Transformers The User Review Thread [SPOILERS IN ABUNDANCE!]

[Tony Stark]

Anyone remember the desperation "we need a microphone to power the old ancient radio!" part. Any speaker can also function as a microphone. They probably had like a dozen different things in that room they could have used.

I thought the same thing myself. If you reverse wire a speaker, you have a microphone.

 

[bunk]

I gave it a 9. My rating is based purely on an initial feeling and only represents the overall experience without breaking the whole thing down and really critiquing it. As far as action movies go, it's pretty damn incredible.

 

[Golgo-13]

I think he's one of them to fire at Megs, as i saw two F22 shooting rockets at him. Also both time i checked on the ship and did not see barricade at all. He's being kept for the sequel. Im sure this was decided perhaps after he tested well with those first screenings prior to release. I love the fact the left things open, imo this movie has made the best decisions regarding villains and how they dealt with them, well except for Bonecrusher and one autobot.

Yeah. I see why Bay chose villans that ppl really didn't care about, so he could have some to kill off. Upon seeing it the second time, i really liked Frenzy's charcter. I think he and BB had the most personality in the movie. I love it when he gets in Barricades cruiser at the airstrip and say's in Cybertronian "Those insects tried to shoot me". I think the word 'insect' is the Cybertronian equivalent of the word 'mutha****er', as Megatron uses it too!

I just wished Frenzy hadn't been named Frenzy. He should have had a made up, new name..but it's all good.

Still can't believe i missed Scorponok's escape the first time around.

Got to see it a second time to catch the SS thing again.

 

[CFlash]

Yo C Flash, it's cool man. I am not actually offended. In all honesty I thought it would be funny to act overly defensive and see what happens. I am never really certain that my posts are actually being read anyway since I am not really one of the hype's mainstays so I didn't actually think you would respond. Really I just needed to head over to myspace to listen to the new Bad Religion album. I loved this flick and really don't care what anyone else thinks and would never waste the energy to become genuinely offended over something so trite. So....still want to be quasi-buddies via message board, or am I dead to you?

We cool, man. And I'm glad people enjoyed it. Like my friend did. ....But then again he was high. t: I'm just kidding.

 

[TheCardPlayer]

I was disappointed in Bonecrusher but Megatron did have a longer and cooler fight than anything they did in the cartoon.

I loved when Prime shot him then he simply remade his arm-cannon and fired him into a building.

 

[millennium movies]

Nosebleed i saw it yesterday again, and my friend loved it. He fell asleep during half of the final battle ...lmao

That's because he got 2 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours though. As the case with you, my lady really loved it which suprised the heck out of me. The first time i saw it was the best crow, it was at a movie theater in the heart of downtown Montreal. Last night crowd really sucked, people were even scared to applaud at parts because the audience was so damn boring. Then again this was a crappy cheap theater in the middle of nowhere and i saw only one person wearing an autobot logo tshirt. I might even go a third time tomorrow! lol

 

[Boiiinng]

I get tired of hearing people say what a movie is "meant to be" or is "intended to be" as if we are given a damn program when we walk into the theater that describes the intent behind what the following presentation is about. I judge movies objectively, based on what I am presented with, not what I think it should be. This movie, I can't even say that with a straight face, did not know whether it wanted to be a comedy, an action flick or an advertisement. That's called inconsistency, an increasingly common virus in the world of healthy films.

 

[Nivek]

I seriously don't understand some of these reviews.

Because we enjoyed it, and you didn't. We were happy with it, and apparently you couldn't be objective. Some of you are just bound and determined to trash it, and hold it up to some silly Shakespearian standard that no one seems to care about, or really see in the source material. For the most part we wanted just some awesome looking,escapist fun, you wanted a religious experience.

 

[ragdus]

I think one of my favorite things in this movie was the way the Autobots reacted to Megatron. Clearly Megs has always been a top badass throughout TF history, but more so because we were TOLD he was than because he was ever that imposing. But in this flick, when the autobots see him coming, their immediate reaction is to abandon everything they're doing and immediately regroup. I loved that. They had no problem throwing down with anyone else, but when Megs arrives on scene, it's an immediate "head for the hills" moment.

That, to me, did a better job of showing you what a brutal figure he is more so than all the dialogue that had told he he was one.

