Movie Review: Transformers: The Movie

PLOT:

The Decepticons have invaded and taken over the Autobots’ home planet, Cybertron. The Autobots are determined to fight back and go to Autobot City on Earth for supplies. Decepticons hijack and take over the ship, resulting in a fierce battle between the Autobots and Decepticons, the result of which is devastating. A new threat to the Autobots appears in the form of Unicron, a massive planet-devouring transformer

REVIEW:

What did I like?

Improved animation. Saturday morning cartoon animation, particularly in the 80s, was not usually the best. More often than not, they recycled backgrounds, voices, etc, all as a way to cut costs. Bringing one of these shows to the big screen required an upgrade in how it would be made. It is more than obvious that time was spent adding detail to the characters. For instance, in an early scene where Optimus Prime is rolling through Autobot City, you can see the shine on his grill and the reflection of the Decepticons he runs over. A few minutes of extra work and detail went a long way!

New and old. As time has passed, it has become public knowledge that this film was made to discontinue most of the old toys and introduce the new batch. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but I do wish they would have found a better way to pass the torch, as it were. In the first few minutes of this film, many of the characters we became attached to in the original series were unceremoniously ended with one shot. On the flip side, the new characters, such as Hot Rod, Springer, Kup, the Junkions, Galvatron, the Quintessons, etc, are introduced without skipping a beat. Are they replacements for what we’ve lost? No, but they can form there own connections with the audience.

Soundtrack. From the opening rock beat of Lion’s cover of the Transformers theme to the whimsical strains of Weird Al’s “Dare to Be Stupid”, and culminating in the uplifting “You’ve Got the Touch” by Stan Bush, this soundtrack brings it all and really sets the mood for the actions on the screen. This is a soundtrack heavily rooted in the 80s and it is just as enjoyable nearly 40 years later as it was when it was originally released. Aside from the soundtrack, the score, by Vince DiCola, set the stage nicely for all the major and minor events that happen in this film.

What didn’t I like?

Mistakes. There are quite a few mistakes in the picture. I’m not talking like Galvatron’s orange cannon being purple in one scene, no there are scenes where dead characters appear out of nowhere, one of the Dinobots is missing for all but one scene, some colors are mixed up, etc. For a major motion picture such as this, these are mistakes that should not have happened. From my understanding, there was a bit of a rush in this production. That still doesn’t excuse all the mistakes. The people wants quality and most of these mistakes could have been avoided had they just taken a little bit more time, rather than slapping it all together.

Shark planet. As many times as I have seen this film, the scene where Hot Rod, Kup, and the Dinobots land on the planet of the Sharkticons just brings everything to a grinding halt, save for the universal greeting. Other than setting up the Quintessons as a bit of a threat for the upcoming season of the show, there really was no point to these scenes. Crash landing on the planet is one thing but this is the part of the film that stop short of grinding to a halt. Thanks goodness for the scenes happening on the planet of Junk.

Orson Welles. Sometimes actors will pass away before their final project is finished, or while it is in post-production, never seeing the final product. Some of these cases have resulted in their last film being horrible or forgettable. In the case of Orson Welles, who voices Unicron, I do not think it would have mattered had he lived to see this film’s release because the director had to re-record and mix his lines thank to Welles’s poor health. It makes one wonder how menacing Unicron would have been had Welles done this in his prime.

Final verdict:

What did I think of Transformers: The Movie? This is a film that holds a special place in my heart, as it is one the first films I saw in theaters. Also, being an 80s kid, Transformers were some of my go to toys. The film, on paper, isn’t really that great, but it does what it is supposed to do, introduce new characters, entertain, and sell toys. Each time I watch this film, I am entertained and my mouth waters for more. Do I recommend it? Yes, thought I am a bit of a fanboy, I highly encourage you to check this out!

5 out of 5 stars

What’s good? #41

With so much stuff on Netflix, it can be a little overwhelming finding something to watch, especially when one scrolls through and half of what they see are foreign flicks and tv shows that they have absolutely no interest in. With that said, the purpose of these weekly posts is to share something that i watch on the service. Hopefully it will help someone find something new…or keep them from something they might have wasted their time with otherwise.

This week I’m going to cover…

Genre: Anime, action/adventure
Duration: 1 seasons (6 episodes; ~23 min each)
Cast: Jake Foushee, Jason Marnocha, Todd Haberkorn, Edward Bosco, Joe Zieja,  Linsay Rousseau, Keith Silverstein

Growing up in the 80s, Transformers were one of the biggest franchises for boys, along with G.I. Joe, He-Man, and Thundercats. Some 40 years later and while the other franchises are still around, none have been as consistent as the Transformers. Part of this is because of the constant reinvention, while keeping with the original designs, rather than trying to turn them into giant messes of metal, gears, and sharp angles (I’m looking at you, Michael Bay!) Transformers: War for Cybertron: Siege is a darker story than we are used to from the Transformers universe, but the character design is from G1.

I don’t know if this is meant to be a stand alone project (this is the first of a trilogy)or a reboot of the franchise. I say this because it seems to be a prequel to what we already know about the Transformers. Optimus Prime, who one youtuber jokingly refers to as “Robo-Jesus”, is known for his confident leadership skills and amazing fighting abilities, yet in this we see him get his butt handed to him in his first fight and he is constantly second guessing his decisions. Not quite the Prime we are familiar with, but it seems that he will grow into the role. Along that same vein, Megatron is not quite the sadistic leader of the Decepticons that we know, either. He seems to be more sympathetic in this iteration, either because they flesh him out or because he hasn’t fully developed into who he will be, as well.

