Friday, June 15, 2007

First Review for the new Transformers movie

Transformers the Movie will not be out here in Asia not for another few weeks, although I read somewhere that it will be shown here in Malaysia one week before the scheduled 1st of July because the rampant piracy. I don't see how though, as showing it earlier would mean that the pirated DVDs will hit the streets of Istambul one week earlier too.

Last night however, I did go to see Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer, and my review is short and sweet.... IT SUCKED... it sucked balls..... crap .... and crap. Its only a little bit better than the first movie, which isn't saying much seeing as that sucked so bad that anything else was going to be a step up.

After months of speculation, someone has actually seen it. This is what Dome22 (taken from http://www.aintitcool.com/) had to say about The Transformers. I shall reserve my comments until after I've seen the movie myself. But it is looking good.... read on..

Before going into specific details about positives I shall address the negatives which are escorted here in inverted commas for the sheer fact that it never once hindered this experience for me. Now, some will claim that the first two are pretty big negatives but when you have giant robots dancing around said negatives, I raise my shoulders, close my eyes, turn my head slightly right and exclaim, meh”;

1. First up, and this includes a detailed plot summary; I had NO IDEA what the hay was going on here. Ever. The whole movie. I looked around to my mates who had the exact same look on their faces I don't know what is going on but I am loving it so much the sides of my mouth will soon bleed from the smiling! I think it had something to do with a cube that may or may not be a bad influence on the XBOX 360 community.

2. Second negative was one of things that adversely affected the latter two of the threquel efforts this year over-crowding. There is pretty much only two human leads in this movie but dozens of supporting players to drop bits of exposition in between the stomping and driving and giant smack downs. These characters are usually quirky, funny or unusual (Jon Voight’s secretary of Defence gives Harrison Ford's Mr. President a run for his money in the “useful” department) in any number of ways and most get their moment in the sun. This may be the first movie that Bernie Mac didn't annoy me but this may also be the first movie he only had eight lines. There are way too many more to mention individually. John Turturro –
Criminal girls are HOT!” Thank you, God

3. One CG shot. Yep, I'm scraping the barrel. This CG man may have been pretty bad but once he gets flicked off screen I laughed and forgot my troubles with a big cup of warm smash-em-ups!

4. The small gremlin-bot. Stupid and pointless. My only true gripe about the whole movie.

Specific positives;
1. Michael Bay. I'm sure all the plot information was actually featured and repeat viewings would render my number one complaint redundant (except for Sector 7, the most powerful arm of the government that has no power) but this film moves with such g-force gusto, I couldn't care less. This is the most fun I've had in a cinema without Paul Ruebens (I like to stay up to date)

2. The action. There are so many individual action set pieces I can't and won't tell you. EVERY SINGLE ONE of them is a winner, even the annoying gremlin-bot. The first time Barricade transforms on-screen brought the house down. This was early on and we were treated to many, many more structure descending moments.

3. The Decepticons.
These guys are just too school for cool! I was induced to several joygasms, specifically the first time they assemble as a team appearing on screen in radio communiqué announcing they are on the way with something like Bonecrusher, en route!” (in alien transcribed-to-English subtitle). This was a toy commercial brought to lovely life. I love that at the end of this sequence they all announce All hail Megatron!”

4. The end city based action sequences. Easily the best thing to appear on screen since three T-Rexs went primal a few years back.

5. The score. Steve Jablonsky delivered a thumping great score and is possibly the sole reason gremlin-bot is tolerable.

6. CG. Flawless in every respect (except for point 3 in the negatives). Michael has come a long way since the blurred pixels of Armageddon. I think the biggest compliment I can pay ILM for this is that not once during the movie did I stop and think “Wow, great CG!” It worked perfectly in hand with the story and action like it should. Very impressed!

7. Meagan Fox. Too sexy to continue typing with one hand.

8. Shia Le Beof. Great in the lead. Very funny, dramatically convincing and
charismatic. He worked well to hold his own against his metallic co-stars. I
don't want to over-sell this and come off all leafy but this, for me is an instant classic of mega-proportions (I just over-sold it, didn’t I?)! I just won't believe that any true Transformers fan could sit through this and not be anything but blown anyway. This IS a Transformers movie!

Exciting times ahead indeed....

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Ill be honest... i skimmed through this entry... for fear that you might spoil something for me... but yeah for a movie that has been in the works for just about 3 years... its should be AT LEAST a 'good' movie... im not hoping for much, they have big shoes to fill... but from what ive seen and read...it should be 'good'... Remember! Enjoy the first viewing and analyze the second.. dont do both or u will be disappointed.

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