The working title for this movie was "Die Hard 4.0", because the plot revolves around computers. I don't know how feasible this movie is from a technological standpoint, but it's pretty scary to see what could happen if someone had complete control over the nation's computers. Justin Long is cast as an expert hacker, and given his previous role as Macintosh spokesman, he's probably now typecast for life. I don't think I've seen a whinier character in any movie. Of course you know he's going to turn around and do something brave by the end of the movie, but in the meantime I wanted to kill him myself.
"We Just Lost Marty" factor: The movie starts out pretty good, but the action scenes get more and more outrageous as it goes one. There's a scene towards the end (involving an airplane) that is out-and-out outrageous... but who cares, it was fun.
Oh, and there was one part - and maybe I'm just being nitpicky here, but this really stood out to me. Remember back when the bad guys actually stayed down? Remember when they blew up Ah-nold in The Terminator, and you thought the movie was over, until the endoskeleton crawled out of the wreckage? Did you notice how after that, no bad guy ever stays down the first time, in any movie, anywhere?
So John McClane is fighting this villain, a strikingly beautiful Asian-looking martial arts expert. The actress is actually Polish-Irish/Vietnamese, but in the movies you only have to look Japanese to be a martial arts master. So, he knocks her down a few times, she knocks him down a few times, each giving and taking blows that would finish off anyone in real life. No biggie. She knocks him over a rail, he falls a few stories, gets back up, dusts himself off. No big deal. He finds a car, drives it back up to the top floor, drives through the wall, hits the woman with the car... and while stuck to the front grill, she still keeps fighting back. Clearly I need to switch vitamins.
But was that before or after he fights the circus acrobat in the air ducts? I don't remember... all I can say is that it's funny how bad guys can be such computer experts, spending a significant portion of their lives in front of keyboards, and still fight like Batman. But all that's okay, because the Die Hard movies take place in the "Action Movie" universe, a place where cars blow up like the Death Star when you tap the bumpers, where wounds stop bleeding within minutes, and where people can outrun explosions.
Reality is depressing; fantasy is exhilarating. I saw screw accuracy, and cue the explosions.
Today we saw "The Transformers". That was also mindless fun. It is a special effects movie, and it appeals to the little kid in me, the one who wanted to grow up to be a fire truck. It's hard to reconcile the fact that it's written like a grown-up movie, and yet it's clearly a toy-line concept.
I would have loved to see two other versions of this movie. One version would follow the cartoons more closely, with the old school designs and size-changing transformations. The other version would cut out the toy/comic tie-in altogether and strictly make a serious movie about shape-changing space robot invaders. As is, the movie feels a little bit schitzophrenic. You can see where the makers made agonizing decisions about what to include, and what to cut. Anything silly or far-fetched had to be weighed against it's value as fan service. What resulted is a perfectly adequate product, but with a very specific target audience.
People who never saw the cartoon/comics/toys are going to find the movie a bit goofy, but might enjoy the SFX and action. Classic Transformers fanatics are going to be angry over all the changes, but they're still going to see it 10 times and buy the DVD.
Of course, there are plot holes big enough to drive Optimus Prime through. Like it matters. If you put aside your suspension of disbelief long enough to accept the concept of the movie, then there's probably a lot of other things you're willing to accept.
In an early issue of the Transformers comic series, there was a scene in which a human fell off a cliff, and at the last second an autobot managed to catch him. This was absurd, of course - so he fell from a lethal height, but because he landed in a robot's metal hand instead of the ground, he was safe? Riiiight. Well, that same thing happens twice in the Transformers movie.
The dialogue was okay, but it varied in quality throughout the movie. My expectations in that area where pretty low, so I was fairly impressed. It's like the writers knew which lines were bad, and even admitted it once: When Sam told Mikaela that she was "more than meets the eye", the audience groaned. But after she left, Sam scolded himself saying, "That was a bad line!"
Since the robots speak very little in the previews, I had no idea what to expect from their personalities. More than any other factor, the robots' dialogue made the movie feel silly to me. Especially Optimus. Out of all the Autobots, Optimus Prime was the only one in the comics/toons who never broke his serious persona, and was generally a humorless character. But in this movie, he had some of the funniest lines. And the part when the Autobots are trying to hide from Sam's parents... for a moment I thought I was watching Ninja Turtles.
My biggest gripe is actually one of my own pet peeves. This is just my problem, so don't take it as a mark against the movie: I had trouble following a lot of the action. Either things happened too fast, or a scene would be filmed with a shaky-cam causing everything to blur. I hate shaky-cam, it ruins a lot of movies for me. I see the artistic relevance, but artistry means squat when I can't tell what's going on (or worse, getting nauseous). On the other hand, there were a few shots that where slowed down, Matrix-style... but that's another one of my pet peeves. I know, it sounds like I should avoid action movies altogether, but I generally love them when they don't go to those particular extremes.
I know it sounds like I've said a lot of negative things, but I really did love the movie. And as long as you know what you're getting into - two hours of frenzied action with nostalgic undertones - you'll have a great time.
By the way, with the Transformers movie premiered a new trailer for a so-far-untitled giant monster movie. The twist is that the movie is shot like the Blair Witch Project - all on home video cameras, as if someone found the footage later after the disaster. It's a neat trailer, so make sure you get to Transformers early enough to see the previews.
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