforming robots fight, and I had an erection. And then begins wacky comedy. Don't get me wrong, the next thirty minutes are really quite funny, but then it just goes on and on and suddenly you're rejoicing when the movie shifts it focus back on the robots, but that joy is quickly replaced by groaning as the wacky characters get more and more wacky--hell, even the Autobots were pretty slapstick and quirky. And then we get wacky FBI agent. And wacky fat black hacker. And wacky Soundwave shows back up. I was half-expecting Megatron to slip on a banana peel at some point with so much zany crammed into this movie! They could've cut thirty minutes of boring, people-centered plot (like basically the entire subplot with the analyst blonde girl and fat black hacker) and it might've tightened it up a bit and removed most of the groan-worthiness. To his credit, however, even after being assaulted by zany jokes until I wanted to vomit, Shia LaBeouf managed to stay funny and stay interesting. Don't get me wrong, the fight scenes are pretty sweet..that is, when the camera's not two feet from Optimus Prime so you just kind of see a metal foot and maybe a metal arm. Some stuff is really amazing however, if not a little too brief. The robots don't get nearly enough action time though. And, since they were blatantly obvious and a little stupid, PLOTHOLES! After Bumblebee beats the cop car bot, we see it laying there, presumably weakened since it still moves a bit. Later, it answers the call to the All-Spark along with all the other Decepticons, but we never see it again. The Decepticons send out a virus that wipes out all communications in the world except for short-wave radio, but immediately afterwards we see helicpters flying around, the FBI driving to pick up the special ops soldiers, etc. Apparently not being able to use phones, internet, or anything else whatsoever doesn't really impede them too much. "Run, Shia LaBeouf! Run! You can make it!!" This is what the robot who can TRANSFORM INTO A CAR tells him. At one point Shia LaBeouf accidentally smacks the All-Spark into a car and a vending machine, both of which turn into Decepticons and immediately begin attacking people. They are never shown or referenced again. 3/5
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Jul 3, 2007 08:31
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I never watched the old Transformers cartoon, and my only motivation for watching this was that all my friends were going and I was bored. I guess that's probably why I didn't like it at all. About the only thing this movie had going for it, aside from the nostalgia factor, were visual effects, which were all top-notch. The movie looks good, in spite of the fact that Michael Bay just can't stop using shaky cam for every single action sequence. But everything else is just terrible by movie standards. The characters are poorly written at best, completely unnecessary and obnoxious at worst. You've got your nerdy teenage male, your super-hot spunky love interest with a dark past, your tough battle-hardened soldier who just wants to get home to his family, your loudmouthed sassy black guy and his equally sassy grandmother (actually, there were two sets of those). Not a single one of the characters, human or robot, has a shred of depth about them, and their range consists entirely of their standard archetypical emotion and 'fear'. The voice acting, while decent, essentially has almost every single one of the transformers sounding exactly the same, only with slight variations of intonation so you can generally tell whether it's an evil or a good robot talking. Then there's the plot. It's about as deep as one would expect from a cartoon written in the 80s for children. There's this thing, the bad guys want it, the good guys also want it, who ever gets it first wins. There's these aliens, and a boy who befriends them while trying to keep them a secret from his parents. There's the American military, encountering something Far More Powerful Than Anything We've Ever Encountered. Now given that this is a popcorn flick, I normally wouldn't scrutinize the plot for its lack of originality, but you have to understand that more than three-quarters of the film is just basically plot development and exposition. Heck, you go for an hour before you even catch a glimpse of Optimus Prime. If they're going to focus so much energy on the plot, I don't think it's so unreasonable to expect something fresh or at least something presented freshly. The writing itself can get almost absurdly tacky, from the necessary inclusion of catchphrases ("You're more than meets the eye!") to the bizarre exclusion of curse words to keep the rating down ("You a-holes are in for it now!" and "This is friggin' ridiculous!", not to mention several "Motherfff--!") But really, this film isn't for me. It's for fans of the series, which I will openly admit to never having been one. If you're a fan, as long as you're not hardcore about your fandom, you'll probably enjoy yourself. Do the rest of us a favour, however, and don't drag anyone who isn't a fan. Also, the way they handled subtitles really ticked me off. Just sayin'. 4/5 if you're a fan, 2/5 if you're not. I voted 2.
