Michael Bay, take a chill pill...

Okay, I am going to fully admit that I should have written this last weekend, shortly after seeing the movie. My mind was whirring with blog thoughts as soon as I walked out of the theater. But, alas, here I am, a week later. So, here goes.

Before I say anything, I must defer to, reference, and worship two epic pieces of writing by critic Roger Ebert. Both refer to Transformers, so I'm not sending you off on a wild goose chase, and I highly recommend you take a moment to read. (You will laugh, I promise you).
His official review, and His more general blog about the film

Now, first off, I did not hate the second Transformers film the way Ebert did. Although, I don't think it's possible to hate it as much as he did. Overall, I thought it was fun, loud, probably a bit much but an overall "okay/pretty good" movie. I do recognize several points of Ebert's as highly valid - but I'll come back to this.

I've said this before with another movie, but I'm going to reiterate the point. Transformers is the kind of movie where you have to know what you're walking into. Don't expect more than you're going to get... this is an action film, designed around a TOY (Hasbro is listed with the production companies, for Pete's sake), with CGI Robots as many of the main characters, and a simple melodramatic plot to fill out the rest. It is full of action sequences, explosions, loud noises, and thumping music. This movie is not about PLOT or emotions. If you saw and liked the first Transformers film, you will probably enjoy this one as well. It will not be life-changing (and I would definitely say it's not as good as the first, which I really thought was fairly good), but overall, it was a pretty fun way to spend two and half hours.

One thing I highly admire is the increasingly accurate ability to give non-human, computerized characters a great deal of "realness." While this movie doesn't come close to, say, WALL-E, (which was incredible...) I do feel somewhat attached to characters like Bumblebee and Optimus Prime, and even the little "dog" bot from this film. Additionally, I am of the opinion that Shia LaBeouf (whose name I always have difficulty spelling) is a gifted young actor with a long career ahead of him, and I have to say, is a guy whom I highly admire. I have a few pet peeves with Megan Fox in real life, but her character was just fine for a hot girl required to run around a lot and then look lusty.

So, I would say that this is a great FUN summer movie, which is clearly destined to make loads of money. If you want to see it, go for it! Don't let reviews like Ebert's scare you away. But make sure you're not holding any high (or even low) expectations for the film. Just go and enjoy the spectacle.

Now, to address a few of the points that Ebert makes, particularly in his more general blog post (this part may be more relevant if you've seen the movie already...) Michael Bay is a bit out of control. With the first film, at least he strung together the big action sequences with a fairly interesting plot. With this one, I'd say it was the other way around. Plot pieces were just thrown in there - some scenes, like Ebert says - could easily have come from another movie. However, I don't think this movie is the pinnacle of Hollywood's big overblown CGI phase. After all, just look at the trailer for 2012, a movie from Roland Emmerich, a man who is easily competing for the title of Hollywood's biggest computer-generated-pyromaniac... (Go on, take a look - I'll wait.)

Second, YES, this movie will make a LOT of money. I mean, it did $201 million in the first five days of release, a number that is only just shy of The Dark Knight (I'm still a bit peeved that a movie like Transformers could even come CLOSE to touching The Dark Knight, but oh well.) But, I'd like to point out that the movie likely (and with good reason) cost more than $200 to make.... so they're probably just starting to earn it back. Along that line, I was a bit stunned when watching the credits to see that the film had FOUR producers AND another FOUR executive producers (including Michael Bay himself and Steven Spielburg somewhere in that list). It's hard to believe how many people it took to fund this film. But, back to my point. This film will probably continue to keep making a lot of money. I mean, all the way to Harry Potter's release soon (wait for it - SQUEEEE!), it's one of the only big Blockbusters that will potentially reach a broad summer audience on the market right now. But, really, money doesn't tell you that much. After all, worse films (*cough*Spiderman3*cough*) have made oodles of cash.

Ebert discusses in detail the way this film "assaults the senses." In all honesty, this may be an age barrier. I found the booming sound effects and soundtrack to be exhilarating, to add to the adrenaline of the movie. Along these lines, I just want to address the structure of the film. YES, there are many action sequences, not just ONE climactic scene... And YES, it is awfully long. But, honestly, for me, it just kind of hit a plateau of action, keeping the level of excitement high, carrying you along to the end. I didn't notice time dragging at all, really.

So, this is becoming a ramble now and I will wrap it up. Yes, this movie is ACTION-PACKED (it may redefine that term). Yes, it is BIG and COMMERCIAL and BLOCKBUSTER-y. And, yes, critics are NOT going to like it. But, I saw it, liked it, and will probably see more Transformers flicks if (or should I say when?) they're released. I'm not going to say you "should" or "shouldn't" see this film, but it certainly started the big summer movie season off with a BANG.

Cheers. <3>