You know when Ong Sor Fern, the ST film correspondent whose prose and views I have come to like and respect, dissed The Transformers in her review last Wednesday giving it 2 out of 5 stars, I wanted to disrupt her brainwaves with my Electrical Magnetic Pulse gun. Just like how Decepticon Blackout does with his =))
What does a frumpy old goat like her know about an iconic Childhood series, lovingly albeit expensively at US$145 million, put together for the big screen by Director MIchael Bay. He of Armaggeddon fame, so you get an idea of what to expect from the Wham-Bam Mayhem on Earth when the good robots and bad robots arrive to see who gets The Cube.
Anyway, this movie was too eagerly anticipated for me to let one woman spoil the show. Although deep down, I trusted Sor Fern's judgement and secretly wished I could give it 4 stars after watching.
Sad to say, she was spot-on in many respects.
Like how your interest in the movie would be directly proportional to how much you liked the toys as a kid. Or how Mr Bay didn't trust his robots with holding the screen on their own, resulting in some really migraine-inducing jerky camera work which doesn't allow for much up-close-and-personal time with the machines. And how, after a while, you have difficulty differentiating between Autobots and Decepticons because there is too little time spent fleshing out their roles and everyone eventually becomes morphing tin-cans.
However, plot and acting wise, I'd give the show 3 Stars. Because Shia LeBroeuf, the main teenage protaganist Sam WitWicky, will grow up to be a fine actor based on what I see now. And there is an All-American babe called Megan Fox who plays Mikaela, Sam's Wet Dream from HighSchool. She's so hawt, the guys infront and behind were gasping everytime she bared her mid-riff or exposed a half-boob or two.
Sedap!.
In terms of High-tech wizardry? Oh My! You don't have an Executive Producer called Steven Spielberg for nothing. Its just one big Rollercoaster ride through frame after frame of Robot Machismo with some really amazing special effects. No wonder they said the film had a no-holds barred approach to creating a visual CGI feast like no other. You would be drinking some robot lubricating oil just to keep temperatures down. A 4.5 for the action-packed metal fest I suppose.
The cars are really nothing to shout about, all coming from the GM stable anyway. Although Bumblebee looks so much better now as a banana-yellow Chevy Camaro (diehards will remember him as a VW Beetle). And then there is Barricade morphing into a really wicked Ford Mustang GT disguised as a Police Car. Prime, on the other hand, gets a leaner-and-meaner facelift. Whereas Megatron no longer morphs into a pistol, but a Cybertronian Jet. His outward appearance evokes mixed responses, with some people agreeing with me that the Decepticon leader now looks like a giant metallic
Yeti=))
Ok so enough of Robots for one day...Enjoy rather, the heavy rock sounds of Linkin Park from the movie's
OST.
And oh yah, I suppose a 3.5/5 is in order. Certainly not a 4, but no embarassing 2 either ;)
Labels: Movies