Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 8

Transformers, the live action movie. The very idea had gave me a roller coaster of emotions. On the one hand, this was the movie I had wanted to see since before I could walk, on the other hand, this was the movie I had wanted to see since before I could walk. It was a movie that could go very very well or a movie that could go very very bad.

It ended up somewhere in between. It was surprisingly good, but it could have been better.

The movie is about the Transformers quest to find the Allspark, a power source which can give life to random machines (Vector Sigma in a handy cube form, for fans of the original). The Autobots want to use it to restore their dying home world, Cybertron, the Decepticons want to form an army to conquer the Universe. A fairly typical Transformers type plot.

The film starts with a sceen showing some army guys talking and straight away the crucial error is made. The focus of the movie lies far too much with people. Regular guys.

Almost imediately this sceen is followed by a Decepticon attack, which is incredibly cool to watch, but no detail is ever followed up as to the Decepticon’s background.

*Spoilers*

Apart from Bumblebee, who despite not saying anything still manages to be cool, the other Autobots do not arrive until an hour into the film. They are then given a few sceens, but nothing major. Only Optimus Prime and, to a lesser degree, Ironhide come across as having any character at all. When Jazz is brutally murdered, it’s very difficult to care. His character is not even slightly developed and he’s different enough from the original cartoons so that not even hardcore fans will feel connected.

The Decepticons are recieve even less character development. Megatron and Starscream don’t appear until almost two hours into the film, Megatron spending the entire time in a giant freezer. The whole Megatron – Starscream love hate relationship, a very key feature of the original cartoons, is given only one line, when Megatron announces Starscream has failed him “Once again.”

Presumably, when doing a live action, it’s just alot easier to focus on real people than imaginary robots. But it’s the imaginary robots we came to see. No one cares about some girl working for some computer type people and her friend the hacker.

On the positive side, the transformers are incredibly cool to watch and certain moments will make real fans incredibly happy, no matter how much they want to hate it. For example, anyone with any claim to being a fan could not help themselves at bubbling up with glee when Optimus Prime announces,

“One shall stand, one shall fall.”

 

Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 1

“Transformers” heavy on action, light on story

Longtime fans of the “Transformers” toy and cartoon series were outraged when it was announced that Michael Bay would direct the live action adaptation. Those fans had no need to worry. After seeing his vision of “Transformers,” it is obvious that no one but Bay could have made this movie work.

The cartoon series always had the simplest of plots, so animators could cut to the big fight scenes and allow kids to hurry out and make their parents buy the toys. It’s only fitting that a faithful adaptation of a cartoon would feature a thin plot heavy on action and adrenaline-pumping excitement but light on actual plot. “Transformers” fit the description of a Michael Bay film perfectly before it was even made.

Bay has a talent for crafting visually vibrant action sequences, almost always at the expense of character development (see “The Rock” for a best-case example and “Pearl Harbor” for a worst-case example). With this film, Bay gets to show off his skills at getting gigantic computer-generated robots to smash into each other. Every trick in his book-overdone explosions, heavily reliance on slow motion, quick edits-is on display here. Again, the plot in his film is a meager formality; for Bay, he earns his money on the action sequences, and with “Transformers,” he earned himself a big payday.

The plot focuses on the civil war between two races of living robots from the planet Cybertron. The beings from the planet get into a huge fight over control of a cube called the “Allspark,” which is composed of pure energy. The destructive Decepticons, led by the evil Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving) want to use it for nefarious purposes, while the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen) want its power for good.

The war causes Cybertron to be destroyed and the allspark to be thrown across the universe. The transformers track the cube to Earth. The Decepticons arrive first and attack U.S. troops stationed in Qatar in order to infiltrate military software and discover the cube’s whereabouts.

Meanwhile, a nerdy teenager named Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) discovers that the beat-up old Camaro he just bought seems to be coming to life. It is actually the Autobot Bumblebee (voiced by Mark Ryan). Bumblebee is on a mission to locate Sam, whose grandfather first encountered the cube in 1895. Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and the Autobots must now find the cube and destroy it before the

 

Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 15

In the interest of full disclosure I’m going to confess before I say anything else that I knew absolutely nothing about the Transformers before yesterday other than they were toys that have been hanging around for about the last twenty-five years or so. I have never seen their animated television program or read their comic books, or played one of their video games, so I had about as much interest in the movie as most men have in picking out wedding china. And here I was, surrounded by hundreds of men, anxiously waiting for the film to begin. The Transformers are obviously a magnet for testosterone as the audience was ripe with the buzz of male energy. Tim Allen would have been proud. I haven’t seen so many butch straight guys like that all in one room since that night in 1978 at a back bar in Tulsa, OK after a Hell’s Angels convention rolled into town, but that is a story for another place and time.

As for the Transformers themselves, well, the movie was everything a Transformers fan could hope for (I suppose). Considering the opening credits began with “Presented by Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Productions” and then “Hasbro Toys” I found it hard not to burst into fits of laughter, but considering I was surrounded by a group of men that looked like they could tear the heart out of a deer while it was still alive I did my best to stifle all of my natural reactions.