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Jul 3, 2007 08:52
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I'm not quite sure what people were expecting when they saw this movie. I mean sure, if you're going for a deep plot, a great script, and innovative directing, you might be disappointed. But it's not like you didn't know that this was a movie about cars that turned into robots. This movie was a very very faithful translation of the cartoon, even keeping some lines of dialogue. The effects are top notch. When Optimus destroys Bonecrusher was probably one of the best action scenes I've ever seen. The main character was perfect, and although there were a lot of zany characters, that's what was great. This movie never took itself too seriously, it always knew just how farfetched the concept was, and it left that on the table for the viewer to know too. From the looks of it, this is a movie you either really like or really don't like, but I went in expecting a fun summer blockbuster, and came out satisfied tenfold. Rating: 5/5
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Jul 3, 2007 11:07
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The Longest most action packed GM ad and Recruitment tool I have ever seen. I give it 3 stars because the action was fan-loving tastic. I hated every actor, and I wish the Autobots were as bad loving rear end as the decepticons. I mean, the good guys get a loving pontiac Solstice and the bad guys get a tank, an F-22, and some X-Wing thing? One of the badguys names is Bonecrusher Bonecrusher and Bumblebee...
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Jul 3, 2007 11:29
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As a Transformer fan as a kid, I felt the movie did justice to the line. It wasn't perfect, but I felt the positives heavily outweighed the negatives. The CG was great. I sat a little too close for my taste (coming late whoops), so some of the high action scenes were hard to follow. There were a ton of nods towards the fans, which was great. I went in expecting big rear end robots fighting, and there was a good amount (never enough really). For the negatives. The dialogue and acting was a little weak, to no one's surprise. Some of the comedy felt a little out of place, Bumblee "lubricating" for example. GM cars are blah, so the Decepticons turned out to be much cooler than the Autobots. But I wouldn't go so far as to say my childhood was raped by it. Lots of product placement going on, but that was expected, so I can't fault it much there. Linkin Park as the closing song had me a little sad. I want some epic Michael Bay guitar riffs while spiraling away from characters looking off into a cliff at sunset godammit! The theater I was at really enjoyed it. People were flipping out when Bumblebee and Barricade transformed on the run going into a high speed car chase. Cheering when Bumblebee turned into the new Camero. People cheered for Optimus when he had his "money shot" as a semi on top of a on a moon-light hill. 5/5, severely biased as a fan of the series. Afterwards one of my friends (who dreamed about the movie the night before it came out) gave it a hearty A+.
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Jul 3, 2007 14:25
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I don't know about you guys, but i couldn't find anything wrong with it. yeah the acting wasn't as great as A list movie stars could have made it, but they acted well enough that it was fun and interesting the whole time. Some of you said the humor was out of place, I thought it flowed perfectly. Some scenes were pretty ridiculous and they were short lived so you completely forget about it while Optimus Prime rapes some robots. The CG is the best i have ever seen. This is i point i brought up with my bro though, the CG almost makes the movie. I had to ask myself if it would be the same movie at all if it were crappy "Jimmy Nuetron" animation instead of rear end kicking "new in yo face transformer" animation. I don't think it would. Honestly its what got me into the movie, when i saw the trailer with the scorpio dude jumping out of the sand presumably about to rape some army guy. The main girl was hot, thats all i care about. Although she was inconsistant as a character. One moment she's a ditsy highschool girl, the next she's totally different. I wasn't a fan of transformers but i knew what they were. I came into the theater expecting some ok childhood dream-come-big-screen summer bust, and was totally surprised. another negative, they had a contest for a catchphrase to put in the movie, and "Do a barrel roll" won. They put in "Autobots roll out" instead. This hurt me deep inside because i was a HUGE fan of star fox as a kid, and there were plenty of chances to sneak that line in. Pros: almost everything, hot actress, giant robots, explosions. Cons: a few plotholes, and almost too much humor and not enough rear end kicking. I could go see this movie again, and i saw it 7 hours ago. This movie will be perfect for you if you are a normal guy or just like lots of explosions. It probably wont if you have a shrine to Optimus Prime in your closet. normal: 5/5 super transformer guy:2/5
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Jul 3, 2007 19:40