Oh, and the flying through the building shot was the ****, but should have continued all the way through exiting the other side in one continuous shot.

 

[CFlash]

Because we enjoyed it, and you didn't. We were happy with it, and apparently you couldn't be objective. Some of you are just bound and determined to trash it, and hold it up to some silly Shakespearian standard that no one seems to care about, or really see in the source material. For the most part we wanted just some awesome looking,escapist fun, you wanted a religious experience.

Please don't quote a sentence out of context and then go on to say I said something that I didn't. I plainly explained my question. If you can't answer it intelligently, then that kinda speaks volumes doesn't it?

 

[DOG LIPS]

I like this review:

Bay's best effort by far. The robot thespians are better actors than the cast of Armageddon and the plot is probably more historically accurate than Pearl Harbor.

 

[Mr Jide]

I think one of my favorite things in this movie was the way the Autobots reacted to Megatron. Clearly Megs has always been a top badass throughout TF history, but more so because we were TOLD he was than because he was ever that imposing. But in this flick, when the autobots see him coming, their immediate reaction is to abandon everything they're doing and immediately regroup. I loved that. They had no problem throwing down with anyone else, but when Megs arrives on scene, it's an immediate "head for the hills" moment.

That, to me, did a better job of showing you what a brutal figure he is more so than all the dialogue that had told he he was one.

Oh, and the flying through the building shot was the ****, but should have continued all the way through exiting the other side in one continuous shot.

"You wanna piece of me, you wana piece of me"?

"No. I wan't two pieces".

Megs was a real badass.

 

[ragdus]

I like this review:

Bay's best effort by far. The robot thespians are better actors than the cast of Armageddon and the plot is probably more historically accurate than Pearl Harbor.

LOL

 

[Dread]

The build-up and hype for this film has been going for at least half a year and perhaps longer. As a kid of the 80's, I grew up watching the Transformers (after GI JOE, naturally) in reruns, and when they actually returned in some reruns with CGI intro's during the 90's, I gained more of an appreciation for them, now that I was old enough to appreciate the plots more than just colorful robots fighting (in 1986 when the original flick was in theatres, I was 4, and SPIDER-FRIENDS was still on NBC. Yeah, time-warp). Many fans questioned whether even in the 21st century with CGI advances that seem light-years ahead of where they were as recent as 6-7 years ago, if a live action TRANSFORMERS movie could work. Suffice it to say, the announcement of Micheal Bay directing felt like a dagger in many fans' hearts. He is a man known for movies with explosions and not much else; a hack in a land full of hacks, and a director that even in the "me-first" land of Hollywood is considered an egomaniac. Yet, despite all that, and despite critical claims that many of his films "lower the bar" for motion pictures, all of them have been commerical hits ("Bad Boys" 1 & 2, "Pearl Harbor", "Armaggedon"), save for "The Island", which tanked.

However, there was one major sign of hope; whole Bay has been confrontational with defending the alterations to the Transformers mythos in this film, he and his producers did apparently listen to some sort of fan demand, and cast veteran voice actor Peter Cullen to reprise his role as Optimus Prime, a role he hasn't played in about a generation (he's still involved in voice acting, notably spending over a decade or longer voicing Eeyore for Winne-The-Pooh Disney animation, as well as roles in IGPX and Megas XLR). After that, in some ways many fans still weren't happy; some wanted Frank Welker to return likewise as Megatron, or wanted the VA from Beast Wars for Prime, or so on.

As for the Transformers themselves, they have reappeared and changed greatly since the 80's. BEAST WARS in the 90's saw them come back and transform into dinosaur creatures. And then there was the Armada-era stuff, which borrowed elements from Pokemon and other anime to introduce "cogs" to combine and whatnot, with more detailed, bulkier designs. And of course new waves of comics. In fact the Transformers have been reinvented so many times that the "originals" from the 80's are often called "Generation One", like video game systems.

I feel myself a longtime Transformers fan, but not an overly ravenous one. That said, I didn't care for BEAST WARS or any show aside for the original, although I did give some of the newer comics a try for a year or so, before losing interest. Some blogger backlash over the detailed redesigns and "flames on Prime's paint" are notable but I saw them as somewhat irrational; not only is this live action, but this is 2007; of course the designs will be updated and some may say they must be. What worked in 2D animation from 25 years ago will not work in Live Action in 2007. Furthermore, everything that is adapted from another medium to film is changed when it goes to film. Comics, books, even movies based on actual history or the bible make alterations, so not expecting that for Transformers is a bit naive at best.

