Transformers + summer movies.

Marlow: Admittedly, I don't have the same connection to the original series as yourself. I never much watched the show when it debuted in the mid-1980s but clearly I was in the minority at the screening. When the semi truck appeared, the audience cheered. I didn't realize until later that I was witnessing the introduction of Optimus Prime. Forgive my ignorance.

Souther: Forgiven... although a slight rush did overcome me, the intro of Optimus (Peter Cullen from the original series) really didn't carry the emotion I thought it might. Perhaps I'm just seeing it through the eyes of a 31-year-old wanting too much from a movie that is essentially geared towards fanboys and children.

Updated through 7/7.

Marlow: James Cameron and William Wisher (Terminator 2) should get royalties from this film, given its basic young-boy-saves-the-world-against-destructive-robots plot. By extension, the premise has more than a passing resemblance to Harlan Ellison's Soldier, with the titular fighters transmuted to Autobots and Decepticons. Granted, I always felt that the concept (and the Hasbro toys themselves) were an inferior knock-off of Gundam anyway. Call 'em mobile suits and be done with it. Their ability to become some kind of vehicle is swell for a toy but doesn't solve much of a purpose otherwise.

Souther: That's an interesting point. I was taken a little aback when the "young-boy-saves-the-world" plot began to reveal itself. It kinda left a bad taste in my mouth (and that wouldn't be the only time during its 140 minutes). I was familiar with Gundam and Macross, but never really watched either of them or owned any of the actual toys. I'd agree about the concept being superior, not to mention their production seemed far more sophisticated.

Marlow: Perhaps it was the filmmakers' acknowledgment of the same to have the main protagonist mistake them as Japanese-made.

Souther: I was plenty disappointed by the lack of development in the relationships between the Transformer characters. As a child I understood that Megatron was a relentless megalomaniac (even if I didn't know what the word meant at the time). I knew that Optimus Prime was a benevolent and unflinching leader. And let's not forget about Starscream, who's cowardly conniving and back-stabbing nearly made him the leader of the Decepticons, however worthy or unworthy. Bad as the cartoon was, these character traits were made clear through actions and dialogue. These robots were more than just metal and laser rifles, smashing each other. They were personalities, archetypes and, most importantly, individuals with a history. That didn't seem to come across in the film.

Marlow: It's really only during the robot roll-call sequence about halfway through the film that the audience is informed of the distinct roles of the various Autobots. It is really the first and last time that we get the impression that they're much different at all. Optimus is a leader that doesn't do much leading; Bumblebee is actually more fundamental to the plot as the guardian angel 'bot. I get the impression that screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and/or director Michael Bay didn't care too much about that aspect of the story. Should I be annoyed that the recognizably African-American Autobot (voiced by actor Darius McCrary) is the only one [spoiler; highlight to read] to "die" in the end? I thought we were beyond that particular Hollywood device. 

Souther: Ah, the robot roll-call... It's true, none of those Autobots really went on to perform any of their individual duties, specifically. I mean, did you see Ratchet (the medic) actually fix anyone? Or Ironhide, the so-called weapons expert, do anything that would set him aside from the rest of the orgy of CGI mayhem? It really seemed to be quite a half-assed and ineffective way of helping the audience distinguish between these "characters."

Marlow: In contrast to the flesh-and-blood characters, surprisingly. I don't see many tentpoles, admittedly, but the acting was a bit better overall than I expected. The interplay between Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox was believable enough - in the context of a purely implausible movie, of course. For a premise designed to appeal to men, the writers fortunately give much of the heavy lifting to the women. The smartest person in the film is a woman (and an Australian, no less) - Rachael Taylor. Those Australians are taking over, I tell you! Unfortunately, the men all seem to be transported in from other movies. Someone forgot to tell Josh Duhamel that the film wasn't to be taken too seriously; conversely, John Turturro evidently thought that the Sector 7 agents should be played in the vein of Buckeroo Banzai. I don't disagree with his decision, under the circumstances, but it is a bit disorienting. Only Jon Voight seems to be balancing between one extreme and the other. As such, it makes for one of the most dysfunctional movies in recent memory.

Souther:  I'm still saving that spot for The Brothers Grimm. But on the subject of Jon Voight [who plays the Secretary of Defense], I have to say that after reading a few articles about the production, I was mildly concerned that the picture would come off overly militaristic, spending a lot of screen time glorifying the US war machine. That didn't seem to be the case. Granted, a sizeable amount of US military vehicles, weaponry and gadgets are showcased but it really didn't turn into one of those "USA versus evil" analogies... and I'm pretty sensitive to that. I would have really been turned off had I been tricked into sitting through a $150 million dollar recruitment commercial.

Marlow: An interesting thesis paper could be written about the portrayal of the military between this film and Starship Troopers. Much has changed in the decade between the two, even when it comes to the cinematic glorification of the military-industrial complex in fantasy films. That stated, could you find yourself recommending Transformers to anyone, on any level, given its obvious weaknesses?