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This movie was loving awesome, and it's easily one of the most entertaining movies I have seen this year, along Hot Fuzz and Grindhouse. This was seriously about as good as I think you could have made a feature length Transformers live-action movie. The pace of the action kept you from really developing a whole lot of character points on the transformers, but who loving cares because I got to see Optimus loving shove an energy sword into a decepticon's head loving decapitating him. The little kids weren't even that annoying. Chas played his part well, and the girl was hot. The other side characters were a bit ridiculous, but so are giant transforming alien robots. It was fun, entertaining, and I'd definitely watch it again. Unfortunately I accidentally clicked this a 2/5, I really meant a 4/5. The negative point is for one reason only - [spoiler]that bullshit after the movie was over with the interview of the mother. That was such a horse poo poo political stab that I wanted to loving kill Michael Bay right then and there.[/spoiler\ But seriously, Bay didn't gently caress this one up. It's weird, but I loved it. Korwen fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jul 3, 2007 |
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Jul 3, 2007 20:35
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This is exactly what I thought it was going to be; a godawful Michael Bay movie with a horrible script, cringe-inducing dialogue, way too much zany "humor", way too much focus on the humans, and more plot holes than you can count. As a movie, it was one of the worst I've ever seen in my life. However, it had a lot of giant robots fighting and two smoking hot chicks. I recommend this movie based strictly on how much you like to see giant robots fighting. If you really really like giant robots fighting, go see this. If you don't really care about giant robots fighting all that much, don't bother. I will add to list of nonsensical bullshit here: How did Blackout fly from Iraq to America? Does he have unlimited fuel? He certainly didn't sneak on board a carrier. Why did Scorponok decide to fight above ground? That makes no sense at all. When Blackout got to the city fight, he landed on top of a building, but then we didn't see him actually participate in the fight until like 5 or 10 full minutes later. What the gently caress was he doing? How exactly does a cell phone (or a soda machine for that matter), when imbued with sentience, somehow manage to alter reality and physics to make their host bodies into transformable parts? How do they have weapons? Where does the ammo come from? And most importantly, why are they all apparently aggresive and evil? If that's what always happens, where did the good guy Autobots come from? What the gently caress was Megatron doing the entire time it took this kid to climb like 30 flights of stairs? Frenzy was apparently a ninja or something but then ended up killing himself with his own boomerang shuriken thing. Whatever. When Bumblebee transferred from the old Camaro to the new Camaro, where did the driver of the new car go? Why was Ratchet introduced as the guy who fixes things and yet he NEVER FIXES ANYTHING even though the Autobots get hurt repeatedly? And that's just off the top of my head. Seriously this script is one of the worst ever. I voted 3/5 only because the "giant robots fighting" factor weighed heavily since that's the reason I went to see it in the first place, and because they got the original Prime voice, which somehow made his atrocious dialogue more tolerable.
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Jul 3, 2007 21:32
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Fun, but with some really cringe-worthy dialog and a few places where it dragged. Better than I expected. 3/5
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Jul 3, 2007 23:53
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The action sequences were some of the best I've ever seen... the shots were just spectacular. The CGI obviously helped that out a lot, but that's no cop out for being able to craft such awesome pieces of cinema. The plot development was excellent considering it's something we rarely see in movies themed around toys or childhood memories. The CG was absolutely incredible as well, I don't think I've ever seen such beautiful digital art work. The whole time during this, I kept thinking to myself "how long did it take these guys to do this?". It was computer animation at it's best. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It had all the elements of a good movie and even went above and beyond my expectations for an action movie. Easily one of the best movies of the year. 5.5/5
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Jul 4, 2007 02:21
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I went in not expecting too much, and I ended up being rather impressed. There were a few scenes that were awkward including the Bumblebee "lubricating" scene, and the whole masturbation dialog made me cringe. The ending part with Optimus holding pieces of Jazz and saying "Awww, Jazz!" was really weird sounding. Of course I've never really heard Peter Cullen vocally express emotions very well, so he pretty much just sounds like a badass most of the time. The action more than made up for it, but I had a hard time keeping up with what was going on in some scenes due to the quick cuts. And I've pretty much determined that I can count on Michael Bay to deliver hot chicks and explosions. 4/5 for me, just a casual G1 fan.
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Jul 4, 2007 02:30
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In terms of summer fun, this movie is tough to beat. In terms of film, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel.