The best comparison for what I imagined this might be like, based on the trailers, was AVP ("Aliens Vs. Predator"), a film where everyone came in expecting alien monsters to pummel each other, only to be treated to a film that was 96% about useless human stereotype characters with only teasers of what the film actually promised, which was Aliens vs. Predators. I imagined we would be getting 95% of Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox with only the trappings of Transformers, especially with Bay on board. My expectations were quite low; I was prepared for "medium suck".

Having seen the film yesterday, I can say that while low expectations did help, the TRANSFORMERS film unto itself was actually pretty good. Don't get me wrong, it is a summer blockbuster in every way, with lots of explosions and a very simple plot. But, I guess after 3 hours of PIRATES 3 with more twists and turns than an octopus in a washing machine, something crudely simple can be refreshing. The film has much more Transformer action than I expected, and Optimus Prime got the lion's share of the dialogue. The film is about 2.5 hours long yet moves at a rate that one doesn't feel as antsy in the seat as during PIRATES 3. And finally, Shia LeBeouf lived up to the hype and was an effective star here, which was good because otherwise it may have been unbearable.

Peter Cullen's Prime starts the narration before the title credits, giving the idea that this is a film about the Transformers, and that the humans get in their way. They are after the ALLSPARK, the cube-like mechanism that gave techno-organic life to Cybertron, their homeworld that has been torn apart by the civil war between Autobots and Decepticons. When the Decepticons start to raid military institutions to hack information on it, as well as their missing leader Megatron, the Autobots are summoned from various areas to do battle once again. Amidst all this, Shia's Sam Witwicky (renamed from Spike in the cartoon) is an awkward high school teenager, anxiously hawking items on eBay to scramble 2 grand for his first car and being the butt of classmates' jokes, while still proud of his ancestor's discovery in the artic circle. As the trailers show, the beat up yellow car he and his father (played by Kevin Dunn, who seems to play nearly the same fatherly role in every flick he does) turns out to be Bumblebee, who has a life and persona all his own, whether by crudely trying to "hook up" Sam with Mikaela (Megan Fox) or by saving Sam from a pack of junkyard dogs. Sam soon finds out the car is a Transformer robot, but no one will believe him.

Elsewhere, Sgt. Lennox (an effective Josh Duhamel) and his stock of soldiers survive a Decepticon attack in Qatar and slowly advance to the final battle scene, as the Penatgon starts to catch wind of the threat when the Decepticons attempts to hack their files, soon crashing communications worldwide. Jon Voight is fine as Defense Sec. John Keller and John Turturro, having a break from Adam Sandler flicks, plays eccentric Agent Simmons, who heads an "area 51" type secret gov't cabal that reveals the U.S. knows far more about the Transformers than anyone realizes. The film maintains the idea that the Transformers are long lived and crashed on Earth thousands of years ago, and updates that to note how some of them would have been found; the ALLSPARK is under strict quatentine at Hoover Dam (the dam seemingly was built by Pres. Hoover to hide it; seems he did something right after basically being ineffective during the Great Depression), and Megatron has been kept on ice while his body has been analyzed for technological advances, sort of like the alien Vision from the ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE comic series. Sam's ancestor accidentally activated Megatron's navigation system and so the coordinates to the ALLSPARK were imprinted on his glasses, which the Autobots want. The Decepticons also find out about the Witwicky connection and gun for Sam along with the feds.

It all boils down to an explosive finale in the streets of L.A. that involves just about everything Bay enjoys; car chases, military men, explosions, and exploding car chases with military men shooting stuff.