Souther: I was just thinking about that very question. Yes, I could. I didn't hate the movie. I can't say that I'm the kind of person that goes out of their way to see action films, but Transformers seems to have touched a socio-psychic nerve and in my opinion falls into a separate and distinct category. The movie is packed with some impressive CGI work created by Industrial Light and Magic that features sequences showing off the utter coolness of, for example, a muscle car screaming down the highway at 120mph and then quite gracefully turning into a 20ft robot without skipping a beat - or losing momentum, for that matter. The 8-year-old boy inside me was satisfied, though not overly, but the adult was fairly disappointed by what seemed to be... well, laziness in filmmaking, for lack of a better way to put it.

Marlow: Therein, it is essentially 48 times longer (in duration) than your average roller coaster, yet with about the same amount of exhilaration over the various peaks and valleys and about as memorable when it's all over. At least the lines are seemingly shorter, the ticket prices a bit lower and the chance of accidental death significantly reduced!

Transformers "has been designed as the ultimate in shock-and-awe entertainment," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "The result is part car commercial, part military recruitment ad, a bumper-to-bumper pileup of big cars, big guns and, as befits its recently weaned target demographic, big breasts.... On the face of it Transformers is a story as old as the Greeks versus the Trojans, the difference being that these warriors are visitors from another planet, the 1980s-sounding Cybertron, and there isn’t a jot of poetry, tragedy, beauty, meaning or interest in this fight."

"This shield-the-kid plot is pilfered from Terminator 2, and there are matching nods to Godzilla and the recent King Kong, but, if you really want to know what Transformers feels like, think of a hundred-and-thirty-five-minute, hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar retread of Herbie Goes Bananas," suggests Anthony Lane in the New Yorker. "In previous movies, Michael Bay dabbled wearily in Homo sapiens. At last he has summoned the courage to admit that he has an exclusive crush on machines, and I congratulate him on creating, in Transformers, his first truly honest work of art. Not that he needs my plaudits; as a passerby exclaims in the midst of the film, 'This is easily a hundred times cooler than Armageddon!' To be proud of your achievement is one thing, but to plant film critics inside your movie and review it favorably as you go along: that takes genius. Where it leaves real critics - rusty old Concepticons, with failing firepower - I hate to think."

"If this film were a lot shorter — it clocks in at an inflated two hours, 23 minutes — and kept its focus on the toys, it would be hard to argue with," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. "Fearing, however, that even enormous wonder toys can't just tromp around on the screen forever, screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have concocted a narrative to go with the robots. The problem is not only that there is way too much of it but also that it isn't very good."

Also in the LAT, Josh Friedman on how Paramount's been aiming Transformers to the audience they've targeted.

Stuart Jeffries talks with David Yates about directing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and next year's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

"The choice of celebrated UK TV director David Yates to take on the fifth in the Harry Potter series proved a wise one for producer David Heyman and Warner Bros," writes Mike Goodridge for Screen Daily. "Yates ramps up the adrenalin and menace while adding new layers of emotional anguish befitting the adolescent years now reached by the teenage protagonists. 20 minutes shorter than the previous film and a good deal tighter on plot and action, The Order of the Phoenix delivers the goods, and will set the worldwide box office alight when it opens on July 11."

For the Sydney Morning Herald, Helen Barlow meets Emma Watson (Hermione Granger).

Update: Back to Transformers: "Even when the director stumbles upon something that works, he still manages to muck it up," writes Nick Schager in Slant. "[T]he film mostly adheres to the typical Bay template: a mise-en-scène defined by its willful indifference to spatial dynamics (Lord only knows how one image is geographically related to the next), cinematography so glossy one fears the actors and sets will slide right off the screen, one-dimensional performances, and simplistic lip-service to the concepts of patriotism, sacrifice and courage."

"The old Transformers cartoon was made for kids," notes Matt Singer at the Reeler. "The new live-action Transformers movie is so infantile it could have been written by one."

Updates, 7/3: Ray Pride: "[P]erhaps Steven Spielberg should be the only person to make pseudo-Steven Spielberg movies."

"Credibility is worthless if it isn't coupled with integrity, and with that in mind I will freely state - not admit - that yes, I enjoyed a Michael Bay film, in the same way that I sometimes enjoy a Happy Meal with a meaningless yet fun toy inside," states Rob Humanick.

What other toys need their own movie franchise? Matt Singer and Alison Willmore list a few.

I'll bet Nathan Lee's review for the Voice is a whole lot more fun than the movie: "The decline of western civilization, etc. Now let's return to the only thing worth discussing - indeed, the only thing the movie shows any legitimate interest in. Transformers is a showcase for next-level special effects, but its transformations deliver the idea of astonishing virtual engineering without exactly representing it. Each transformation sets off the super-complex shift/flip/pivot of a thousand hydraulics, hatches, gears, and gun barrels in an impressive, but largely unintelligible, blur."