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Jul 4, 2007 03:52
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I enjoyed the movie. Probably because it was one of the best movies to give commentary to in a long time. The action was great and the comedy was so over the top cheesy that I had to laugh. Example: Not a major spoiler: [spoiler]When Optimus tells the kids they learned English from the World Wide Web, all I could think of was "I want cheeseburgers and oil" and "They be stealin my cube". I wanted to go home and create https://www.loltransformers.com it was that funny.[/sploiler] Overall I thought the movie was true to the cartoon. However I did not think they made the actual Transformers true to the cartoon. They actually looked nothing like their cartoon counter parts. Not even close. More like large creatures with huge gangly teeth. The story line was alright, but the kids last name should have been changed to something less lame than Winiki. Maybe Smith would have been fine. I understand suspension of disbelief, but I don't know too many Camero Concept cars rolling around the streets of LA either. With all of these downsides I thought the movie was fun and the action was good. It made me remember my childhood and the movie was very much like the cartoon in the comedy sense. There were a lot of things that never got brought up or closed and it made for a lot of "what about this... or what happened to this..." moments. All and all I enjoyed it. 3/5
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Jul 4, 2007 05:36
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Absolutely fuckin' fantastic. Amazing action, hilarious though not-too-corny comedy, just enough character development to not be left out of the plot. CONS: Not enough Starcream. 5.5/5
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Jul 4, 2007 06:02
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I'm kind of with Roger Ebert in his review, and the opposite of a number of people I've seen around here. I loved the set-up for the movie, and didn't really like the payoff. The movie is chock full of cliches, and so seems to be determined to have fun with them. So while I wasn't particularly interested in the military portion of the beginning, I loved that the movie played up the corniness and B-movie cliches at the start. How else can you do this material? I was laughing and having a good brainless time with it. And then came the big battle at the end, and it gets really old after a while. It's predictable that the movie's big weakness is Michael Bay. He's actually better here than I'd give him credit for, which is to say that he is bearable. But his tendency to zoom in on action so that you can't tell what's going on and then cut about a million times is reduced a bit but still intact. And this is why the battle sequence at the end was so terrible to me. There's some great animation of the robots and all that, and you can't loving see it. Also the fact that it just doesn't seem to end makes it very irritating. Plus it's just hard to get involved in a battle when you can't tell which robot is being smashed into what building. Still, I just can't find it in me to dislike a movie this earnest. "Campy" is not a word that you can use to describe many movies these days and it was kind of a breath of fresh air that this one completely owned its stock characters and its idiotic premise. 3.5/5
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Jul 4, 2007 13:32
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I came into this movie expecting to see Transformers beat the poo poo out of each other. I got that plus a bunch of Michael Bay cheesy dialog, love stories, plot holes, and extremely awkward humor and dialog. If you are a Transformers fan, or even know who the Transformers were before this movie came out, you should love this movie. I feel that the Transformers were done perfectly, almost so perfectly that if they made a 30 minite short using just the scenes with the Transformers it would still be awesome. After this movie was over I ask my friend "what would this movie be like with no human actors?". There are about 10 characters that this movie could do without. It could have also done without all the Army praising and "being a good man" bullshit, but that's Bay's style I guess. I'm going with 3.5/5 only because some of the dialog actually made me cringe and wish the Autobots were on the screen. The CG was incredible 5/5, only complaint is that some of the fight scenes are so quick, you can't see hardly anything. God drat camera shaking!
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Jul 4, 2007 17:14
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Sweet JESUS I hate Michael Bay. This movie makes every egregious Michael Bay style filmmaking decision that I hate. The best way for me to think about this movie is as five different bad movies and one pretty good movie all jumbled together into one huge mess. My list of things I hate about this movie include (but is not limited to): - Every shot of a human is CLOSE UP. All the time. - You can't follow any of the action because the camera keeps shaking, which is something I hate about most action movies made these days. - The movie was probably 85% humans and 15% transformers - I didn't care about ANY of the human characters. They were all unlikable. - The main human protoganist in particular was annoying as hell - The dialogue was awful - The pacing was awful - None of the decisions on the part of the human characters made any sense - Very few of the decisions on the part of the Transformers made any sense - It had exactly the same terrible soundtrack as Armageddon - The movie is two and a half hours long. It could've easily been cut down to 90 minutes. - Any part of the plot, and this is most of it, that didn't actually involve the Transformers doing anything, like any of the romantic subplots, the government subplots, the main character interacting with his parents, and all of that, was painfully bad and boring - I hate this movie - My favorite scene in this whole movie was the US military versus whichever Decipticon was the helicopter. This was bad because it was also the first scene in the movie. Here's one thing I liked about this movie: - Cool cars and trucks turning into bad-rear end robots is awesome This movie, if handled properly, could've been really awesome. I could just see the potential of making a movie centered around a premise as silly as cars that turn into robots, and that if it took itself just seriously enough with just a little tongue and cheek, it could've been great. Michael Bay obviously tried to do that, but failed completely and miserably. All of the tongue and cheek was just lame jokes that already made us cringe in Armageddon. All the seriousness was centered around a mind-numbingly retarded plot. All in all this is a garbage pile with a runaway special effects budget. gently caress that poo poo. 1.5 / 5