Yes, there are alterations to the mythos. Here, at the end Optimus Prime calls Megatron "brother", hinting the mortal enemies are thus related. Rather than the "Matrix of Leadership", Prime has a "shard of the ALLSPARK" in his chest. Bumblebee is far more competant and less jokey than he was in the cartoon. Aside for Prime and Bumblebee, the other Transformers are drastically redesigned, especially Starscream and Megatron, who never looked nastier (and is voiced ever so briefly by Hugo Weaving, who has made a career out of geeky movie vehicles it seems, after this, LOTR and the Matrix films). But the heart of the mythos is intact. The Decepticons are vile, violent, and have no regard for any human life. The Autobots, especially Prime, see the potential in humanity and despite massive differences, see some simular veins (when Ironhide mentions that the human race is "violent", Prime asks if they are so different). Prime himself may have a more complicated design and some racing flames, and even LIPS, but he is recognizable. He's the toughest Transformer there is, a massive robot who can crush an enemy's skull yet grab onto Sam gently enough to save him without breaking all his bones, or ordering his troops to hide from his nosey parents. And with Prime noting that "freedom is the right of all sentient beings", this is the closest action movie recently that came close to instilling American Patriotic sentiments, whereas after Bush, most Hollywood films treat American values as fundamentally evil and warlike, and dismiss actual tryannies as "dictators will be dictators" or "we must understand better". The Transformers still "transform" by scanning other objects and changing into them, in this case vehicles. The Decepticons earn their name with holographic images of "drivers" to fool people.

But political debates are too deep for this flick, and that is not a bad thing. Shia's Sam manages to reach all the right chords so his antics don't seem annoying. The actions of the cyber techies and later the agents are played for action/comedy and it is effective. If anything, this film delivers what most popcorn audiences expect, down to a T. Great special effects (I've seen films with twice the $150 million budget look worse), effective action and one-liners, with enough homages to the past for geeks to shed a tear of nostalgia (c'mon, how can anyone deny how awesome it was to hear Optimus Prime utter his "one shall stand" line for the final showdown). Oh, and that forearm-blade Optimus had = bad-arse. Bumblebee also proved to be the little Transformer that could, barely having 1 line of clear dialogue and yet managing to be an effective, endearing character. Cullen was a treat to hear and time hasn't been a drawback in his performance as Prime, and I still can't imagine hearing anyone else voice him. Everything one imagines a leader to be like, Prime is. Megatron also has his line about "once again, you fail me Starscream" homaging the past animosity between the two baddies (Starscream always sought to betray Megatron and take over the Decepticons, finally succeeding only to pay for it with his life in the '86 film).

Despite all this, there are some drawbacks. While Prime and Bumblebee's designs are kept distinctive, some of the other Transformers seem to gell too much that it can be hard keeping characters straight in the midst of the action. FYI, on the Autobot side were the aforementioned two, Ironhide, Rachett, and Jazz, and the Decepticons had Frenzy, Starscream, Bonecrusher, Devistator, Scorponok, and Barricade. And the final blow, where Sam uses the ALLSPARK to kill Megatron with one manuver, did feel a little anti-climatic; I wanted Prime or Bumblebee to ice Megatron, not Sam. Still, considering the ending to FF2: Rise of the Silver Surfer, it was bearable. An I did wonder why all the creations made by the ALLSPARK start out instantly evil and aggressive, if Cybertron was originally supposed to be peaceful until Megatron rose to power. And no attempt at the Transformers themesong.

These were minor quibbles to me, though.

The film sets up a sequal fairly easily (Megatron could always return, or more Decepticons could crash land on Earth), and with the flick breaking records for a Tuesday and likely on pace to make back at least half of it's budget by next week, a sequal looks inevitable. I expected Bay to fumble the ball and he didn't. The film's not perfect, but it isn't supposed to be. It's a blockbuster that actually didn't bastardize the material enough that it became unbearable to watch, as the INSPECTOR GADGET film did (another 80's cartoon). The action was effective and the jokes amusing, at least for a single viewing. It has far more Transformer action than the trailers may have hinted and while of course Sam and "the humans" get much airtime, the Transformers themselves aren't treated as details, but major characters. And how can one not root for poor awkward Sam as he risks life and limb for his girl and the planet, defying a monstrous robot the size of the White House without messing his jeans. Some call Shia LaBeouf "a young Tom Hanks" and I do sort of see that simularity, at least when Hanks was younger in some of his earlier works. He'll be in INDIANA JONES 4, so he's havin' a good year.

The only people I can see outright disliking the film are overly critical types or obsessed fans who already hate any alterations to the mythos before seeing the flick. I came in with low expectations and came out with a smile on my face and no regret for my $9. Solid lines, good action, good performances (for what is required; this doesn't pretend to be an Oscar film) and lots and lots of explosions and enough effective comedy from the culture-shock Transformers and the awkward Sam, who is a rootable everyman.

