“Transformers”
2007
D: Michael Bay
**********
Pros: Special Effects, Decent Score, Jon Voight
Cons: Lack of Focus on the Transformers, Vulgar Humor,
Formulaic Plot
Being a fan
of
Transformers when I was a child, I
was moderately excited to find out that there was a live-action film adaptation
coming out.
Michael Bay may not be a
truly great filmmaker, but
Transformers
is no Shakespeare.
A popcorn movie
director seemed like a perfectly appropriate choice for the project.
Despite my reasonably humble expectations,
Bay managed to completely miss the point of the franchise.
The real movie may have had its flaws, but
compared to this travesty it was an Orson Welles film.
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| Which it...technically is. |
The problems of this movie began with its
development. Perhaps when executive producer
Steven Spielberg asked Bay to direct and was told by the latter it was “a
stupid toy movie,” he should have taken that as the obvious sign it was. It didn’t help that screenwriters Roberto
Orci and Alex Kurtzman were insecure about having the Transformers even talk,
let alone allow them to be the focus of the story. Compromising the premise of this franchise
for a wider appeal was arguably the original sin of this movie.
One selling
point to the filmmakers was the idea of “A Boy and his Car.” The movie begins when Sam Witwicky (Shia
LaBeouf) gets his first car from a used car salesman (Bernie Mac), which ends
up being “Bumblebee” (Mark Ryan). His
newfound freedom includes access to the blandly sexy and halfheartedly
tomboyish Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox). This adolescent sentiment could have been given
an extra sense of wonderment if the car was also a friend to the boy. Imagine if your first car was also a person
you could confide with? This was the
relationship between Spike and Bumblebee in the source material, and it could
have been easily reproduced in the movie. Instead, “Bumblebee” is more like a naughty
pet to Sam. Bumblebee was also relatable
in the cartoon because he idolized Optimus just like the audience did. There are very few times when Bumblebee is
talking in this movie. His voice box is
damaged, and he has to communicate using snippets of radio broadcasts. This is not only annoying, but also
depersonalizes the character. His voice
is inexplicably repaired at the end so he can say his only line, but he reverts
back to the annoying snippets for the rest of the series.
The other
transformers are not terribly well done, either.
“Optimus Prime” (Peter Cullen) and the
remaining “Autobots” “Ironhide” (Jess Harnell), “Ratchet” (Robert Foxworth),
and “Jazz” (Darius McCrary) don’t show up until past the better half of the
movie.
“Ratchet” talks in a
stereotypically sophisticated English accent so he can sound smart as the
group’s doctor.
“Ironhide” annoyingly
quotes famous movie lines (the autobots reveal that they’ve learned about Earth
culture through the internet and TV, which reduces them to the level of the
Junkions), and has to be constantly reminded by “Optimus” not to murder the
earthlings.
“Jazz” is killed off
unceremoniously in the final battle and I’ve never felt so little for a dead
character.
“Optimus,” whose original
counterpart has always been a perfect adversary for Megatron in the franchise,
tells Sam that he cannot defeat his nemesis in battle.
Contrast this with the
epic final battle
between the two in
Transformers: The Movie.
Sam has to finish the job.
Yet he’s depicted in all the sequels as
nearly unstoppable.
All of them are two
dimensional at best.
As for the
“Decepticons,” they’re not the memorable villains in the source material.
The only ones who have any role in the first
half are a “Barricade” (Jess Harnell), “Scorponok,” “Frenzy” (Reno Wilson) and “Blackout.”
Barricade is a police car who attempts to
extract information from Sam, who has inherited a MacGuffin from the family,
and is killed by “Bumblebee.”
The bulk
of the “Decepticons” appear about the same time as the “Autobots.”
“Starscream” (Charlie Adler) gets negligible
character development, and his iconic relationship with Megatron is reduced to
this exchange.
Adler is well cast, but his voice doesn’t
sound appropriate to the character until the sequels.
“Megatron” himself is bland as a villain can
be.
Even worse, Frank Welker, the voice
actor who helped define this character, was rejected for the role in favor of
Hugo Weaving, whose voice was filtered beyond recognition.
Unfortunately, thanks to Michael Bay’s nonsense,
Bumblebee is effectively mute in all the new adaptations, and Megatron can’t
sound like Megatron even when he
is
voiced by Frank Welker.
Other
Decepticons include “Bonecrusher” (Jim Wood), and “
Devastator Brawl.”
The eponymous robots don’t even look like themselves.
Rather than being faithful to the
recognizable designs of the toys, Bay wanted something that looked
“cooler.”
The new designs are so complex
it became almost impossible to tell the “Transformers” apart from each other,
especially during fight scenes.
This
presented a challenge to the special effects teams.