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Jul 4, 2007 18:37
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Jesus Christ, this movie was loving terrible. Now, I was never really a fan of Transformers, so I can't chalk this up to childhood rape, I can only blame the fact that everything about this movie was absolutely atrocious for hating it so much. Now, where do I begin? The beginning was promising enough--helicopter Decepticon lands in a military base and fucks poo poo up. That scene is about 5 minutes, and it's all downhill after those five minutes. One of many problems with this film is that the vast majority of the film focuses not on the robots killing each other, but the boring human characters interacting with each other in retarded romance plots, trying lame attempts at comic relief (although there's next to no tension that needs any relief), and sitting in front of computers yelling "RRRRGH WHERE IS THE SIGNAL COMING FROM." The robots get barely any screentime (the single robot with the most screentime is a tiny little spider robot approximately the size of a cat that has robotic orgasms when downloading government files), and, sadly, most of their scenes involve them standing around instead of fighting each other and blowing poo poo up. There's about a half-hour of action in this two and a half hour movie. Yes, you heard right--this summer action blockbuster has barely any action in it. To top it all off, the half-hour of action isn't even anything mindblowing--it's shakycammed to such a degree that you can't see what the gently caress is going on for the most part--combine that with the fact that the only two robots that are distinguishable from scribbled lines on a piece of paper are Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, and all you get is an incredibly unentertaining mess. Now, for the robots--I've already mentioned that they get barely any screentime, and as a logical extension of not being in the movie all that much, they barely have any lines. Most of the Decepticons have only one line, with the single exception of Megatron, who has like 3 or 4. The same goes for the Autobots--Optimus Prime has a few lines, but the rest have no more than one or two. Now, let me conclude this with a disclaimer--I am not a snobby moviegoer. In fact, my favorite movies are mindless action movies that are short on plot and big on over-the-top gunfights, explosions, and corny-rear end comedy. That is exactly what this movie should have been, and that's what I was expecting when I went to see it. Instead, we got a cinematic piece of poo poo excuse for a summer blockbuster in which the longest scene in the movie (or at the very least what sure as poo poo felt like the longest goddamn scene in the movie) is a painfully unfunny scene where Shia LeBouf is trying to hide the giant robots from his parents in his backyard while they stomp around and step on birdbaths saying "Oops! My bad!" (One of the robots, I believe Optimus Prime, actually says this). Seriously, I think that if you added the length of all action scenes together, it still wouldn't be as long as this scene. In short, gently caress this movie. gently caress it right it it's boring robotic rear end in a top hat. Rating: 1/5
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Jul 4, 2007 19:57
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Absolutely awesome movie. There's enough references to the old cartoon and movie to keep the die-hard fans happy (ONE SHALL STAND, ONE SHALL FALL), while still being enough explanation to cater to people who have no idea what Transformers is other than "robots that turn into cars and blow eachother up". The action is over-the-top and looks incredible, the robots are often hilarious (Ratchet is my personal favorite character in the whole movie), and Megan Fox is ridiculously gorgeous. Go see this movie. If you like seeing towering robots wreck stuff and blow eachother up, you will not be disappointed. 5/5
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Jul 4, 2007 19:58
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The movie felt a lot like Independence Day (1996) in terms of style. They're both alien invasion stories that feature great CGI action. Like ID4, the first half of the movie is the best: we have an exciting setup with Pentagon top brass fretting about all the mysterious attacks that are happening all over the place (it's almost formulaic, but it works). But in the second half of the film these US military elite are somehow reduced to chauffering around the movie's protagonists, giving them a tour of their secret alien-tech research base and pretty much just handing them the tools to save the Earth, all thanks to some pretty flimsy contrivances. Just like how in ID4, the US military justs hands over their one alien ship and bets everything on some cable guy and the first pilot to volunteer). The characters themselves, aside from the two central characters, are also rather two-dimensional. The blonde analyst and that black hacker in the end are so superfluous they should have been cut out of the final draft of the script (the black characters in this film are all rather outlandish; the black used-car salesman scene got a lot of laughs out of the audience). But my biggest peeve was the fact the gave Optimus Prime lips. Aside from the facts that they look stupid and are a break from the cartoons, he doesn't even make any expressions with them.