With the differences in this universe, for lack of a better term, there is still some familiarity. Starscream is still slimy, sycophant, suck up who will do anything to advance in the ranks. Wheeljack, Ratchet, and Red Alert are still medic and inventors, though not as we may know them, best. Ultra Magnus is the consummate soldier. Shockwave will do anything Megatron says. I appreciate that they didn’t change the characteristics of these characters I’ve known for decades.

The animation is a blend of CG and cell shading. I was quite fascinated with the look. Normally, I would complain about how it should be hand drawn, but considering this is on Cybertron, a fully robotic world, I figure that would take some work to pull off, so I’ll allow it.

Speaking of Cybertron, how is it that a robotic planet has clouds and rain? What is it watering? There is no organic life that I am aware of. The last couple of episodes that I have watched have featured rain and it has left me perplexed.

Another thing that I really didn’t care for are the lips. There are versions of the Transformers that have lips and some that don’t. I prefer them to not have lips, personally. There seems to be no purpose for them to have lips. In the original, I believe the female Autobots and maybe the post-movie Transformers had lips, but they weren’t anywhere near as pronounced as these. Megatron, in particular, reminds of “pretty Squidward” with the lips they put on him. In some ways, they take away from his menace.

I mentioned earlier the character design coming from G1. The difference this time around, though, is that there are signs of battle damage and robotic parts that weren’t part of the original design, for obvious reasons.

Voice acting is…well, if you’re expecting the iconic voices of Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, you’ll be disappointed. That said, the cast does a pretty good job. There is nothing to complain about. I will give props to the voice actor behind Starscream’s voice for his obvious attempt to recreate Chris Latta’s take, it isn’t the same, but you can tell he is trying to pay homage.

There is lots of action, but little transforming, which I found odd. On the plus side, you get all Transformers all the time. No humans stealing the spotlight away from what you really came to see. Hopefully the forthcoming chapters will keep it that way,

If you’re into Transformers, particularly the G1 series, then you should check this out. If that’s not your cup of tea, this is still worth watching, if for no other reason than it showcases some grand action. Only 6 episodes, what are you going to lose?

Movie Review: Bumblebee

PLOT:

On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns this is no ordinary, yellow VW bug.

REVIEW:

What did I like?

Taking it back to the old school. I grew up in the 80s, so it pretty much goes without saying that Transformers were a big part of my childhood, both as toys (Bumblebee may have been my first) and as a cartoon, not to mention the comic. When Michael Bay’s Transformers was released in 2007, I was super excited about it, but underwhelmed and a little upset about the new designs. Fast forward to this film where Travis Knight, who actually is a fan of the property gives us Transformers that are what we all expected to see back in ’07. On top of that, this is set in the 80s, which makes perfect sense for this franchise!

Bigger isn’t always better. Explosions are a signature of Michael Bay, along with patriotism and scantily clad females. Bumblebee does have a few explosions but, unlike in the Bay movies, these are few and far between, only happening when needed so as to not take away from the story and character development going on with Bumblebee and his human companion, Charlie, played by Hailee Steinfeld.

Humanism. A common complaint that I have with these films is the constant use of humans as opposed to the robots. In a movie called Transformers the focus should be on them. With this film, I still feel the same, but Steinfeld is much more of a likable and relatable character than Shia Lebouef and Mark Wahlberg’s protagonists were, which makes the time spent on her actually worth watching. Also, many of her scenes are with Bumblebee, rather than some random fleshbags wasting oxygen and screen time.

What didn’t I like?

Family matters. Continuing on the topic of Steinfeld’s Charlie, we could have done without her family drama. Sure, it helped to make her a sympathetic character, but there was a part of me that was feeling as if this was doing nothing more than pad out run time, at the expense of developing the villains.

Military. A huge pet peeve I have with movies is how trigger happy the military tends to be, often time causing more problems that they are supposed to be solving. When we first see them doing some sort of recreational training exercise, Bumblebee crashes to Earth and gets spotted. Immediately, they assume he is a threat and go on the offensive, even after seeing him attacked by the Decepticon jet, Blitzwing! To their credit, this isn’t the Army, Navy, Air Force, etc., but rather Sector 7, the secret government agency, in this universe, that protects the planet from alien invasions and whatnot. There is even a small cameo by a young Agent Simmons!

Triple goop. The Triple changer toys were awesome, from what i recall. As the toyline came to an end, they started bringing in 6 changers! What is my problem with the triple changers in the film? Well, first thing is the irony of introducing triple changers and then having Blitzing, who was an actual triple changer trick fans in the trailer into thinking he was Starscream. Next, i appreciate the new characters, but they could have very easily used Blitzwing, Astrotrain, Octane, etc., for the villains. Hell, they could have even uses Thundercracker and Skywarp or Thrust and Dirge, at least these would have been a connection to the G1 lore that, let’s face, most of the audience that saw this and keeps these movies in production wants to see. Lastly, Dropkick is quick to kill humans, but when he does, they turn into this silvery goop, which is never explained. My theory is to keep from having blood on the screen, but that could have been handled by not having him kill everyone!

Final verdict: As a Transformers fanboy, Bumblebee rocketed up my anticipation list the moment I saw how it was a love letter to G1 and not a bunch of whirling parts where the audience can’t tell who’s who. The opening scene on Cybertron turned me back into a 6 yr old watching the cartoon (side note: I did go see the re-release of the 80s movie in theaters back in September and had a similar reaction), as did a scene near the film’s end, which I will not spoil. The plot is a little thin, but no one comes into a movie like this expecting some award-winning writing. I liked that Steinfeld’s character was likable and that she didn’t try to steal the spotlight from Bumblebee in his own movie, but now I’m wondering where is she now, in relation to the current films. Hmmm…

4 out of 5 stars