More attention was given to the physics of
the Transformers’ design and effects than their
personalities.
It’s good to
know that the filmmakers had their priorities straight.
“Megatron” looks far too feral, and “Optimus’”
iconic mask is retracted most of the time to show an awkward-looking mouth
(this was suspiciously downplayed in promotional material, as if they
knew fans wouldn’t like it).
“Starscream” takes the cake in off-model
character design.
Unlike some fans I did
like the choices of the
Peterbilt 379 for “Optimus” (even though I hated the
red/blue flame pattern) and the
1975 Camaro for “Bumblebee.”
The beaten-up old Camaro is far more in tune
with the spirit of the original than the New Beetle.
Unfortunately he changed into one of the
ghastly new Camaros just because Megan Fox insulted his first form (and for
commercial reasons).
For the most part,
the other vehicles are good choices, in spite of the excessive use of GM
product placement.
More attention
is given to the pointless human characters.
The filmmakers thought that viewers would not be able to relate to the
sapient robots who are supposed to be the
main characters of the franchise.
Sam Witwicky is a shade of Spike from the cartoon, and his friendship
with the “Transformers” is not as compelling as Spike and Bumbee’s dynamic.
Instead of being half of the first friendship with an alien race, he’s
the “chosen one” hero in a “Transformers”
movie that isn’t even about Transformers.
Distracting comic relief come from his parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie
White). His mother is particularly crude
and exponentially more annoying in the sequel. Sam vacillates between being lovably awkward
and annoying, but he becomes more unlikable as the series progresses.
The
“Transformers” themselves where given more attention in the sequels, and I
believe the rationalization for the focus on the humans (particularly in the
first movie) is that the audience couldn’t relate to this beings right away and
we needed humans to connect to. This is
lazy hack logic. A good writer would
have made the eponymous characters identifiable through good narrative, and anyone
not diametrically opposed to the idea would have been receptive to it. It’s the same shallow assumption that motivated
contrived child characters’ presences in children’s shows as well as Raymond Burr’s
in American Godzilla releases. Even then, the “Transformers’” belated
appearance in the third act is too little, too late. Still, this formula could have worked passably well had the humans and robots been more interesting.
Early in the
movie Barricade and Scorponok attack an Air Force base in Qatar, which involves
a few soldiers (Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Amaury Nolasco, Zack Ward). This attracts the attention of Secretary of
Defense John Keller (Jon Voight), who is one of the few redeeming things about
this movie. He’s likable enough, and in
the third act he gives the movie its most spontaneously awesome scene: he
chases after a small “Decepticon” with a shotgun.
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| Above: The real hero of the movie. |
The government recruits hacker Maggie Madsen (Rachael
Taylor) and her fat funny black sidekick Glen (Anthony Anderson) to help
interpret evidence from the attack in Qatar.
Maggie’s arc is probably the most forgettable one in the entire
movie. Everyone is eventually led to a
secret government agency called Sector 7, run by Tom Banachek (Michael
O’Neill), one of whose agents is the obnoxious Seymour Simmons (John Turturro).
As for the military involvement with the movie, I don't mind too much. I like how the "Transformers" cooperate with the military to combat both races' enemies. It's a redeeming feature.
Overall, the
plot is a typical three-act blockbuster.
Slow buildup in which characters figure out an alien invasion, with a
lot of action at the end. The plot
structure is formulaic, but passably effective.
It’s probably why people preferred this movie over Revenge of the Fallen. In my
opinion that makes the difference between the two movies the same as that
between an amorphous smear of poo and an orderly one. Earth is invaded by an alien force. It takes a while for the buildup and
exposition to come out, there’s a lot of patriotic imagery, and there’s a lot
of explosions. When I saw this I felt
like I was watching Independence Day,
except Independence Day did it
better. And it did it eleven years
prior. I don’t understand how all these
people who hated ID4 are somehow okay
with this movie eleven years later, and without the benefit of nostalgia.
Still, I
probably would have shrugged “Transformer’s” mediocrity off as inoffensive if
not for the movie’s vulgarity. I wish I
had watched Bad Boys II before this,
because I was completely unprepared to see this from Michael Bay. This comes to a head in the scene in which
“Bumblebee” urinates on Simmons while “Optimus” lamely protests not to
“lubricate” him. If there was one moment
that confirmed how little regard Bay had for this franchise, it was this. For those of us who grew up associating the
Transformers with heroism and our past innocence, this moment in particular was
a slap in the face. And, no don’t give
me that “Transformers was always
stupid” crap. Yes, it was a very a cheesy
80’s cartoon, but much of its charm was from its naïve earnestness. It was goofy, but it was never vulgar, and it
believed in itself. An adaptation should
have remained faithful to that tone or elevated to genuine respectability. The half-ironic, eye-winking tone is why many
homages to 80’s cartoons fall flat. In
fact, I believe this defense applies to the earnestly cheesy G.I. Joe: Rise of COBRA, even if it did
get some things wrong. This establishes
“Transformers” as the most
contemptuous film adaptation I’ve seen since Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers. So don’t tell me these cartoons demanded the
presence of masturbation jokes and a giant robot with wrecking ball testicles
inspiring John Turturro to say he’s “underneath the enemy scrotum.”
