Film Review: Transformers

Transformers @ IMDB

Now, I am a child of the eighties. Not just because I was born in 1980, either. All of the great 80s Icons were imprinted all over my childhood bedroom: A-Team curtains, an ET doll, Castle Greyskull in the corner of my room, a pirate copy of Ghostbusters ready to watch and Transformers wallpaper.

Giant robots fighting? I'm in. Orson Welles as the voice of Unicron? Sold. A live action Transformers movie?

My heart said yes, my head said oh dear. Which is right?

The Autobots have come to Earth to find the All Spark, an ancient artifact that could save or destroy the Universe. Unfortunately, the Decepticons were here first.

Just typing that, I cannot believe this has been made as a proper film for real people. Autobots. Cybertron. All Spark.

That last one. Hmm. Not a great idea. Could have gone with something from Transformers canon, like The Matrix of Leadership, rather than inventing something new.

But I digress. Shia LeBeouf takes the lead. Who he? I don't know but he carries the film well. He is our point of view, our anchor and if he slips up the film slips up. He doesn't and he is one of the 3 pillars that makes this a great film.

The other pillar?

BIG FREAKIN' ROBOTS FIGHTING EACH OTHER!

Make no bones about it: these are The Best Special Effects in The World. Seriously. The best. Like that song from the Karate Kid. THE. BEST.

Every criticism about the film: yeah, I'll give you that. The script is a bit dodgy, do we really need that shoot out in the library and the Michael Bay Shake-O-Cam raises it's ugly head several times.

But the third pillar, Senor Speilbergo, gives the film a light touch and a streak of humor. And it is really funny in places. Bumblebee pissing on someone is a bit weird* but some scenes are laugh out loud funny.

So. You've got all the usual Summer Blockbuster problems: running time, script, etc. But, if you held those toys in your hands as a child and wondered what they'd look like 30 feet tall, go see this film.

This film gets a sword, a huge sword that only Optimus Prime could use.



* Why does he need to piss on someone? This also furthers a trend, as Scrappy Doo pissed on Daphne in the Scooby Doo live action movie. What is it with Hollywood making our childhood icons piss on people?

I was very nearly worried for a while

That actually looks quite cool. All the trailer needed was a "MEG-A-TROOOON!" from Prime and it would have been perfect.

What else would two grown men do in Toys R Us?

A quick recap: my local cinema is near the big Toys R Us in our city. So, whenever I go to the cinema with my good friend Ryan we tend to end up in the there either pushing small children off the Guitar Hero demo pod or looking at the large collection of toys. Now, if I had the time and the money I would be a serious toy collector so I like doing this. I especially have my eye on the 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime.

But anyway, me and Ryan are in there and we see this selection of mini transformers. We're looking through and notice that there is a mini-Devastator in the sale section.

"Hey," I say. "Look at that. A mini-Devastor." I have this gift for stating the amazingly obvious.

"Cool," says Ryan. He picks it up and looks at the back. "Look at that; all six make the big version."

"I wonder if they have all six here," I say.

"No way," says the pesimistic Ryan. "All six? In the sale section? No way." There was probably way more swearing in there but children may be reading this so I'll keep it clean.

We look anyway. We find one, two, three, four, five of the required transformers. Then we find the last one.

"I don't believe it," I say. "We found all of them! How much are they?"

"£2 each," says Ryan. "£12 for a big robot." He thinks for a moment. "You know," he says, "it would be wrong, in fact, it would be a crime for me not to purchase these."

"I totally agree," I say mainly as Ryan was paying.

So we, or rather, Ryan buys them. Naturally this was about 2 months ago and I had pretty much forgotten about them until not ten minutes ago when I received the following text message:



Nice. Very, very nice.