TRANSFORMERS
Reviewed by Sam Hatch
READ MY TRANSFORMERS PRE-RAMBLE HERE
Though most people don't even know it, Transformers is really the third movie released this summer to be based upon material from Marvel Comics. Stan Lee's monolithic publishing empire was behind the original storytelling genesis at toy company Hasbro's behest, creating the everlasting battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons – warring robotic entities from the planet Cybertron.
The exact details of the origin story waver from source to source, but all in all it remains creepily close to the material thought up by L. Ron Hubbard to create Scientology. (There are apparently enough fans to make Transformers: The Religion a reality – who's with me?) In this big-screen live-action version of the original syndicated 80s cartoon, screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have jettisoned the concept of the traditional Noah's ark-like spacecraft (not-so-cleverly entitled ‘The Ark') in favor of robots that are apparently capable of space travel under their own power.
Producer Steven Spielberg has mentioned that he found their script to be a rousing coming-of-age tale of a ‘boy and his car' and I was immediately struck by the notion that his one descriptive sentence contained more character development than the entire animated oeuvre. Shia LaBeouf plays said boy Sam (the writers were ballsy enough to retain the last name of the original series' protagonist – Witwicky), and all he wants is to pass his high school classes with all A's so that his dad will honor a deal to co-finance his purchase of a new car.
Sam is a horny young teenager (hence his ebay handle of LadiesMan217, which becomes a running gag throughout the film), and he wants a hot car so he can pick up some hot babes. One such vixen whom he wouldn't mind escorting around town is Megan Fox's Mikaela, a nice girl with an allergy to clothing who hangs around with lunkheaded jocks even though they ultimately turn her off. Lucky for Sam, she happens to be a closet gearhead and is more interested in cars than the usual gal.
In the cartoon Sam was named Spike and his dad was a mechanic called Sparkplug Witwicky, but in the film his dad is a regular guy (played by primetime TV regular Kevin Dunn) who keeps his deal to match his son's $2,000 investment towards the purchase of a sweet ride. The trailer already spilled the very funny scene in which Dad psyches out Sam by cruising past a Porsche dealership, with the ultimate destination of their shopping excursion being the used car emporium of the shady dealer Bobby Bolivia (Bernie Mac).
There's much talk of a first car ‘finding' its buyer, and sure enough an alien robot disguised as a rusting black and yellow 70s Camaro finds every way possible to choose Sam, including shattering the windows of every other car on the lot with a sonic pulse. This character is a reworking of the cartoon's Volkswagen Beetle protagonist Bumblebee (though a VW bug is parked next to the Camaro for a moment of fanboy validation), and although we think we know why he has sought out Sam (he has a similar purpose to that of the T800 in Terminator 2, but with the looks of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit), his damaged voice box can only 'speak' through samples gathered from Earth's radio and television broadcasts.
Sam is apparently more important than he knows, and in National Treasure style is revealed to be the descendent of an arctic explorer who apparently discovered something miraculous and robotic in the early 1900s. This is examined at a humorous high school genealogy oral report during which he tries to hock his great grandfather's artifacts to help enhance his car fund. Out of school he's constantly monitoring his ebay account, where he also tries to offload his forefather's used gear. This is what ultimately connects him to the feelers of the robot combatants once they arrive on Earth.
LaBeouf is great as usual in the role, and his expressive, oversized eyes are close to Anime-like in nature. The entire Witwicky family is portrayed as slightly off-kilter, and any scene with a member of them in it is a delight. This culminates in the classic moment where Sam must endure his mother's constant references to his masturbatory habits (aka “Sam's Happy Time”) while multi-story sized robots try to ‘hide' from his parents' view in the backyard. I loved when Sam's response to a query about why he suddenly appears dirty and sweaty is “I don't know – I'm a teenager!” The Witwicky family dog (a Chihuaha named ‘Mojo' with a broken, casted foot) also generates plenty of laughs early on.
