Wednesday, July 4, 2007

NOT MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

TRANSFORMERS (Michael Bay, 2007)


Michael Bay is a hack. His talents are only and I do mean, only, limited to blowing stuff up and exhausting your senses. Seriously, with all the technological prowess of Industrial Light And Magic at hand, and Steven Spielberg as executive producer, it is a wonder that Bay still managed to screw it all up. And how could anyone(that have a slightest bit of talent) make a *dull* movie out of giant robots beating the crap out of each other?

First off, I don't really hate Michael Bay (at least before this). I really liked The Rock, and kinda-liked Armageddon. So any accusations about me being biased are arguably far from valid.

I'll start with the things I like before I go 'Megatron' all over the movie. Shia LeBouf basically carried the movie, giving an energetic performance. John Torturro embraced the movie's cartoon roots and took the corny, geeky material to very amusing result. And Megan Fox is *extremely* hot. To be fair, earlier on the movie was pretty exciting. And I particularly liked the humor and self-references(or self-parody?) scattered here and there.

Now the bad part. I won't complain about the script or the glaring plot holes, because I don't expect a Transformers movie to have a particularly engaging (or intelligent) story in the first place. If it has that, then it's a definite plus though. But the fact is it doesn't. So all I want to see is some fantastic action sequences that would blow me away. But sadly, it is in that same *department*, that the movie fails totally. The action sequences are virtually incomprehensible. The attention-deficit camera work, ultra-fast editing, and the constant zooming result to an ultimately dizzying, and sometimes excruciating experience. I didn't know who's fighting who, and what the hell is going on on-screen. The CGI team has put an amazing effort in bringing the robots to life, but all the fast cuts and bad camera detracts the overall "effect".

The horrible robot designs(more alien-like than anything) only made it worse. What made the cartoon series so appealing was because of the robot designs. They have *character*, each and everyone of them. Here they just looked like chunks of metal glued together. Bay applied his usual formula of "throwing *everything* on-screen and just blow them all up", with little to no attention on *creativity*. Okay, okay you can blow stuff up good, but you already did that in Bad Boys 2. Anymore tricks up your sleeve? Guess not. If you think about it, some of the action sequences are just a rehash from his previous movies (Even some of the scenes looked recycled!). To put it simply, they're just *dull*. No matter how much destruction committed on screen, nothing beats some genuine, imaginative "action choreography". The messy final fight sequence, pretty much sums it all up: headache-inducing, overblown, and surpisingly boring.

And I don't understand the need to shoot *every* scene like an action sequence, with shots that are barely more than 2 seconds long. This is common in Bay's previous movies, but in Transformers it was taken to the extreme. Any sense of pacing, tension, or a thrilling build-up can be thrown out the window. I thought that he would learn at least a thing or two from Spielberg, but any way you look at it this is still your typical Michael Bay movie: big, dumb, and loud. I hope this is the last of their collaboration, but that seems kinda far-fetched considering the money this movie would undoubtedly rake in.

Transformers worked better when it doesn't try to be serious. I really felt compelled to give the movie a total rotten rating, but Optimus Prime said that he'd melt my brain if I do. So there.

Verdict: 2.5/5

8 comments:

Pilot Editoring (PE) said...

tapi ramai orang cakap syok..gila punya orang..aku tengok macam kartun ja.

Anonymous said...

berani lu 2.5-kan movie tranformer ni
nnt gua jumpa lu gua tansformkan tulang lu jadi robot
ehehehe
p/s:bila lu mau ajak pegi umah baru lu ni?

maberik said...

haha ceh! hidop lagi ko rupenye kurt cobain!

lu kasi datang la bila2. wa ada munya malam2.

Anonymous said...

walaupun 5 hari lagi tapi nak ucap gak EPPI BESTDAY kat kau hahahhah
EPPI BESTDAY!!!!!!

maberik said...

wohoho terharu aku. tengkiu tengkiu brader.

[ d.e.e ] said...

1 frame of the animation kene render for 36hrs, so i've been informed by dj utt of the mtv channel. n then u plak hentam this muvi. kamon la...at least kasikla 5 for the cgi n 4 for the scenes yg letup sane sini. syok aperrrr citer nih.. storyline tu biase la.. refer balek to the original toons, same je kot style citer dia, xsilap la..its been ages since last tgk.

fyi, i'm so in love with the robot designs yg u cakap [insert your own comments here] smp byk kali reload hp nk dpt special editionnye but still gak xdpt optimus prime. dem.

anyways, how have u been? nk muvi :D

ok ek ok ek [bunyi robot yg u x ske tgh transform]

maberik said...

hehe jgn mare, dee...

i didnt bash the effects team. they did an incredible job! tapi imo disebabkan shot2 yang tak sampai 2 saat, kamera yg telampau laju, fokus ntahapehape, jadi tak dapat nak appreciate kualiti cgi tu. masa tgk cite ni jadi kesian kat effects team, sebab hasil penat lelah diorg tu tak dapat 'realized' dlm filem tu. kalau tengok still photo memang nampak gempak la...detail abis. but films are moving images kan? heh

anyway long time no see.where are u ah? :P

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