Review: Transformers
I will now irritate countless art-film fans by following up my single paragraph on Pan's Labyrinth with a full review of Transformers. Weeks later, even.
No, Transformers is not better than Pan's Labyrinth.
America did not invent the automobile or, depending on who you ask, the motion picture, but it introduced both to the mass market. While the age of American passenger cars that mean anything is long gone, the crowd-pleasing blockbuster is still defined overwhelmingly by work that takes place between the Golden State Freeway and the public-access-required beaches of Southern California's coast.
A case in point is Transformers, a film that astounds as much with its overly self-confident duration (144 minutes) and its obvious staggering cost as with its consistent humor and impeccable action craft. If you have to ask how much Transformers cost, your country's film industry can't afford it, and if you object that it's largely a product placement within a product placement, you don't get it. Transformers is a romp: a funny, preposterous, violent, and proudly idiotic film.
The atomically pure formula story throws suburban teenager Sam Witwicky (the Kevjumba-like Shia LaBeouf) into the middle of a battle between two factions of giant robots from an alien planet. One side likes humans and the other doesn't.
What triggers all this is Sam's purchase of his first car, the canonical bitchin' Camaro, a yellow 1970s example that along with the funk of a thousand bong hits harbors a strange emblem in the middle of the steering wheel. That's our clue that it's something a little, a little more, in the immortal words of David Lee Roth.
The first part of Transformers is suffused with teen-angst imagery that owes a lot to the era of that Camaro, which promptly gets geeky Sam very close to the hottest chick in school. On a hillside overlooking LA at sunset, even.
Then the CGI begins, and what amazing CGI it is. The transformers are all cars to start with, some of them rusty and dented cars, and those worn car parts stay on the robots after their transformations. They're fast and remarkably seamless transformations, too. Plus, these CGI creatures appear in full color in broad daylight, unlike the slate-gray renderings we're used to seeing in CGI. The robot characters belong on Saturday-morning TV -- which is where they originated, after all -- but the filmmakers know it. Transformers doesn't take itself seriously. And it's refreshing to see a sci-fi actioner that has nothing to do with human social problems. This is just between the aliens.
Combine a cartoon plot and male fascination with military might, however, and some lines are bound to be crossed. The film starts with the U.S. military fighting off the evil robots when they first land, which happens to be in the Middle East. Transformers not only glorifies violence and largely disregards its impact on the native population, it also has little time for the victims of battle among the military's own ranks. Taking it that one step beyond the typical dumb bravado of American war movies, in a time of war no less, is unconscionable.
That's an unfortunate blemish on a movie that for the most part is a pleasure to watch, thanks in part to its cast, including the likable LaBeouf, Rachael Taylor and Anthony Anderson as dueling computer geeks, and the stern Michael O'Neill, who gets to flesh out his recurring role as an all-business Secret Service officer on "The West Wing."
It's pure American blockbuster fare that with cliches and shorthands avoids the talk and emoting that bogged down Spider-Man 3 and Superman Returns. But there are interesting touches, too: For part of the film, the robots are battling over an antique pair of glasses, creating a clever juxtaposition of fragility and heft. And there are numerous nods to Asian action traditions, including Godzilla-like city-smashing and a Chow-Yun Fat gunplay move. Early in the movie, Sam says the robots must have come from Japan, a comment simultaneously on the monster-movie tradition, the robots' samurai-like appearance and America's insecurity about its industrial prowess as Toyota overtakes GM as the world's biggest automaker. Yet in an age of national anxiety, at its best Transformers reminds us what America still does best.
No, Transformers is not better than Pan's Labyrinth.
America did not invent the automobile or, depending on who you ask, the motion picture, but it introduced both to the mass market. While the age of American passenger cars that mean anything is long gone, the crowd-pleasing blockbuster is still defined overwhelmingly by work that takes place between the Golden State Freeway and the public-access-required beaches of Southern California's coast.
A case in point is Transformers, a film that astounds as much with its overly self-confident duration (144 minutes) and its obvious staggering cost as with its consistent humor and impeccable action craft. If you have to ask how much Transformers cost, your country's film industry can't afford it, and if you object that it's largely a product placement within a product placement, you don't get it. Transformers is a romp: a funny, preposterous, violent, and proudly idiotic film.
The atomically pure formula story throws suburban teenager Sam Witwicky (the Kevjumba-like Shia LaBeouf) into the middle of a battle between two factions of giant robots from an alien planet. One side likes humans and the other doesn't.
What triggers all this is Sam's purchase of his first car, the canonical bitchin' Camaro, a yellow 1970s example that along with the funk of a thousand bong hits harbors a strange emblem in the middle of the steering wheel. That's our clue that it's something a little, a little more, in the immortal words of David Lee Roth.
The first part of Transformers is suffused with teen-angst imagery that owes a lot to the era of that Camaro, which promptly gets geeky Sam very close to the hottest chick in school. On a hillside overlooking LA at sunset, even.
Then the CGI begins, and what amazing CGI it is. The transformers are all cars to start with, some of them rusty and dented cars, and those worn car parts stay on the robots after their transformations. They're fast and remarkably seamless transformations, too. Plus, these CGI creatures appear in full color in broad daylight, unlike the slate-gray renderings we're used to seeing in CGI. The robot characters belong on Saturday-morning TV -- which is where they originated, after all -- but the filmmakers know it. Transformers doesn't take itself seriously. And it's refreshing to see a sci-fi actioner that has nothing to do with human social problems. This is just between the aliens.
Combine a cartoon plot and male fascination with military might, however, and some lines are bound to be crossed. The film starts with the U.S. military fighting off the evil robots when they first land, which happens to be in the Middle East. Transformers not only glorifies violence and largely disregards its impact on the native population, it also has little time for the victims of battle among the military's own ranks. Taking it that one step beyond the typical dumb bravado of American war movies, in a time of war no less, is unconscionable.
That's an unfortunate blemish on a movie that for the most part is a pleasure to watch, thanks in part to its cast, including the likable LaBeouf, Rachael Taylor and Anthony Anderson as dueling computer geeks, and the stern Michael O'Neill, who gets to flesh out his recurring role as an all-business Secret Service officer on "The West Wing."
It's pure American blockbuster fare that with cliches and shorthands avoids the talk and emoting that bogged down Spider-Man 3 and Superman Returns. But there are interesting touches, too: For part of the film, the robots are battling over an antique pair of glasses, creating a clever juxtaposition of fragility and heft. And there are numerous nods to Asian action traditions, including Godzilla-like city-smashing and a Chow-Yun Fat gunplay move. Early in the movie, Sam says the robots must have come from Japan, a comment simultaneously on the monster-movie tradition, the robots' samurai-like appearance and America's insecurity about its industrial prowess as Toyota overtakes GM as the world's biggest automaker. Yet in an age of national anxiety, at its best Transformers reminds us what America still does best.
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