The Follow Up to My Transformers Review

I've never done this before. I've never felt the need to actually respond to comments I've received about something I've written. Maybe I went a little bit too far. Maybe I should...

Nope. I'm not taking none of it back. This movie sucked.

I don't know what cartoons in the 80's has to do with anything. We're not talking about the cartoon. We're talking about the movie. But since cartoons were brought up, every cartoon has episodes where the title character isn't the focus. I wasn't paying nine bucks to watch them, either.

And since black characters in cartoons were brought up, I was never big on them, either. Jazz in the show never embarrassed me. Roadblock did. And Jazz in the movie made me roll my eyes. I'm glad he died. But just because the cartoon did it makes it okay for the movie do it almost 25 years later?

I never brought up dialogue outside of one line delivered by Prime. But since it was brought up, just because the dialogue on the cartoon wasn't that good, doesn't excuse the movie from having corny dialogue in any way, shape, or form. No one spent $200 million on an episode of Transformers.

I never said I expected this movie to be like the cartoon. There isn't a person in this life or the next who has ever heard me say that or express this sentiment. I always knew it wasn't going to be like the cartoon. And I went into the theater with low expectations. It's just always sad when you even your lowered expectations are exceeded.

I never said anything about Transformer names not making sense. I just never liked that Bumblebee wasn't a Volkswagen, and allegedly, that one wasn't Michael Bay's fault. Score one for him.

Regarding the Autobots being completely useless: Man, it's a two-and-a-half hour movie. I don't have time for Prime to learn how to man-up and fight his sworn enemies. He's been at it for a million years. If he can't get it now, he's never gonna get it.

Regarding what Michael Bay wanted to show in this movie: I already saw Armageddon. I already know how he thinks the U.S. Government would react to a threat from outer space. He just threw some Independence Day in there for good measure.

Someone tell me this...was ANYTHING that was going on with the Army, Sector Seven, the hot chick (she was okay), the hacker, and the other computer people even necessary? No, for real...that was integral to the story?

I have to admit, there were a couple of moments in this movie that gave me goosebumps. I think all of them were during times when Prime was talking. There were a couple of moments here and there that were pretty exciting. But when they're spaced out by things like the guided tour around the SECRET FACILITY or some half-assed love story or finding out if Tyrese and Johnny Knoxville are going to get to where they're going, I was yelling at the screen "GET THE FUCK ON WITH IT!" Seriously...I don't care. Outside of Sam himself, there wasn't a single human being in this movie that they couldn't do without and I will argue with anyone on that point. Now, if you were able to look past that...fine. But for me, I paid nine bucks to see giant robots. I know I've said that a lot, but that's my problem with this movie. I didn't get what I paid to see.

There's nothing I said where I complained about changing the mythos of the cartoon or comic book. Say what you want...the movie got judged on its own merits. In fact, everyone else did all the nitpicking about the cartoon. I mentioned the cartoon one time, and that was when talking about Bumblebee. And even that is minor, because he could have been a Volkswagen with Mr. Fusion powered time-circuits, wings, and a horn that's powered by love and happiness, and the movie still wouldn't have been good.

I don't dislike things because they're not like the source material...except for Resident Evil, because they didn't even try. They could have called that movie Speed Hyper Death Kill Zombie Ultramix 4 and you would have never known the difference. But the thing is, just put a good movie out there. I thought Spider-Man was a good movie. The first time I saw X-Men, I thought it was good. Batman Begins was flat out awesome. I watch Smallville religiously. Teen Titans was one of the best comic related cartoons ever. And none of those things is completely true to the source material. But what they are is well written. They didn't make me want to leave the theater (or change the channel) when there wasn't something exploding on screen. Transformers can't say that.

Overall, it was like being on Jackass. Yeah, you get brief moments of fame and a little bit of money...but look at what you had to go through to get there. If you had completed the 7th grade like your mother said, you wouldn't have to swim in raw sewage to pay your rent.

Oh, and Shia LeBeouf was great. I can't wait to see him in something that's actually good.

Transformers: Ass Pain From Beyond the Stars

I just have to get this out there: Stop trying to ruin my childhood.

Hollywood clearly has a vendetta against me, because they keep trying to kill any positive memory I have of my life before the age of adulthood. They were some pretty good times, from what I remember, and for the most part, I was happy. Why, Hollywood? Why would you want to take that from me?

The latest death strike against my happiness was called “Transformers,” which must be Hollywood-ese for “attractive people doing stuff with flashy camera angles.” It was a movie that I wasn’t asking for and probably could have gone the rest of my life never wanting to see. I already saw the Transformers movie, back in 1986. It was called “Transformers: The Movie,” and it came out at a time when the word “Transformers” still meant “giant robots that punch each other.” I was tricked into seeing it by four so-called friends who swore to me that it was awesome. But it wasn’t, and I hate you all. Don’t let me see you in the street.

The movie, despite the extremely leading title, was really about a boy named Sam who was a budding huckster with no ties to his family, because for most of the movie, he was trying to sell off valuable family mementos so he could buy a car for himself. And one of those mementos was a pair of glasses that the hapless Autobots would need to find the thing that created their entire race. Meanwhile, the Decepticons were using their natural robotic gifts, like hacking into computers and killing things, to reach the same goal. I wouldn’t doubt it if the Decepticons had spent the last million years giving the Autobots swirlies and stuffing them into lockers, because if the Autobots couldn’t figure out that they were also highly advanced robots that could talk to our primitive computers, they deserve to lose.