Oh, and Megan Fox is 21, for those who felt guilty for drooling.

Not sure how it fares in a rewatch, but definately a fun movie; last flick I enjoyed this much was SPIDER-MAN 3, which of course was dripping with more angst and seriousness than this effort.

And who didn't cheer at the sight of that mighty blue & red truck?

Definately a solid film. 3 stars out of 4.

 

[ragdus]

Please don't quote a sentence out of context and then go on to say I said something that I didn't. I plainly explained my question. If you can't answer it intelligently, then that kinda speaks volumes doesn't it?

Why is it always the questioning of intelligence with you?

I figured you wouldn't like it, and you didn't. I did, and you probably figured I would. Perhaps to you that means you thought I was dumb to begin with and have been proven right. But I don't look at all the bashing by you leading up to the film and your subsequent dislike of it as a matter of intelligence, rather a matter of taste.

There's no reason we need to continually bring the intellect of people we know absolutely nothing about into question. Remember: we're all a bunch of teens/adults who've been posting for MONTHS about a movie based on a bunch of fake giant alien robots we've loved for ages. We've all got a problem.

 

[bluejake01]

So I wasn't going crazy. Anyways, tell me if you caught this one. The plane rockets that take out Megatron come from Starscream.

I caught it...mentioned it another thread. I really wish they had focused on the rivalry between and made it clear that is what was going on.

 

[dimmutaker]

Question guys, Who was the one that says "Decepticons attack"???

It was when ironhide and racthet was saying to sam that they were gonna cover him.

 

[user123456789]

I like this review:

Bay's best effort by far. The robot thespians are better actors than the cast of Armageddon and the plot is probably more historically accurate than Pearl Harbor.

L

O

L

t:

 

[Nivek]

Please don't quote a sentence out of context and then go on to say I said something that I didn't. I plainly explained my question. If you can't answer it intelligently, then that kinda speaks volumes doesn't it?

Yes, you are being an elitist *****e. Just because you didn't like it does not mean everyone else that did like it is stupid. Get over yourself.

 

[Speedball]

I just saw it, and it was amazing.
I'm definantly seeing it again. It's the best movie of the summer so far, followed by Die Hard and Pirates.
I like how we don't know what happened to Barricade and Scorponok. It leaves stuff for the next film. And I can't wait to see Starscream become the next Decepticon leader.t:

 

[CFlash]

Yes, you are being an elitist *****e. Just because you didn't like it does not mean everyone else that did like it is stupid. Get over yourself.

And if you find where I said that I'd appreciate it. In fact, I even said one of my friends who I respect and is far from stupid (in fact one of the smartest people I know) absolutely loved the movie. So I have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[ragdus]

And if you find where I said that I'd appreciate it. In fact, I even said one of my friends who I respect and is far from stupid (in fact one of the smartest people I know) absolutely loved the movie. So I have no idea what you're talking about.

It's probably the whole "check your brain" comment. It doesn't imply inherent stupidity, but it does mean you suggest people need to dumb themselves down to enjoy and/or appreciate what they've just seen.

 

[Stringer]

My only gripe is the lack of Decipticon dialogue and screentime, but the time they were on screen was great

Best movie of the summer

 

[ragdus]

I kind of wished there would have been an extended scene of it just being Decepticons V Humans, to really give you a sense of the power and brutality they posses.

Having just Sam and BB make it to the city and them + the humans having to survive a Decepticon onslaught would have been great and very tense. Have the autobots show up when all hope is lost and save the day at that point. It wouldn't have required more than another 2 to 4 minutes, and could have done an excellent job of capturing the fundamental difference between Autobots & Decepticons... something that was really only talked about and not shown very much in the film.

 

[CFlash]

It's probably the whole "check your brain" comment. It doesn't imply inherent stupidity, but it does mean you suggest people need to dumb themselves down to enjoy and/or appreciate what they've just seen.

But that's what the POSITIVE user reviews here (not to mention the critics reviews) have been saying since the screenings started last week. "Ok, so there was a very simple plot. But hell who cares...I was only there to see giant robots beat the crap out of each other." "When the action alone can compensate for so much ridiculousness you just have to go with it. I'd recommend it." And actually the "check your brain" thing is something I'm re-using from another poster, who I think liked the movie.