Post by gamedave on Jul 4, 2007 20:40:03 GMT -5
OK, it was better than I expected - but I was expecting a disaster. Instead, Transformers was...well, pretty entertaining, actually. Flawed, but entertaining. A couple of things kept me from considering a truly "good" action movie, though.
Good stuff first:
1) Spectacular special effects. Yes, CGI has definitely come of age. The detail on the transformers in their robot forms was amazing.
2) Good to very good action sequences - but not great. American movies in general make too much use of close-ups and quick-cuts in action sequences, making them at times hard to follow (as in many other SFX movies, obviously part of this is cost - its expensive to show prolonged shots of a transformer in action). Mainly, the sequences with the Special Forces squad made me really long for a G.I. Joe movie.
3) Suprisingly good acting, with a few exceptions (see below). Also, for the human characters, for the most part decent dialogue - the transformers' dialogue seemed overly stilted and melodramatic, particularly compared to the more realistic dialogue of the human characters, but I'm assuming that was intentional.
Now, the bad. There were a lot of flaws, many of which I could forgive in an action movie, but the following actively distracted me and detracted from my enjoyment.
<SPOILER ALERT>
1. Too many characters and plotlines, making it difficult to focus on any one. Like the Aussie NSA analyst and her hacker friend - did they serve any purpose in the movie before their abrupt disappearance? And the Autobots barely are in the movie as characters, making it very difficult to sympathize with them or care when Optimus Prime makes his self-sacrificing gesture. Sam Witwicky and Mikhaila are obviously central, but everyone else barely registers - had they just focused on the SecDef (and maybe the President - the guy supposedly in charge) and/or maybe one of the subsidiary character groups (the NSA folks or the Special Forces team), it could have been ok. Instead, I would up not really caring about any of the supporting characters.
2. John Turturro (the odd Sector 7 agent). Everyone else was in Transformers - he was apparently in Men in Black III. His character was so wildly at odds from everyone else in the movie, he was actively distracting in every scene he was in, and made suspension of disbelief very difficult.
3. Ok, so you've got an alien power source that nigh-unstoppable alien robots are after. They're coming to get you in your super-secret base. So, instead of staying in the base and fortifying it for a siege, or high-tailing it to the desert to get out in the open for calling in airstrikes, or trying to get to another military base, you decide to head for the nearest major city to engage in combat in the middle of thousands of civilians, guaranteeing, at the least, hundreds of civilian casualties. WTF? On a related note, the noble autobots go to great pains to protect Sam Witwicky, and spout off all the time about the need to protect the humans - and then engage in giant robot combat in the middle of the city, firing off missiles and explosive rounds and crashing through buildings and generally causing massive collatoral damage, without a thought as to the hundreds of people that must have been dying in that fight scene.
4) What the hell happened at the end? Sam holds the Allspark towards Megatron and that burns him out? WTF? How? Why? Did Sam know he could do that? Why didn't Optimus Prime? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?
I try to judge movies on their own merits. For a SFX action movie, I expect good action sequences, good SFX, and enough of a plot line to get me from one action/SFX sequence to the next. Amusing dialogue and good acting are bonuses. Transformers had good action sequences and great SFX, and the plot held together well enough - until the end. It wasn't enough to ruin the movie for me, but it was enough for me to downgrade it from a flat-out good action movie to an entertaining but flawed one.
Good stuff first:
1) Spectacular special effects. Yes, CGI has definitely come of age. The detail on the transformers in their robot forms was amazing.
2) Good to very good action sequences - but not great. American movies in general make too much use of close-ups and quick-cuts in action sequences, making them at times hard to follow (as in many other SFX movies, obviously part of this is cost - its expensive to show prolonged shots of a transformer in action). Mainly, the sequences with the Special Forces squad made me really long for a G.I. Joe movie.
3) Suprisingly good acting, with a few exceptions (see below). Also, for the human characters, for the most part decent dialogue - the transformers' dialogue seemed overly stilted and melodramatic, particularly compared to the more realistic dialogue of the human characters, but I'm assuming that was intentional.
Now, the bad. There were a lot of flaws, many of which I could forgive in an action movie, but the following actively distracted me and detracted from my enjoyment.
<SPOILER ALERT>
1. Too many characters and plotlines, making it difficult to focus on any one. Like the Aussie NSA analyst and her hacker friend - did they serve any purpose in the movie before their abrupt disappearance? And the Autobots barely are in the movie as characters, making it very difficult to sympathize with them or care when Optimus Prime makes his self-sacrificing gesture. Sam Witwicky and Mikhaila are obviously central, but everyone else barely registers - had they just focused on the SecDef (and maybe the President - the guy supposedly in charge) and/or maybe one of the subsidiary character groups (the NSA folks or the Special Forces team), it could have been ok. Instead, I would up not really caring about any of the supporting characters.
2. John Turturro (the odd Sector 7 agent). Everyone else was in Transformers - he was apparently in Men in Black III. His character was so wildly at odds from everyone else in the movie, he was actively distracting in every scene he was in, and made suspension of disbelief very difficult.
3. Ok, so you've got an alien power source that nigh-unstoppable alien robots are after. They're coming to get you in your super-secret base. So, instead of staying in the base and fortifying it for a siege, or high-tailing it to the desert to get out in the open for calling in airstrikes, or trying to get to another military base, you decide to head for the nearest major city to engage in combat in the middle of thousands of civilians, guaranteeing, at the least, hundreds of civilian casualties. WTF? On a related note, the noble autobots go to great pains to protect Sam Witwicky, and spout off all the time about the need to protect the humans - and then engage in giant robot combat in the middle of the city, firing off missiles and explosive rounds and crashing through buildings and generally causing massive collatoral damage, without a thought as to the hundreds of people that must have been dying in that fight scene.
4) What the hell happened at the end? Sam holds the Allspark towards Megatron and that burns him out? WTF? How? Why? Did Sam know he could do that? Why didn't Optimus Prime? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?
I try to judge movies on their own merits. For a SFX action movie, I expect good action sequences, good SFX, and enough of a plot line to get me from one action/SFX sequence to the next. Amusing dialogue and good acting are bonuses. Transformers had good action sequences and great SFX, and the plot held together well enough - until the end. It wasn't enough to ruin the movie for me, but it was enough for me to downgrade it from a flat-out good action movie to an entertaining but flawed one.
