oudeis on 4/7/2007 at 01:11

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I was too old to be caught up in the 'toy-commercial-masquerading-as-animation' wave- transformers, he-man, etc- and even if I had been younger what they were doing with so insultingly blatant I still would have been contemptuous of the schlock they trowelled out. It was all part and parcel of Reagan's 'let's gut the regulatory agencies' version of laissez-faire capitalism, which we are seeing again under our current regime with the same old results.

All that said, the movie was way badass.

There were a few wincingly bad moments, like the dramatic handclasp between hero and heroine™ shot and Bay's usual overuse of the low-angle orbit shot, but it was on the whole very impressive. ILM really showed who's the big dog in the special effects neighborhood (the credits for the digital artists and animators were as big as all the others put together). I wish American directors would take lessons from their Hong Kong counterparts on how to edit a fight scene, though. Quick cuts may be necessary when you are trying to make Keanu look good, but when you have an effects budget big enough to launch a small war you let the fucking robots fight.

Ko0K on 4/7/2007 at 06:57

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I just came back from watching it. I personally thought that Bay did a fine job with this one.

Muzman on 4/7/2007 at 07:53

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Dude, you're like so missing the point! Giant Fucking Robots+Shit Blowing Up +Megan Fox is HAWT= delightful moviegoing experience.

(ok my fanboi impersonation needs work. I can actually tolerate Bay's 'humour' provided its balanced well with the action (which is to say it's a lot better than his 'drama', I'm looking at you Armageddon), but every report so far sounds like it takes ages to actually occur in this flick which is a little alarming)

Phydeaux on 4/7/2007 at 08:28

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You and I are in agreement.

"Armageddon" is an insult to anybody with 1/10th of a brain. OK, they've got to drill to this arbitrary 800 feet deep, but they miss the landing spot, so 800 feet is even more arbitrary, not to mention that it might not split in half like they expect, or that the rotation plot twist (to add drama because communication is disrupted) means that even if it's split perfectly in half, they probably wouldn't miss the Earth like they hoped, or that in the first place, even if they could crack it in half, it'd require WAY more force to move the halves apart than the nuke would produce. And what the fuck is "Space Dementia?" Although I do have to admit I liked Owen Wilson's line about Jethro Tull.

"Pearl Harbor" reigns supreme with the Worst Line Ever: "I think World War 2 just started".

I had been saying for years that MST3K favorite episode "Parts: The Clonus Horror" would make a pretty decent movie if it had a good cast and budget, so I was thrilled when I learned they in fact were making a new version, then subsequently crushed when I learned Bay was directing. I still haven't seen "The Island", which is a bit ironic considering how much I loved the shitty original version.

As for "Transformers", even if Bay didn't direct it, I'm not spending $10 for a 2+ hour GMC commercial.

Scots Taffer on 4/7/2007 at 10:22

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I wasn't implying that he should try to inject any of that into his films (good lord, can you imagine what horrors that would bring?) nor that the source material required it, I have no particular affection for the Transformers.

I was just iterating what I feel to be Bay's niche in the world of cinema - completely mindnumbing flashy crap. That said, I found his mindless The Island mildly entertaining the year it was released. I'm not above enjoying mindless pap as long as it's delivered well enough, but he can't even do that to be honest. That's all I was trying to say.