The scenes with Sam trying to fit in now that he owns a car could feel tired in any given coming-of-age indie film, but it's a fun juxtaposition in a big action flick like this. It certainly made me flash back to the old days driving around in my 1973 Plymouth Satellite Sebring, also of a yellow color. Luckily for Sam, his superannuated ride happens to be sentient, and randomly selects smooth jams by The Cars and Marvin Gaye whenever Mikaela is around. Once she accepts Sam's invitation for a lift, Bumblebee (who also sports a silly Bee-Otch air freshener) ‘accidentally' stalls out and coasts to a halt at a romantic overlook. (Though if I were a giant robot I don't know if I'd want a couple of randy teens fornicating in my innards...)
While this is the fun heart of the story, much of this early material is offset by the US military's encounters with the evil robots, known as Decepticons. They too are interested in Sam's family tree, but are more keen on gaining the government's information regarding the secret Witwicky arctic discovery. We are then introduced to the uber-secret Men In Black-esque branch known only as Sector Seven (who can get away with anything because they "don't exist"). Most of the time they're played for laughs, and indie darling John Turturro appears as Agent Simmons, a Sector Seven grand doofus who continually mugs for the camera and plays the fool (at times in a custom S7 wifebeater and novelty boxer shorts).
Jon Voight plays the Secretary of Defense John Keller (he's part of the real-world Bush administration, though we only see our President's red socks), and his organization is forced to draft young computer-savvy hackers in an effort to decode an alien transmission captured during an incredible enemy attack on an American air base in Qatar. One of the young talents is Maggie Madsen, played by Rachael Taylor – a rather generic looking Carmen Electra clone with a severely fake sounding Australian accent (despite that fact that it's real). The rest of her cohorts seem to be the only interesting ones, but since they don't have breasts the script ditches them shortly after their introduction.
Maggie goes AWOL once she realizes that the only person capable of cracking the mysterious code is a fat, Dance Dance Revolution addict played by Anthony Anderson (who also has breasts). His character is generally played for stereotypical shuckin' n' jivin' laughs, as Michael Bay has previously shown his affinity for African-American characters who do nothing but swear and rant for our amusement (see the opening of Armageddon). Even Tyrese Gibson, who plays an otherwise competent Air Force Tech Sergeant, is one step away from muttering "Oh, Lordy!" in one scene.
Gibson's Tech Sergeant Epps is one of the few survivors of the initial (and viciously intense) attack on the airfield. He wanders the desert with Josh Duhamel's Sergeant Lennox (and none other than Zack Ward - Scut Farkus from A Christmas Story!) trying to avoid meeting an early demise at the business end of Decepticon badass Scorponok's pincers. The battle scenes are feverish and great, enhanced by plenty of legitimate-sounding military lingo that lends some moments of Apocalypse Now realism to the proceedings as A-10 Thunderbolts rain fire on the mechanical beasties below.
Action aside, these side stories are never as interesting as Sam's journey, and often feel as if they were deleted scenes leftover from Independence Day. Once the story returns its focus on Sam, things fall back into place. There are some great scenes with Bumblebee 'stalking' the boy once the revelation that Sam's ride is a giant transforming robot instills in him a fear for his life. I wish they had fleshed this segment out even more, as it's an interesting spin on Stephen King's Christine.
There are some intense chase scenes (once the T-1000 substitute Barricade arrives to crush Sam, his Saleen Mustang cop-car exterior detailed with the slogan "To Punish and Enslave”), but unfortunately most of them take place off of the busy street and inside the familiar domain of the 'Gone In 60 Seconds' abandoned construction site/factory building. Soon the rest of the Autobots arrive, including fan faves Jazz, Ratchet, Ironhide and of course their big rig leader Optimus Prime. The design work of the robots is both faithful to the original spirit of the series as well as infinitely more complex. The actual moments of vehicle transformation are imaginatively rendered.
