"Feed Them to the Sharkticons!"

Like everyone else who grew up in the 80’s, I’ve seen the new live-action Transformers movie by now. It only came out a few days ago, but I’m sure mostly everyone who’s going to see it has. Whether you know anything about Transformers or not, this movie will hurt. It’s not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s not good. Half the internet is consumed by partisan rambling; so my own review isn’t that special. If you’re like me, you don’t read any of those; and the best way to judge this movie is to see it for yourself.

That being said, there are spoilers coming up. So, if you know you want to see this movie; read this later.

This movie is proudly middle-of-the-road. The effects are amazing (when you can see them) and the human characters are well-done. I’m not one of the elite cyber geeks who deny the original animated movie ever existed. I’m not here to wail about flames on Optimus Prime or how Sound Wave isn’t in the movie. I’m actually amused that Michael Bay has willfully screwed with those people. Maybe this will take some of the heat off the creators of Beast Wars and Beast Machines – who I was surprised to learn had received actual death threats!

Despite hope that a summer blockbuster would turn a new generation on to Transformers, the audience for this movie is clear. Still, after all the nerd backlash and pandering to obsessed fans, this is the movie they made? It’s really weird how much swearing there is. Everyone made a big stink about Spike cursing in the first movie. Jazz’s first line in this film is “How’s it going, little bitches”?

No, seriously.

This whole movie felt like a rehash of Small Soldiers. It even had that ‘thing that brings machines to life’. I’m not sure why it turned everything into a Decepticon. If you transformed into a Mountain Dew vending machine, you’d be pissed too. I guess it’s great for product placement though. Cell phones, soda machines, brand name cars – they all appear to help transform this movie into some cash.

People should know this won't be the same as they remember. It’s depressing to think how many people from the original TF movie are dead now – or are on their way to “join with the matrix”. Hugo Weaving is an awesome Megatron. He doesn’t really appear until the final act, but he reminds you why you came to this movie. As for his promised bickering with Star Scream, it’s only one line – the one line Star Scream has in this entire movie. They don’t even give him the dignity of a whiny “Megatron is dead! Now I am in command”!

The Decepticons really aren't in the movie that much. The whole giant robot thing seems to be a convenient veneer to hide the filmakers' politcal commentary - which is fine by me. There's a fake Bush - and is it just me, or does John Voigt look a little like Rumsfeld? To identify them as the bad guys, the Decepticons are given no personalities and very little dialogue. Apparently, they're not all that menacing to the Autobots; but until Optimus Prime kills them, the Decepticons are slaughtering humans left and right. The way they finally defeat Megatron is just stupid. Prime goes on the entire movie about how he's willing to sacrifice himself to destroy the All-Spark -- then they just ram it into Megs and watch him explode.

Real original, jerk hole! All that fuss for nothing...

Overall, I give this movie a C. It really didn't need to be made, and it feels like it was overhyped. Half the things you hear regarding the characters is just idle chit-chat from the filmmakers. It really is a human-centric movie. I don't care about changing characters around, since I already knew they were doing that. I went into this movie with a positive attitude and an open mind. It was still bad, but not as horrible as a lot of dateless forum fascists dreaded it would be.