Just saw Transformers the movie [no spoilers]

[JellyWarrior]

Well I just saw the Transformers movie and I thought it was ok, it was definetly much better than I expected it to be.

From an action perspective it was excellent, the battle scenes were awesome, as were the visual effects. It was a pitty that they changed the design of the robots, but the new designs did work well for the movie, and tbh, I got over it pretty quickly and just enjoyed the movie.

What ruined it was some very corny bits, where I just sat back and thought "why is this happening??!?!?!?", and some lines of dialogue (in places) that are meant to be serious made me laugh out loud. Also some characters just seemed a little out of place.

There is plenty of product placement, I generally hate product placement because it's never well integrated into the movie, it feels kind of like a bolted on advertisement. Most of it is obscenely noticable (to me anyhow) but some of it is also well done, and some references to eBay are actually quite funny (one in particular mentioned by one of the Deceptorcons is pretty funny).

They did stay somewhat loyal to the original TV show (besides the robot designs), the action is modernised, so is the technology.

Worth seeing if you like Transformers, 7/10

[pavelbure]

i'll hold out for the "go bots" movie.

[Covar]

considering the movie is just a commercial for hasboro i doubt product placement matters.

[SuperMegatron]

Do they explain why all the Autobots are GM vehicles?

[pixel]

Do they explain why all the Autobots are GM vehicles?

Poor GM sale?

[Skynet]

What annoyed me was the quick scene with the 360 in it towards the end. Hell I didn't even notice it was a 360, I knew the sound it made but I didn't know from where and I couldn't see what the guy was holding properly, but then my gf pointed it out.

[Ceeg]

Saw it and loved it.

[Lartrak]

Saw it. It is entertaining and has some good action scenes and some TERRIFIC FX work (it is ILM after all).

Complaints:

Not enough Transformer-fighting-Transformer. Those were the best parts of the movie, and they were few and far between. Less than 10 minutes of the movie I'd guess.

Inconsistent - I was hoping the military would be worthless in the fighting throughout - they are in the beginning. The missile strength of the helicopter sure seemed much lower later on, when he couldn't even destroy the walls of civilian buildings at time.

Possibly the biggest - I don't like how the Transformers are pushed WAAAAY to the side in the storytelling. They have essentially no development, and little screen time in relation to the mostly uninteresting human characters. When I go to see a movie called "Transformers" I expect them to be main characters, not "random teen X" or "Hacker Y" or "boring soldier #3". It might be argued they have human leads because people can't relate to big robots, but I find this to be a ludicrous explanation considering how poorly developed the humans also are, and how there are so many characters the movie is incredibly bloated. It reminds me of them giving McClane a young sidekick in Die Hard 4 - it worked better than it had any right to, but it still shouldn't have happened at all.

Too many characters - if I'd been script editor, I would cut out at least 2/3s of the characters in the movies. The military people, the hackers, the kids parents, probably more.

Bayisms - some of the fight scenes were rendered close to incomprehensible because of his style. It's much better than, say, Bad Boys, but still too confusing.

Numerous plot holes. I'll leave it at that. Minor complaint for something with the Transformers name on it.

Still, despite my complaints, I did enjoy it. I'd give it a 7/10.

[SuperMegatron]

My girl swears there was a reference to cobra in one of the scenes but I didnt see it. Did anyone catch it? I am thinking she miss heard or something

[TyBO]

There is plenty of product placement, I generally hate product placement because it's never well integrated into the movie, it feels kind of like a bolted on advertisement. Most of it is obscenely noticable (to me anyhow) but some of it is also well done, and some references to eBay are actually quite funny (one in particular mentioned by one of the Deceptorcons is pretty funny).

I hate how you can't go see a big movie these days without having 2 bajillion product names shoved down your throat. If anything, it makes me not want to buy a company's product... they're ruining my enjoyment of a movie that I paid to see.

Anyway, I thought the movie was pretty good. Optimus Prime and the whole Autobots crew looked very cool and modern, and the fight scenes were good, even though the camera angles practically made me nauseous. Oh, and the girl was realllllly attractive, which always helps.

[Disheveled DrFreeze]

i saw it last night, and was a tad dissapointed

i would have liked more transformer action, more bot on bot fights and such, and the idiots from S7 should have been left out

[butters]

I watched it today with my little cousin, and I liked it.

[Calavera]

You guys are a little late aren't you? I saw it 21 years ago.

