Transformers

If you've read a thing I've written in the past four months, or had even a hiccup of a movie-themed conversation with me in that time, chances are you probably know that I was against this movie from the get go. Turns out... I was absolutely right! I don't really care that it made $150+ million in it's first five days, nor do I want to hear that I couldn't possibly understand the phenomenon, having not grown up with the toys. The fact of the matter is I sat in the theater for two and a half hours not for a second being anything less than excruciatingly aware that I was watching an awful movie. I'll make some lists now, for that is a good idea from time to time.


Positives (these are the only things pulling this trash up from a big fat F)

• Shia LaBeouf is becoming a terrific actor. He was great in Holes, and more recently in Disturbia and Surf's Up. Despite his goody two shoes pedigreee of such Disney Channel offerings as Even Stevens and made for TV movies, he is amusing to watch and he seems to really try in his roles, with great success I think. If this movie had had even more of him it would only have improved it, but even as the lead he was cut off too often by other boring one dimensional characters.
• The special effects are incredible. That goes without saying for almost all summer blockbusters, but I'll say it anyway. They only really had one effect to display, and that was (no brainer) the transforming robots. It lost its "wow" factor after the first 67 times, but for some reason two days after seeing the movie I suddenly had a craving to see every vehicle around me transform. Alas, there were no combines or swathers as transformers, perhaps in the dreadfully inevitable sequel.

Negatives

• The movie is based on toys. Need I say more? It seems so. I don't care that the Decepticons and Autobots had their whole little story invented to grace the cardboard packaging of the nonsensical toys, the fact remains that this whole thing is invented to support the idea of a toy that can be, in one position, vehicle, and, in the other, a large robot. The movie is a commercial, nothing more. It's a successful one, for I went out to buy a transformer a few days after because I wanted to see if I could recreate the whirring and shifting gears of the movie's transformation sequences. (I feel as though I'm a junkie and transforming is my crack, er, fix, whatever).
• John Voight. He plays... John Voight. No, scratch that. He plays John Voight in a Michael Bay movie. which brings me to my next bullet point.
• Michael Bay. This is a Michael Bay movie. He knows it too. But he thinks this is a good thing. 'This is a hundred times cooler than Armageddon!' says one extra in the movie as the aliens crash land on earth (before taking their forms as every up and coming car in the GM catalogue). He actually thinks he's earned the right to be self-referential. I think he's spent too many hours in front of a computer whipping up the predictable explosions we are pummeled with start to finish. He isn't a screen legend, he's a hit and miss product of every bad influence Holly wood can have on a filmmaker, and I hesitate to even call him that. This isn't a film, it's a stunt.
• The dialogue is painful from "In the beginning there was the cube" to "I'm not leaving without Bumblebee!" breathily announced by the mercifully gorgeous Megan Fox (five minutes in I was desperate for any small enjoyment, even if it is the horribly objectifying observation of little-miss-easy-on-the-eyes. Hey, the rest of the leads are made of plastic, right? No one gets mad about people eyeballing them) What is an already poorly written script is only made worse by every form of botched accent you can imagine at one point or another.
• Peeing jokes!? I could have gone my whole life without watching a robot pee on someone, or was it the dog, I don't remember. The point is, all the humor that wasn't specifically under the watchful eye of Shia was lame at best.

There were even more little here and there annoying things that added up to one rotten movie, but the point is, I think, made. This is the worst kind of movie. It doesn't just maul our screens nation wide; it is actually and adamantly consumed by a public that ought to demand better, even in their summer entertainment! When we pay a ton of good money to see crap like this we encourage the studios to make more garbage and we dig the grave in which we will soon lay American cinema to rest. I'm as guilty as the next guy; I went and saw it too, at the ridiculous student price of $8.00. That money is no longer burning a hole in my pocket, it's burning a scar into my conscience! We've got an 18 screen cinema about twenty minutes from home, if I'm behind the wheel that is, and with so many screens you'd think we'd have a nice choice of good movies, right? Right. WRONG! They're so busy filling six screens with this summer blockbuster, and three and two more with this one and that one, that before you know if you've got the same selection as the smaller theaters, except you've got more showtimes. I had to drive forty minutes, not to mention in a nice loopy trail through the hellish streets of Portland to get to a theater where they were showing "Once," a charming and excellently made small movie about Irish musicians. I paid $8.50 to park in a garage, not to mention $5.00 for a drink at the concession counter. Add in, of course, the $7.00 price of the ticket itself, and you're looking at $20.50. Why, may you ask, is seeing a truly worthwhile movie a $20.00 venture that eats up half of a day? Ladies and gentlemen, as answer to my own question, I give you Transformers. Michale Bay ought to be ashamed of himself, making a movie this ridiculous (what's next, a Polly Pocket movie?). Producers ought to be ashamed of themselves, backing such a feeble product. It turns out Steven Spielberg can do wrong when it comes to movies. Theater owners ought to be ashamed of themselves, running this drivel when so many superior offerings exist. But most of all, and hate me if you want, we the audiences ought to be ashamed of ourselves, for paying attention to this junk. Yes, if you saw it you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I ought to be ashamed of myself as well... don't worry, I am.

D+