Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Transformers: Spectacularly Okay

That's my two-word review, as requested by D when I came home from the movie on Tuesday.

My biggest complaint (minor spoilers): Did anyone else notice that the final shot was set in virtually the same location as the infamous "animal crackers" scene from Armageddon? And that the Autobots-hiding-in-the-yard scene was ripped off from Bad Boys? I mean, I knew Michael Bay had a limited repertoire, but when he starts repeating himself exactly... not a good sign for Transformers 2.

Otherwise, for a toy commercial conflated with GM ads and USAF recruiting posters, it was appropriately spectacular, but in toto just okay. One of my co-workers described it as "Independence Day with giant robots," and he wasn't referring to the release date. It's a fair comparison. Scattered storyline; sound-and-fury technobabble; lots of supporting roles, many of which characters never amount to anything real... but Shia's fine, Turturro's always good for comic relief, and Peter Cullen is Optimus Prime.

The special effects are damn good, but movies do not transcend genre by FX alone. The comedy was just this side of camp, but it worked. And there were some nice, comic book-y touches, which I suspect were thanks to original screenwriter and geek icon John Rogers. RepreZent, brutha.

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