Movie Review: Transformers
Finally -- a summer movie that almost lives up to the hype. I've enjoyed fighting robots ever since I watched Battlebots with my sons back when I was Eng on the Jimmy Carter, so I had high hopes for Transformers. Unlike with the other "big" summer movies so far, I wasn't disappointed (unlike this reviewer, who thought its theme of "victory through sacrifice" was too militaristic).
First, my complaints about the movie -- there were some continuity issues (the hot girlfriend's nail polish didn't match from minute to minute), and there were way too many 4-star Admirals (in SDBs, no less) standing watch in the NMCC. While the robot fighting scenes were pretty cool, they didn't do any Matrix-style slow motion that would have been appreciated by the techie portion of the audience. They also don't explain the apparent technology the robots use to make themselves (and especially their cube-shaped power generator) impossibly smaller when they're transformed compared to when they're in robot form. Mass is clearly not being conserved here.
On the good side, the military guys on the ground came across as the kick-ass defenders of freedom that we all know and love. (This helps explain why the regular Hollywood-type reviewers don't seem to like the movie very much.) There were a surprising number of really funny scenes -- in fact, those scenes were what made the movie. It's a film that movie-goers of all ages (up to probably 50) will like -- as long as they like explosions. Overall, I give it four conservation-of-mass-law-violating-robots out of five.
posted by Bubblehead at 9:27 PM
5 Comments:
See, I was *there*, man, in the 80s. I suppose your kids are too young and you probably had better things to do in the morning than watch cartoons. Imagine my delight to see this month's Wired in the mail, with Optimus Prime on the cover.
Re: your conservation of mass concerns:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/15-07/trans_movie?currentPage=all
"Then there's the matter of matter. Bay says that weight-mass orthodoxy informed the decision to make Prime a hog-nosed semi instead of the flat-front model from the cartoon, which, he says, would have yielded only 23 feet of robot height. (He wanted Prime to stand at least 30 feet tall.) He also insists that it was these practicalities — and not his movie's partnership with Chevy — behind his heretical decision to convert cuddly Bumblebee into a bitchin' Camaro."
See? When they're expanded, they're going to be bigger than when all the parts are packed neatly into a cube-shape.
- ninme
7/08/2007 11:29 PM
Its Transformers. Mass values have no meaning. I grew up watching the cartoon. Megatron turned into a gun that Soundwave could hold.
7/09/2007 9:57 AM
The soldiers were from Camp Pendelton, I believe.
7/09/2007 8:41 PM
That always tickled me, too, Brian. The toy robots were all roughly the same size, but when transformed the ones like megatron and Shockwave were almost-full-scale items, like guns and radios, but Prime and StarScream were 1:32(or so) scale vehicles.
7/10/2007 10:20 AM
To my mind every person ought to browse on it.
9/14/2012 4:38 AM
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