Movie Review: Transformers

Ooooooooops...... Wrong transformer. "MY BAD... (said in digitized robot voice)....." What I meant was this:



................... I'm sorry :) I mean I'm sorry for all you poor, slavering American fan-boys, because I've just watched the Transformers movie(on IMAX, no less), and you still have to wait at least 4 days, and that means we poor 3rd world citizens understand the "my bad" insider joke I made above, while you burger-scarfing wire-tapping fuckers can just kiss Optimus Prime's shiny metal ass.

Pardon my enthusiasm, but I've just watched what I'd consider a really awesome movie. Please note that I'm part of the Transformers generation, and consider my expectations and biases as a fanboy when taking this review into consideration.

I'd go so far as to say that it's the best movie I've watched in 2007. 2 1/2 hours of amazingly authentic visual and sound effects collaborating to recreate every inner child's deepest robot dream on the silver screen. The physics are so believable you'll drop into a trance from the first "transform" scene in the beginning of the movie, and never emerge until the grand finale, still entranced by the clanking, mechanical REALNESS of the Transformers. The last time I was so in awe at the movie theatre was when I watched "Independence Day".

The story is faithful to the original, the humour is funny, and the battle scenes will shock you and take your breath away. And for those who criticised the complex new "Transforms", let's just say that you'll never get tired of watching them transform in the movie, into beautiful-detailed sculptures of functional metal. It's a sight that will make every little boy (and 20- to 30-year old male) spasm with ecstatic rapture everytime it happens. It's almost better..... no, it IS better than sex, especially when they do it in transition, jumping up and magically(with great clanking noises and metal stress sounds) sprouting metal limbs and appendages while in vehicle mode, or when they jump into the air and fly off in the blink of an eye, already a fighter jet with afterburners glowing and making the air shimmer with heat.

*collapses in paroxysms of pure bliss*

Watching the movie, you see the characters of the individual Transformers shine through. They're generally faithful with the personalities, and have even improved the more boring ones. For those of us who followed the original series, you'll love instead of hate the new Bumblebee. The writers cleverly prevented him from talking, and consequently, from irritating us with that eager-beaver psyche. Instead, they've imbued him with humour, courage and a warrior ethic, easily making him the most lovable robot in the film.

But I talk too much. I'm going to watch the film again soon, if for nothing else than to hear the groaning, straining, creaking, whirring, sliding, clanking metal when even the puniest of them transform. They even have a good enough sense of humour to insert half of the original "chu chu chi chi CHIT" transforming sound into one of the scenes with Bumblebee. It just warms the heart, I tell you.

And when one of the autobots came riding in to save the day...... it almost brought a tear to my eye. Serious.

So, 9 out of 10.

9? Only 9, you ask? When I've been waxing so lyrical that both Shakespeare and Tupac are turning in their graves, worried about their linguistic immortality?

Yes. Only 9, because Optimus Prime has fucking LIPS. That's just wrong man. That's so fucking wrong. He looks emasculated - like some Sensitive New Age Gaybot - to Megatron's Evil Tyrant, complete with the thorny, take-no-prisoners, snarling visage.

Secondly, no Dinobots and Constructicons. So only 9.

If you're not a fanboy, go watch it, you'll have real fun. If you ARE a fanboy, you'll love it anyway, but don't puke in nausea when you see the lips.