Updates, 7/4: Just saw that Wired's got a big fat Transformers cover package.

David M Halbfinger rounds up several "blatant examples of the explosion of the old gentlemen's agreement by which the Hollywood studios screened movies early for critics, and the critics held their reviews until opening day. Its destruction has been several years coming. The rise of film blogs like MovieCityNews.com and Hollywood-Elsewhere.com - for whom there is currency in being first to have seen an important new movie - has prompted the trade dailies to view them as competition.... For film critics from major newspapers, standing by while the available positions on a given movie are staked out by multiple competitors, whether online or in print, can be too much to ask."

At PopMatters, Bill Gibron presents his "2007 Summer Movie Scorecard (So Far...)."

Transformers is "cheerfully forgettable," chimes Cheryl Eddy in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

"You almost have to congratulate Michael Bay," writes Sean Burns in the Philadelphia Weekly. "Most directors would be content to retire knowing that Armaggedon was the stupidest film on their resume. Let it not be said that this man doesn’t know how to top himself."

Rob Nelson reports back to the City Pages on the LA premiere and party, which, all in all, "was like a lot of ordeals in which we find ourselves these days: I fought like hell to get in, and then, before I knew it, I was dying to get out."

"You might conclude that, after almost a hundred years of banging bumpers, American movies had run out of things to do with cars," notes Time's Richard Corliss. "That's not true, as was proved by last week's auto-neurotic action film, Live Free or Die Hard. The Bruce Willis picture showed off some brain-melting car stunts - clever and crazy, and plausibly attached to the (clever) story and the (crazy) main character. The action in Transformers is divorced from the characters; the actors are frequently photographed staring up, in simulated awe or fear, at events that the effects techies were putting together somewhere else. Divorced from reality, even movie reality, Transformers becomes an action film in traction." Related: "80 Years of Robots in Hollywood."

Updates, 7/5: For the LAT, Susan King talks with the special effects team.

"Bay's outburst of metal, pyrotechnics and sheer effrontery amounts to a vision, a megaplex embodiment of the possibilities that children invest in toys," argues Armond White in the New York Press.

"This should have been simple - you're making a big summer blockbuster based on toy robots that change into cars and planes and boomboxes. Minimize the plot, maximize the action, and the damn thing writes itself," notes Shaun Brady in the Philadelphia City Paper. "But for all its $150 million budget, near-two-and-a-half-hour running time, and state-of-the-art special effects, Transformers is a 1950s B-picture in all but name."

Scott Weinberg at Cinematical: "If Michael Bay's intention was to make a Transformers movie that would have the established fans peeing in their pants and clapping with nerdly glee, he's succeeded in fine form. If, however, Michael Bay's intention was to create an accessible sci-fi adventure movie that could bring in moviegoers who believe a 'transformer' is something you stick into your fuse box... he's failed pretty miserably." Adds James Rocchi: "I don't think it's too much to ask that it could, at least, be competently and coherently made, which it isn't."

This'll probably be the best Transformers-related blog entry possible: John Rogers, who wrote the story the screenplay's based on, begins, "I hate to rain on your "Transformers is a great conservative, Republican movie" parade..."

Updates, 7/7: "I think Michael Bay sometimes sucks (Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, Bad Boys II) but I find it possible to love him for a movie like Transformers," writes Roger Ebert. "It's goofy fun with a lot of stuff that blows up real good, and it has the grace not only to realize how preposterous it is, but to make that into an asset."

"The Transformers really do look like tangible objects, and they're exciting to watch," grants John Constantine at Nerve. "But the other hundred-plus minutes aren't really about anything at all."

Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat: "Bay's notion of excitement is to smash up bunches of stuff on screen, with no rhyme or reason, no characters to care about, and no clarity or structure to the action. If that floats your boat, go ahead and have a blast. I'll be in the next auditorium, rewatching Live Free or Die Hard."

The AV Club's Tasha Robinson gives Transformers a C- ... and heavens, that's a lot of comments.

Cinematical's Erik Davis has news of a possible sequel. No, really.

"I see every Bay movie for the same reasons I see every Tony Scott movie: whatever their flaws, the filmmakers and their films are working on the visual cutting edge," writes Daniel Kasman. "Even if this edge is defined by incomprehensibility, loss of spatial definition, or, speaking morally, dangerous forays into misanthropy determined solely by inadequate shot coverage and knee-jerk editing (if such a thing were possible), movies like Déjà Vu and now Transformers are often as interesting as anything put out by favored impressionistic art-house formalists like Wong/Doyle or Denis/Godard." Not this one, though. He gives it a C-.

Jason Woloski at Not Coming to a Theater Near You: "I'm a huge fan of both The Rock and The Island, but even I can't bring myself to defend Bay when he messes up this badly."

Posted by dwhudson at July 2, 2007 8:16 AM