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Jul 4, 2007 20:02
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This movie is a bloated mess. Too many characters, only two of which have a properly developed plot; awful structure, it felt more like watching a compressed TV series than a well-crafted drama; poorly paced action scenes, Michael Bay doesn't give the action any dramatic tension whatsoever, he simply turns the fireworks up to ten for long bursts; under developed villians. The only two things I can really praise about this movie is the animation, which is excellent, and the fact that in a few scenes it really does caputre that oldschool transformers vibe, in particular, the scene where all the autobots introduce themselves. 2/5 EDIT: Probably the most annoying thing about this movie is that there is never a quiet moment. Now, I don't mean that there is too much action, there are long stretches where there isn't enough. I mean there LITERALLY isn't a quiet moment. This movie never shuts up, there is always a Bernie Mac or a SoundWave jabbering on about nothing, it's relentless and highly irritating. Amethyst fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Jul 5, 2007 |
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Jul 5, 2007 03:18
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thesurlyspringKAA posted:The Longest most action packed GM ad and Recruitment tool I have ever seen. I've always wondered about that. Even in the cartoon, the Autobots were all civilian cars whilst the Decepticons got all the military hardware. I suppose this is necessary, since you cannot go driving around a city as a tank without drawing attention.
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Jul 5, 2007 03:20
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Christ was I disappointed by this film. I'm admittedly a fan, but didn't really care whether or not it was different from the original stuff, just that it was good and they threw in a couple references. The part where the main character is looking for the glasses in his house was completely and utterly boring and unnecessary. It was taking forever, and the autobots weren't doing a damned thing the entire time. The parents, Soundwave Lite(TM), and all the rest of the awful comedic relief just got so damned tiresome. The action would have been far better if it wasn't the lovely shaky camera effect 90% of the time. I really liked the fight at the beginning and the part where Starscream ripped up the fighter jets, but the hand to hand stuff was just awful. A disappointment. I wish I would have just watched the old animated film or Die Hard IV again. Amethyst posted:Probably the most annoying thing about this movie is that there is never a quiet moment. Now, I don't mean that there is too much action, there are long stretches where there isn't enough. I mean there LITERALLY isn't a quiet moment. This movie never shuts up, there is always a Bernie Mac or a SoundWave jabbering on about nothing, it's relentless and highly irritating. Oh god, and this too. 2/5
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Jul 5, 2007 06:15
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Baron Bifford posted:I've always wondered about that. Even in the cartoon, the Autobots were all civilian cars whilst the Decepticons got all the military hardware. I suppose this is necessary, since you cannot go driving around a city as a tank without drawing attention. In the original cartoon, the Autobots are descended from a product line of consumer robots, while the decepticons are descended for a line of military hardware.
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Jul 5, 2007 06:44
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By and far the longest Chevrolet/GMC ad ever produced. I swear that they put Chevy logos onto Ford taxi cabs. Everything about this movie is needlessly distracting with things like that and the strategically-placed cute kids/dogs, the terrible movie computer interfaces and technobabble, and the obviously twenty-somethings playing high-school kids. If anything, the only purpose of the slick-looking CGI robots is to distract the viewer from just how bad this movie is. It's full of abrasive stereotypes of characters that speak almost entirely in the language of catchphrases that is native only to the Land of Michael Bay. Everything about this movie is just irritating. 1.5/5 and only for the CGI and the opening fight scene.
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Jul 5, 2007 09:41
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Wow, seems like reviews are mixed. I personally loved it. It was amazingly badass. Much better than I expected. The effects were amazing, and Shia was great. The only problem I had with the movie was that the lead actress was absolutely terrible, and the romantic subplot was annoying (aren't they always?) Other than that, perfect. And Hugo Weaving does the voice of Megatron! Can't get any better than that. 5/5
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Jul 5, 2007 12:23
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 06:19 |
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I was giddy as a school boy watching this movie. I went into this movie expecting terrible dialogue, cheezy B movie acting, giant robots fighting each other, huge explosions, childhood nostalgia and sweet action/CGI segments. The movie delivered on all accounts. Christ if you went into this movie expecting anything more you are watching the wrong movie. Go see A Mighty Heart or something. The movie totally delivered. 5/5
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Jul 5, 2007 13:57
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