It was rather
odd how people didn’t seem to understand why “Transformers” would be so obviously off-putting to fans of the
franchise. You’ve always cared about it
since childhood, even if it wasn’t perfect.
Then, a shaggy-haired usurper is given control of this thing despite his
being on record for having never liked it in the first place. He then proceeds to turn it into a vulgar
parody of itself. It even expands the
franchise’s appeal to people who never understood what it was about. People shrug it off as unsurprisingly while
you try to explain, “No! No! This isn’t
what it’s about!” Then you eventually
realize that no one cares about what you think.
You’re just part of a demographically insignificant minority whose only
influence was a tenuous grasp on this franchise, an influence that only existed
on borrowed time. Now the franchise is
different. The bastardized new version
is the franchise now. You had no control
over it, and you never did. In other
words, it was the same way many conservatives felt when Trump got
nominated.
Of course,
the special effects are great, and there’s a lot of attention to detail in the
designs.
Credit where it’s due, but the
effects, like those of
Avatar, were
more evolutionary than revolutionary, and don’t compensate for the movie’s
mediocrity.
The action had its moments,
but it was mostly forgettable and doesn’t hold a candle to the real movie’s
fight scenes.
It was often just incoherent
white noise.
Steve Jablonsky’s score is
good, but I would have preferred more of the original theme.
I find it refreshing that this series makes
use of voice actors, which is becoming rare in
animated films and shows.
Maybe they’re just desperate for work.
As for
“Transformer’s” legacy, I don’t see how it
influenced much aside from being popular in its own right.
What confused me was how it somehow managed
to seduce so many rational people I know had good, discerning taste.
Its popularity directly led to the existence
of
Revenge of the Fallen, which doubled
down on everything that was terrible about the first.
The first movie had some amazingly bad toilet
gags and ambiguously racist humor, but it was nearly constant in the
sequel.
I’d hesitate to say it was worse
than “
Transformers” because the
action was much better. I would like to say that those two movies were my least favorites of 2007 and 2009,
but each of those years saw a movie that somehow managed to be even worse.
Fortunately, it
was so bad that people reacted negatively, oblivious to the fact that they
enabled Bay to make it by their praise of the first movie.
As angry as I was with Michael Bay for his
apparent contempt for the franchise, he has been receptive to criticism, and
the movies have gotten increasingly more earnest and less vulgar.
I can understand how people who somehow liked
the first movie think that the latter sequels are more of the same, but my
hatred of this film has ironically made me more open-minded to the new
ones.
I know that the relative lack of
things that made me actively despise “
Transformers”
may not be the best argument for
Age of
Extinction (Mark Wahlberg’s replacing Shia LaBeouf helps), but it was
presentable.
At this rate Last Knight might actually be decent.
12. “Transformers”
While the more improved action sequences make this movie
marginally more fun than its predecessor, that doesn’t help much. It’s very much like the first “Transformers” on crack: the action is
given a boost, but unfortunately so is the racist and juvenile comic relief.
Quite possibly the most insulting war movie I’ve ever
seen. Yet another Historical Love
Triangle movie. I’m usually not a
stickler for fake accents, but Ben Afflecks Southern accent is beyond
awful. At least it produced a good soundtrack and this
hilarious song.
9. “Transformers:” Dark of the Moon
How can you waste a cast that includes Steve Buscemi,
Sean Bean, Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johanssen and Djimon Hounsou? Well, you do if you’re Michael Bay. Particularly bad is the movie’s team of
moronic team of mercenaries who all have the collective intelligence of one
domestic turkey. The movie’s premise is
also suspiciously similar to that of an
MST3K movie, and the MST3K
movie is better. At least the score is
very good.
1998
5. Bad Boys II
It’s not the real movie, but I found it to be
surprisingly passable. Mark Wahlberg’s
replacing Shia LaBeouf helps a great deal, and the vulgar humor if finally
toned down to a tolerable level. I’m
confident that this and The Last Knight are the “best” of this series, but my
judgment of the two might be somewhat skewed.
Aside from the low expectations set by the previous movies, I also
watched this one in multiple sittings, which made it more tolerable. Conversely, I watched Last Knight right after
watching another movie in the theatre, so that didn’t help.
