Archive for July 4th, 2007
Review: Transformers
I caught Transformers this afternoon with Don, and I have some bad news. It wasn’t that great. I might have been too hyped up for this movie since I was a super fan, growing up collecting the toys and watching the cartoons, but it just didn’t give me all that I wanted. Even though director Michael Bay strayed from some of the character’s well known forms (Bumblebee was a Camaro, not a VW Bug; Megatron was a plane, not a gun, etc.), he does explain why he chose what he chose in pages two and three of this Wired article.
There was still the battle over the Energon Cubes (but in the movie only one massive “cube”), and there was Starscream (great transforming to flying animation), but the action was portrayed so close that you couldn’t tell who was the good or bad guy. Also lacking were some of the characters discernible high pitched voices – they all kind of had Optimus’ low commanding voice. The one thing that I really think was lacking was the feeling that there was an army of Autobots versus an army of Decepticons. Instead it was a friendly game of about five on five. I would’ve liked to see a lot more of the old characters. The other reviews are right, at times it felt like a big GM commercial, complete with the GMC logo being part of the transformation.
Well, I can’t say don’t see it, especially if you were a huge fan like me, but after seeing the live action Transformers movie, I wish that they had just made it a cartoon and stayed true to the original.
