Transformers – 2007
This was one of the dumbest movies I have seen in a long time. Thank goodness the special effects were fantastic… well, mostly. Just keep in mind that this movie was directed by Michael Bay, the man with a reputation for making things blow up. And he certainly remained true to form here. There were explosions left and right, whether we needed them or not.
But you see, the biggest problem I had with the movie’s visual effects wasn’t all the big fireballs. It was the way in which the director cut the action together. Again, as it typical for Bay’s style, the action was fast and chaotic. There was so much happening so quickly, that I didn’t get a chance to absorb any of it. At times, it was just confusing. I couldn’t even tell what was happening to who. All I could see is that things were flying across the screen at break-neck speed, and smashing into other things, sending debris flying in every direction. It was too much to follow, and too much to allow me to appreciate the effects themselves. I understand how those kinds of visuals create an intended chaotic feel for the action, but it does very little to help tell a story, or even show a clear sequence of events. And the constant hand-held shaky-cam that added to the chaos didn’t help matters in that regard.
But aside from that, the effects were actually alright. The real reason we all came to see this movie was to see the live-action, photo-realistic Transformers change from vehicles like cars, trucks, tanks, and fighter jets, into giant robots, and for that, they made it look kind-of cool. But even though the effects were fine for a fantasy movie, my logical mind had a few issues with some of the details. For example, these things are made of metal, but when they spoke, their metal mouths were nearly as flexible as human lips. Or when the man’s cell phone was changed into an evil robot, where did the extra mass come from for it to be firing bullets without depleting its own size, or was it magically replicating matter? And why did the bullets vanish as soon as they hit the safety-glass walls of the cage? But when the vending machine came to life it shot soda cans instead of bullets, because it was supposed to be funny, I guess. Little things like that bothered me.
When I was a child, I had several Transformer toys, and I loved how the clever transformations were accomplished, how the front fenders of a car popped out and became arms, how the hood folded down to become a chest, how a hidden head flipped up from the car’s engine compartment. But in the movie, most of the changes happened so fast, you couldn’t clearly tell what parts of the vehicles were becoming what parts of the robots. Oh well. It still looked cool.
And there were plenty of high-speed chases and stunts and the like, most of which defied logic and the laws of physics. The giant mechanical scorpion in the desert was pretty awesome. And lots of building were destroyed in spectacular fashion. Action, action, and more action! That was really the name of the game. Just don’t expect a smart, well-written story with clever dialogue, because if that’s what you are looking for, you are watching the wrong movie.