[SinisterTengu]

I saw it on the 4th and liked it. They definately focused on the humans too much though, and lots of the technology references were super sugar-coated with the "oh noes it hacked through the mainframe and its inside the system!" hollywood hacking. And that was a big part of the story. I happen to be a fan of the new Camaro though, so I didn't mind the GM product placement . I thought it was a nice touch that one of the Decepticons was a new Mustang..rivals even as transformers those two cars.

[Code-Red]

Just saw the movie, and I loved it! Didn't like the new '09 Camaro (looked like a damn hot wheels toy), cause the 350 small block V8 in the '76 probably would have blew the doors off it. I was also a little disappointed by some of the changes, like Optimus being a Peterbuilt Long Nose instead of a cab over truck. Some of the fight scenes were not rendered all that well, and I found it hard to tell what exactly was going on. I also agree there was too much emphasis on too many human characters.

Cant wait for #2 & #3.

Numerous plot holes. I'll leave it at that. Minor complaint for something with the Transformers name on it.

You're joking right? When have any of the Transformers shows/movies NOT have major gaping plot holes?



BTW: Anyone seen the preview for 1-18-08, aka Cloverfield/Slushi? Apparently its supposed to be Go-Bots, or Voltron. I hope for its sake, its neither, cause the preview looked pretty cool.

[Lartrak]

Just saw the movie, and I loved it! Didn't like the new '09 Camaro (looked like a damn hot wheels toy), cause the 350 small block V8 in the '76 probably would have blew the doors off it. I was also a little disappointed by some of the changes, like Optimus being a Peterbuilt Long Nose instead of a cab over truck. Some of the fight scenes were not rendered all that well, and I found it hard to tell what exactly was going on. I also agree there was too much emphasis on too many human characters.

Cant wait for #2 & #3.

Numerous plot holes. I'll leave it at that. Minor complaint for something with the Transformers name on it.

You're joking right? When have any of the Transformers shows/movies NOT have major gaping plot holes?

Hence my next sentence, "Minor complaint for something with the Transformers name on it.".

[curt_grymala]

BTW: Anyone seen the preview for 1-18-08, aka Cloverfield/Slushi? Apparently its supposed to be Go-Bots, or Voltron. I hope for its sake, its neither, cause the preview looked pretty cool.

I saw the movie today and found it very entertaining. I did see the preview to which you're referring, and had no friggin' clue what it was. It should be interesting, though. I was kind of hoping it would be a new monster movie like Godzilla (but not another one of those crappy Hollywood monster movies like the Godzilla with Matthew Broderick) or something.

The Transformers was good, but there were quite a few crappy parts. I would have liked to see more of the bots in the movie. Five of each just isn't enough for me.

I was also disappointed by the fact that Prime didn't have his mobile command unit. Maybe I will get more bots and more good Transformers extras if they come out with a sequel. I can only hope.

I agree with TyBo about some of the camera angles. They made me kind of nauseous, too. I had a little trouble making out some of what was happening during the battle scenes, too. It was especially difficult to pick out the Autobots from the Decepticons during most of the fight scenes. It's certainly not like watching Star Wars where you just have to look for red and green/blue blasters/sabers.

I didn't like what they did with Megatron or the other Decepticons. I just didn't find him nearly as cool as the Autobots.

Overall, it was pretty good, though. I would agree with the 7/10 rating everyone else seems to be giving it.

[CupNoodle]

I watched it today. The effects were great. I agree with Code-Red in that it was difficult telling what was going on with many of the action sequences. I also didn't like the fact that some scenes tended to drag on forever like...


...spoiler


The scene when Sam is looking for the glasses while the Autobots are hiding out on his lawn. Oh, and I really liked the little homage to Megatron's gun transformation when he fused his arms into that cannon and fired it at Prime.

[curt_grymala]

I agree with you CupNoodle, but that scene was kind of funny.

I also found it strange just how short the days were in the movie. It seemed like there were four or five times in the movie when it went instantly from like early afternoon to late night almost immediately. The scene you mentioned is one of them. The scene near the beginning when Sam drives Mikala (or however you spell her name) home is another. The first bot-on-bot fight scene is another example. The passage of time was just weird in the movie.

The effects were amazing, though. What makes them even more amazing is knowing that very, very few (if any) were done with CGI. Michael Bay apparently found a lot of inventive ways (using a lot of explosives) to make all of the effects look real.

[Lartrak]

It's an overstatement to say very few of the effects are CGI. Almost all of the shots of the Transformers in motion or transforming were CGI, and there were a lot of those (there mere mechanical puppets/upper bodies for talking scenes, but not action scenes).

Nearly all of the explosions and crashes were practical though, which is nice as even now CG explosions and crashes look off to me.