Indeed, the CG work from Digital Domain is amazing stuff, and robots meld with live action characters realistically, without the usual fleshtone discoloration resulting from digital compositing. Many of the ensuing action shots of the robots are also done in a documentarian, hand held style – a special effects nightmare only fully realizable in recent years. In fact, I just happened to pop in Robocop the other day – and no offense to the remarkable stop motion work of animator Phil Tippet, but I realized just how far visual effects advancement has taken us from that film's villainous robot ED-209.
Unfortunately, most of the character work sketched out in the first half is forced to take a back seat to the action in the second half. To be fair, the film is titled Transformers, not ‘The Kid Who Befriends The Transformers', so enough screen time must be dedicated to the warring robots lest the fans revolt. Said fans should be happy, for the Decepticons are also expertly realized, including a tank (Devastator), Sikorsky Pave Low helicopter (Blackout) and the ever-popular F22 Raptor Starscream.
Major baddie Megatron also arrives in due time (looking quite a bit like an Anime monster), and thankfully he does more here than transform into a gun. Scale was always an issue in the original cartoon, since tiny objects would oftentimes morph into gigantic robots. In the film things such as cell phones and yes, even boomboxes (though no Soundwave yet!) become accurately sized enemies once they take shape. One way the filmmakers tried not to outdo the original show was by including numerous members of the original voice cast. While this was conceptually smart out of obeisance to the legions of Transformers otaku out there, the voices sound kind of cheesy in a big budget production and tend to cheapen the overall feel. It comes as a jarring shift from the uber-realistic military lingo thrown around during the beginning of the film.
Likewise, the robots' neologisms may be hard to follow for those not acclimated to the impenetrable plots of TV action cartoons. The plot here surrounds a mysterious object called both ‘The Cube' and ‘The Allspark' that both factions are willing to wage war over. It lingers on the verge of MacGuffin territory, and sadly one interesting subplot involving the ‘Allspark' giving life to all mechanical objects it contacts (including a vending machine) is forgotten just as soon as it's introduced.
Like other Michael Bay films, there's plenty of advertising to be found in the film, but at least most of it supports the story (unlike the egregious marketing that plagued his last film The Island). After all, the heroes of the story are called Autobots, so when they transform into GM products to meld in with our world it certainly makes sense. Even the new 2008 Chevy Camaro redux gets a plug, after Mikaela's offhand diss of Bumblebee's rusty condition hurts his feelings enough to spur him into undergoing a quick upgrade.
It's definitely the best thing Michael Bay's done to date. He even keeps his 'flying camera' technique under lock and key for the bulk of the film. He clearly isn't an actor's director, and once he gets the chance to play with giant robots, he gleefully abandons the human condition to focus on bombast and loud explosions. The score by Steve Jablonsky is pretty heavy-handed, and his martial 'dun-dun-dunt' stings are blatantly lifted from the back-catalog of composer Hans Zimmer. And while judging by Sam's t-shirts and posters he must be a fan of bands like The Strokes, Garbage and The Misfits, the potential for a cool, retro soundtrack is squandered. Instead there's plenty of cookie-cutter nu-metal tripe included for the sake of a quick-sell soundtrack album - for fans who need a new Disturbed song that sounds just like their last twelve.
The first half of Transformers is an uneven balance between the tepid governmental mysteries and the great stuff with Sam and both his love life and family life. The second half is an uneven balance between scenes of unlikely civilian tagalongs discovering what the military has been up to and the amazingly complex and immaculately realized giant rock ‘em sock ‘em robot brawls. The film clearly sets the stage for a sequel (or full series, as I believe two more films have already been greenlit), and even if Bay were to return to the helm that wouldn't necessarily be too bad a thing. Let's just hope the cartoon remake trend checks itself before we get Tony Scott's big screen version of M.A.S.K. (Look it up!)
And do yourself a favor – get to the theater early enough to catch the mind-blowing teaser for the new J.J. Abrams monster movie production Cloverfield. That's worth the price of admission alone. And judging by the massive round of applause at the end of Transformers at the screening I was at, this thing should be huge with the fanboys and fangirls. So put on your Optimus Prime voice-changing mask (yes, I saw one) and get ready to transform into one happy geek!