Transformers

transformers.jpgrating-2.0My girlfriend groaned as the voiceover that opened the movie started. It was a pile of semi-retarded backstory delivered by the Optimus Prime voice actor, who also worked in other 80's cartoons, leading me to imagine it ending with his voice proclaiming that Earth required the defense of Voltron: Defender of the Universe! But it was not so. Inside, I too was groaning.

Thankfully, the movie chased the awful bit of setup with an attack on a military base, setting up a film that would attempt to add a dark realism to the cartoonish nature of the Transformers. I say "attempt", because ultimately it was a failure.

The intrigue of the military attack and the infection of its systems by alien computer code initially meldly nicely with the tale of a young man who purchases his first car, only to find that there is much more than... Well, I'm not delivering that cloying bullshit catchphrase. It was stupid on the cartoon, it was stupid in the movie, and it would be stupid here.

The slow revelation that his precious new car was actually an alien robot was nicely played out and, at last, it felt like a Transfomers film might be more than a semi-retarded reliving of an 80's cartoon on film.

Oh, if only it had stayed that way. New Tranformers arrive and we are suddenly and violenty exposed to Optimus Prime speaking. Dear god, how I wish they'd never spoken, as that was the moment the movie turned from a well-thought-out but somewhat cheesy action-adventure film into a movie written by a particularly dim-witted 9-year-old.

The plot at the core of the movie was patently absurd and everything it touched was diminished by its ineptitude. All the humans, who seemed to be in a better-written movie of their own, were suddenly dragged down to the debased, cartoonish, and abhorently stupid level of their CGI counterparts. The Transformers became objects of comedy instead of fear and it had slapstick moments as giant robots tried to hide from a teenager's parents, the whole thing reeking with an ignorance that only Michael Bay can bring to a movie.

And what can I say about Michael Bay, a man so well known for his jingoistic, over-the-top, horseshit extravaganzas of braindead "entertainment" that no self-respecting individual can really enjoy and still maintain their dignity? He does his same old schtick here, digging deep for yet another glossy crane shot of military this or long auto-rig shot of that. It's all style, devoid of even the slightest substance. In fact, I may be substantially dumber from watching this movie.

Things blow up real good, which seems to be the only criteria most people care about. I won't say it wasn't fun to watch, but it wasn't fun to think about and it was an intense groaner. As idiotic plot point was heaped onto silly retardation, I had to hold in my cries of "Oh, for fuck's sake!" It was all I could do to maintain focus on what was happening and not beat my head in over the perversely awful dialogue given to the giant robots, all seemingly culled from the original 80's episodes.

Everything about the story was, without doubt, terrible and written for children. The atmosphere, language, and level of violence, destruction, and havoc were written for teenagers. It's two completely incompatable films packed into one, working in a reasonable way unless one thinks too much about it. Which I did, fairly often.

In the end, the good guys win over the freedom-hating aliens who want to destroy all human life just because, the motive of any good Michael Bay villain. The goverment and the good Transformers work to save us all from the evil of bad people and the formerly well-thought-of actors appearing in the film lose a good portion of their acting credibility.

My girlfriend left the theater really having enjoyed it, but I had to wonder if I had. Can you really love a trainwreck just because it kept you entertained? Or, ultimately, was it just fluff that will melt away and leave me nothing?

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