Discovering Japan

Rating: 7/10 (15 July 2007)

The "Transformers" concept is of course Japanese, but the origin predates the animated television show that originally aired in the U. S. from 1984 to 1987. The idea actually goes back to the post WWII "Godzilla" series. The Japanese were able to turn the big green fellow into a franchise by producing a series of sequels with titles like: "Godzilla vs ???" (Mothra, Biallante, Cosmic Monster, King Ghidorah, Magalon, The Smog Monster, etc. etc.). Japanese producers had discovered a universal appeal in combat between a somewhat good monster/ alien and a clearly bad one. Arnold the Barbarian's "Terminator" sequels also picked up on this can't miss idea.
Director Michael Bay has latched onto this idea as a way to arrest his career decline. Normally repeated disasters on the scale of "Pearl Harbor" and "Armageddon" would result in banishment from Hollywood and a subsequent career making educational films in Des Moines. But somehow Bay was able to convince them to use him for this project. Apparently having crashed and burned (spectacularly) in many of his prior efforts, gave Bay a fair degree of perspective and he is able to have a lot of self-reflexive fun with "Transformers"; a goofy film with a lot of stuff that blows up it neat ways and does not take itself nearly as seriously as the original series. In fact it should appeal to "Godziilla" fans who find this quasi-parody quality endearing.
In place of Godzilla and Mothra et al the film features Computer Generated Transformer toys that contort and expand from something normal into robot monsters. The head monster, who speaks with the voice of Earthquake McGoon, is a bad boy named Megatron. He is the most fearsome of the evil Decepticons robots, who are at odds with the nice robots (Transformers). Both brands of robots fled the doomed planet Cybertron and came to Earth. There is a fairly explicit reason for their choosing Earth (called the Allspark) but for it is not important that casual viewers fully understand the details.
Initially "Transformers" is a teen movie, with the familiar loser teen boy (Sam played by Shia LaBeouf) lusting after the hot girl (Mikaela-not the one on "Star Search" but Megan Fox who played snobby Carla in "Confessions of Teenage Drama Queen") who does not know that he exists. Fox has aged noticeably since "Drama Queen" and is fading uncomfortably fast, but she still looks good enough that scorching your eyeballs is a real possibility.
In an attempt of improve Sam's social standing at school (and to advance the storyline), his Dad gets him a Camaro which turns out to be a Transformer named Bumblebee. Having a transforming car causes Mikaela to notice Sam at about the time the film itself transforms from teen movie to battling robot Sci-Fi.
Enter the Secretary of Defense (Jon Voight) , the armed forces or at least Sgt. Lennox (John Duhamel) and Tech Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson), and a secret agent (Coen Brothers favorite John Turturro). Like the "Godzilla" franchise the best efforts of the military make little impression on the robot monsters.
Bay builds up the suspense level as things move toward an epic battle between the Transformers and the Decepticons that will decide the fate of the world. Unfortunately the wheels start to fall off the film at this point as it goes into the "exercise in excess" mode of stuff like "Ultraviolet" and King Kong". The Industrial Light and Magic effects are not at fault as their digital creations are first class. There is plenty of attention to detail and the movements and battle sequences are individually excellent. The problem is that the whole is considerably less than the sum of its parts. A situation that is only tolerable if you begin viewing things from the self-parody angle; which I think was actually Bay's intention all along.
As Roger Ebbert notes: "The mechanical battle goes on and on and on and on, with robots banging into each other and crashing into buildings, and buildings falling into the street, and the military firing, and jets sweeping overhead, and Megatron and the good hero, Optimus Prime, duking it out, and the soundtrack sawing away at thrilling music, and enough is enough."
It's really time for these CGI dominated movies to mature and start choreographing their scenes to be more than just eye candy. A logical fight strategy would be nice, something that makes sense and is not just random violence. The "Transformers" violence looks like it was lifted from old scripted bouts of "Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling"; with the combatants often down but never out.
The failure to incorporate logic distances the audience from the action and makes it impossible to build any real suspense. For this reason alone, the film would have benefited from some serious action scene trimming and a more logical assembly in the editing room. Computer animation has become far cheaper than actually staging live-action sequences but audiences are increasingly discounting these scenes-viewer thrills don't happen when viewers are wise enough to see it as animation. Current audiences are finding it increasingly difficult to suspend disbelief. The same thing occurred in the 1960's when audiences began recognizing the projected backgrounds used for scenes shot in the studio. This started a trend toward shooting films on location with only television shows still using the sound stages.
But this excess is the film's only real fault and since it comes at the end most of the viewing experience is quite enjoyable.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.