From director Michael Bay and executive producer Steven Spielberg comes a thrilling battle between the heroic Autobotsr and the evil Decepticonsr. When their epic struggle comes to Earth, all that stands between the Decepticonsr and ultimate power is a clue held by young Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf). Unaware that he is mankind’s last chance for survival, Sam and Bumblebee, his robot disguised as a car, are in a heart-pounding race against an enemy unlike anything anyone has seen before. It’s the incredible, breath-taking film spectacular that USA Today says ”will appeal to the kid in all of us.””I bought a car. Turned out to be an alien robot. Who knew?” deadpans Sam Witwicky, hero and human heart of Michael Bay’s rollicking robot-smackdown fest, Transformers. Witwicky (the sweetly nerdy Shia LaBeouf, channeling a young John Cusack) is the perfect counterpoint to the nearly nonstop exhilarating action. The plot is simple: an alien civil war (the Autobots vs. the evil Decepticons) has spilled onto Earth, and young Sam is caught in the fray by his newly purchased souped-up Camaro. Which has a mind–and identity, as a noble-warrior robot named Bumblebee–of its own. The effects, especially the mind-blowing transformations of the robots into their earthly forms and back again, are stellar.
Fans of the earlier film and TV series will be thrilled at this cutting-edge incarnation, but this version should please all fans of high-adrenaline action. Director Bay gleefully salts the movie with homages to pop-culture touchstones like Raiders of the Lost Ark, King Kong, and the early technothriller WarGames. The actors, though clearly all supporting those kickass robots, are uniformly on-target, including the dashing Josh Duhamel as a U.S. Army sergeant fighting an enemy he never anticipated; Jon Voight, as a tough yet sympathetic Secretary of Defense in over his head; and John Turturro, whose special agent manages to be confidently unctuous, even stripped to his undies. But the film belongs to Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, and the dastardly Megatron–and the wicked stunts they collide in all over the globe. Long live Transformers! –A.T. Hurley
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March 6, 2006
#1
One conservative web-site presented this film as wholesome and entertaining with some action violence and nothing more than a kiss on the moral scale. Well, this is not really the whole story. We had to turn it off without finishing it because of the never ending innuendos and crudeness. One Christian movie review web-site lists this as “offensive”–this is being too kind. The absence of actual “bedroom” scenes does not make a film fit for Christians. Don’t let biblical values be transformed into those of the world. If you have conservative biblical values, stay away; certainly don’t let your kids have free access to this moral cesspool of a film.
March 6, 2006
#2
I hated this movie. If is was a little more like the cartoon and Prime did not do the pro genocide thing then maybe it would have been passable. What made the Transformers great in the 80s is that they were heroes. They escaped slavery and turned on their masters and tried very hard to save the lives of their people and ours. In this new movie all that is forgotten and in it’s place is a mockery of the old story line. If the movie was directed by someone who cared about the cartoon it would have made millions more and made many of the old fans happy.
March 6, 2006
#3
How can I put this sensitively?
The new “Transformers” movie is going to be a collassal waste of time, money, ambition and expectations. Of course the idea of the Transformers lends itself to being a great summer film, but the execution of what I have seen so far is insipid.
The robots look nothing like they are supposed to, the look of this film is more “War of the Worlds” (2006) mates with “Bad Boys 2″ than Hasbro 1984, and once again Hollywood brings in annoying humans to be the center of attention, since a 2 hr film starring only the Transformers (the things we have actually paid money to see) would be too expensive to make. This way the animators do not have to perform anymore than what is expected of them, instead of being inspired to painstakingly create a real live action film of a beloved cartoon and toy series.
Every inch of film I have witnessed so far makes me gag and anyone who is truly excited about this film needs to check their expectations at the door. You are about to be as sorely disappointed as you were when you first saw “Spiderman 3,” and “Superman Returns.”
Now lets bow our heads in a moment of silence…
March 6, 2006
#4
I dislike movies that insults my intelligence. And I hope you do too.
There is nothing more to say.
March 7, 2006
#5
I understand a director to take a few liberties, but the following was in common with the original: Optimus Prime (in look, voice, and name), and 3 of the transformer’s names. It is only barely recognizable from any former incarnation of our alien robot brethren. Everything else is more around the standard teen fantasy – a plucky young kid’s struggle, rising from nerdland, past virginville… but wait! Every now and then a ROBOT shows up! Gotta hide ‘em from the parents! The actors do fine with this but WAS THIS KIND OF MOVIE SUPPOSED TO FOCUS ON THE ACTING?!
The opening scene was fantastic… the overt attack definitely made me think it was going to have more of an apocalyptic – T2 feel. But it slows down tremendously from there; in fact most of the Transformers don’t come in until the last quarter of the movie. And the fight scenes are very close cut, with a wildly moving camera; don’t expect to know who’s who. That’s not the point. Hey, building are beings destroyed, man! Michael Bay’s over-the-top manner quickly grates as much as Megatron’s one-liners (think Mr.Freeze in Batman + Robin)…
The problem is many of the jokes + situations make it clearly not a kid’s movie, even though that’s all it really had to be.