But, because they had the humans on their side, led by Sam the Invincible, the Autobots triumphed in the end. Lucky for them that everything landed on Earth, so their weak-kneed leader, Optimus Prime, could lean on the broad shoulders of Sam Witwicky. Good thing they didn’t land on the Planet of the Apes or the place where the Klingons live, because Prime would have been in SO MUCH trouble. By God, Sam doesn’t live on the Planet of the Apes.

It really is just that bad. There isn’t a single thing that the Autobots can accomplish for the entire movie without Sam or some other human holding their hands through it all. Maybe all of them should have transformed into short buses, because there wasn’t a robot among them who wasn’t almost fatally retarded. I swear there was a part where they had to call poison control because Bumblebee couldn’t stop drinking Drain-O.

And that’s what I don’t like about this movie. It’s about the damn humans. I said a year and a half ago that if I wanted to see movie about humans doing stuff, I’d watch damn near anything else, because when a Transformers movie comes out, I want to see giant robots punching each other. This sort of approach works if the evil thing looking to destroy mankind isn’t interesting (like an asteroid), or can’ts speak for itself (like Aliens or Predators) but the Transformers written properly have more personality than the half-developed human characters that make up this movie. There’s the hot chick who can fix cars, there’s the black guy, there’s the socially awkward nerd, there’s the mean military guy. You’ve seen these characters in other movies, and they were probably also directed by Michael Bay.

But not only do they manage to make giant robots uninteresting, they make them generic and unable to be told apart. I’ve put together more exciting movies with the toys in my room. The best part is when Six-Shot stops humping Barbie, then scolds Batman for being a child molester. Little boys in speedos hanging around with reclusive billionaires can’t be a good thing.

There was a scene in the movie where the Decepticons start attacking the Autobots, and there was a pause in the action for almost a full minute because we had to watch the hot chick and Sam make eye contact and reach for each other. In the middle of a battlefield. With missles and giant robots flying overhead. Because when you’re surrounded by world-ending destruction, you might as well try and get some first. And when the shit’s going down and there are arms and heads and shit flying all over the place, who actually needs to see it, when you can see the blossoming romance between Sam and his stroke-material?

When they actually did give the robots screen-time, most of it was taken up by Bumblebee and a robot that transforms into a clock radio. Clock Radio (because they couldn’t be bothered to give him a name) was clearly inspired by some of the Star Wars droids, because not only was he one of the few robots who did ANYTHING without human assistance, he made all sorts of cute bleeps and bloops and bounced off of walls and stuff. He was kind of like an evil R2-D2.

Bumblebee was Sam’s car who loved Sam so much that he looked 20 years into Sam’s future and saw that he was never getting laid. Because Bumblebee couldn’t pleasure him without violating the laws of nature, he decided to try to get him some from the hot chick. Why was he named Bumblebee? Because there had to be a character named Bumblebee. And because making him a Volkswagen Beetle like he was in the cartoon would have made his name make too much sense, they made him a Mustang and hoped no one would notice. Then, they made his robot form look like a bumblebee. Problem solved.

And where is it written that all black people in movies have to be loud, full of jokes, and able to dance? I swear, even the black robot fit that description, and couldn’t make it through his introduction without cussing and break dancing. Luckily for us all, he was killed, filling in another requirement for black people in movies: the black guy always dies. Normally, this would upset me, but since he was the proof that cooning even takes place amongst the stars, I took it as a mercy killing.

Well, what about the CGI? Because after all, that’s what we came to see, right? It would have been good if they had allowed you to actually see it. There were times when they were standing around and talking and that looked okay. But when the fights started…because the robots themselves look so plain and indistinct, you just get a blur of metal pieces every time the robots fight each other. That’s right, the last 30 minutes of the movie looked like a spin cycle with metal shards in it.

Overall, this movie was just an extreme letdown. You’d think that a movie that was about giant, shape-changing, robots from another world that hate each other and fight would have been enough, but when your name is Michael Bay, you have to add flashy camera tricks, jokes, and a scene where The Autobots have to hide in Sam’s backyard so his parents don’t see them. Yeah, as ridiculous as it sounds to hear about 30 foot tall robots that shake the ground when they walk trying to hide in a residential area, imagine having to sit through it. Optimus Prime breaks something and says, “My bad.” Oh, the comedy gold!

As a result of the tinkering, my worst fears were realized: A shit movie where the title characters became background players was released to the world. And people have been led to believe it was a good movie, and as a result, I was led to believe that I should see it. A movie about cybernetic beings from beyond the stars who have been waging war on each other for millions of years, and yet when they get to Earth, they become so inept that they have to depend on a 17 year old nerd virgin and the cool kids from your high school to survive. Because if “Transformers” taught us nothing else, it’s that the world can only be saved by the attractive. Jesus Christ, this is what Michael Bay has spent $200 million dollars on.

Look, I really tried to like this movie. I gave it a chance. I really did. I knew it wasn’t going to be anything Oscar-worthy, or even Tony-award worthy, but maybe if Michael Bay put as much effort into making his movie as I did into liking it, we’d all be in a better place right now. Instead, with the combined effort that we both put forth, neither of us accomplished what we set out to do.

Bring on the Underdog movie, so I can go ahead and drink that cup of bleach and end my suffering.