There was a brief prologue to the story for novices like myself that would have probably been best left out because it buzzed by so quickly and was so complicated with its extraterrestrial visuals literally swirling around in circles while we were fed a voiceover explaining the history of the Transformers, with the “good” Autobots and the “evil” Decepticons (with a name like that how could they not be evil? Then there was some blah, blah about the Allspark, a cube that looked like that thing from the Hellraiser movies that opens the doors to Hades and frees the wicked Pinhead; either that, or it could be a gigantic Borg cube that houses a colony of thousands of Borg drones like in Star Trek: First Contact coming to destroy earth and assimilate the population. Sorry, but there weren’t any pictures of the thing except of it floating alone in space, so it was impossible to tell how big it was. The problem is the sci fi hokum already seems so familiar that it is distracting. I was glad when the action switched to earth, where the all-important cube apparently landed a hundred years ago after

 

Video game reviews: Transformers (Wii)

From the block buster hit Transformers: The Movie, Activision brings Transformers: The Game to the Nintendo Wii, as well as other platforms. A war rages on earth between the Autobots and Decepticons, a battle between good and evil. Allowing you the gamer to decide which side you wish to fight for. Which ever side you swear your allegiance to you be put into essentially an open world. Where you can roam the surrounding area or accept mission objectives. Do not mistake Transformers version of a free roaming environment with the likes of Grand Theft Auto. Your progression through out the game is extremely linear. You will be assigned one new mission upon completion of the previous one. Although, most of the surrounding environment is interactive, allowing you pick and hurl items around. There is little satisfaction to be had with terrorizing the local inhabitants.

This all fails in comparison with the weak control system of the game. Transformers is a third person shooter using the analog stick on your nunchuck moves you bot around,

and the IR is used to aim. This is where most of my grumbling comes from in this game. Often, if an enemy is behind you it will take sometime before you will be able to turn a full 180 degrees and return fire. A major problem for a game brings plenty and fast action.

Transformers also proved to be a very shallow game. Missions eventually become boring and repetitive, shoot this blow up that. All without ever really changing how you have to play the game. A few things like bonus content or trying to find 100 energon cubes, provides a little more depth to the game. However, with the problems in controls and a lack luster story line, the same old recover the “Allspark” “protect the world” theme. I could only imagine why anyone would want to play this game other than to just beat it and be done with it.

Game Play Score: 6/10

Controls ruin what could have been a very enjoyable game. IR controls are very sluggish in responding to movement

Graphics Score: 7/10

The game looks pretty good in 480p with 16:9 wide-screen. Cinematic look great and the open worlds look pretty decent.

Audio Score: 6/10

Boring music from the movie and no use of the Wii Remote speaker makes the audio experience a dud.

Creativity/Innovation Score: 5/10

Transformers makes little use of the Wii controls. Waggle to throw a punch, point to shoot. both feel unresponsive and have been done better by other games.

Replay Value Score: 5/10

Bonus content, pictures and images of old transformers, does not make up for a lousy battles/missions that become boring and repetitive real fast.

Final Score: 5/10

A playable and passable game but I would not recommended it to anyone other than those die hard fans of the Transformers series.

 

Transformers DS: The Final Battle (Decepticons)

 

A Must love Movie Transformers

Transformers are robots from the planet Cybertron divided into two powerful groups namely Autobots led by Optimus Prime and the Decepticons led by Megatron. The story began during the Cybertronian Civil War. When all transformers search for the Allspark, a large cube of energy that grant eternal life to mechanical objects and where the source of of all Transformer’s lives. And finding out that the cube landed on the planet, Earth. Later it was discovered by the U.S Government and the built a Dam making it as a research facility for it. Megatron later on found out that it was there on earth but as he went to earth, accidentally he crash-landed in Artic Ocean and was frozen. Years had passed and he was found and brought to the same facility where Allspark is located. Autobots were dispersed throughout the entire universe. Optimus Prime’s group traveled to earth in search of the Allspark. However, Decepticons follows. Transformers can change in an instant from the body of common objects usually vehicles to physically grown robots.

There are many characters of Transformers and i apologize that i cant include them all because Transformers change quite several times since it was first aired decades ago.

Here are the lists of the Transformers The Movie(2007) directed by Michael Bay:

Autobots

Optimus Prime-

Peter Cullen voices Optimus Prime. Disguised as a Peterbilt truck. Leader of the Autobots, dedicated himself to stop the Decepticons wherever and whenever they attack.

Bumblebee -

Mark Ryan voices Bumble Bee. Disguised as a 1976 Chevrolet Camaro, and upgrades into the 2009 model.

Cliffjumper-

1982 Porsche 924. Impulsive. Optimus Prime usually gives him advice about precaution.

Ironhide-

Jess Harnell voices Ironhide, a modified GMC TopKick C6500 . Autobot weapon specialist.

Ratchet-

Robert Foxworth voices Ratchet. Medic of the Autobots. Transforms into Search and rescue Hummer H2.

Jazz-

Darius McCrary voices Jazz. Second in command of the Autobot forces. A modified Pontiac Solstice in disguise.

Arcee-

Female Transformer once a member of a squad lead by Bumblebee on Cybertron.

Prowl-

1979 Nissan 280ZX Police Car . He operated Optimus Prime’s right-hand man in early episodes.

Decepticons

Megatron-

Hugo Weaving voices Megatron. Decepticon leader. Optimus calls Megatron his brother.

Starscream-

Charlie Adler voices Starscream, Megatron’s second-in-command. A Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor jet in disguised.

Frenzy-

Reno Wilson voices Frenzy. Decepticons spy who transforms into a boombox, and eventually into a mobile phone.

Barricade-

Jess Harnell voiced Barricade. Disguised as a Saleen Mustang police car.

Bonecrusher-

Jim Wood voices Bonecrusher, he attacks Optimus Prime along the highway to Mission City. Disguised as a Buffalo H Mine.]

Blackout-

Transforms into a MH-53J Pave Low III helicopter with his minion Scorponok.

Transformers became the highest grossing movie in the year 2007 all over the world. The film won number of awards and nominated several times for Academy Awards. Children and Adults were really into it and proven to be the “Must-Love Movie” of the year worldwide!