Product: The Transformers - The Movie (1986)
Rating: 5.0
How can you not like this?
Films like this are funny since waves of nostalgia completely hit you, remembering what toys you had, and how much of a pain they were, or just simply how awesome it was. While I was actually more a Beast Wars fan, Transformers always held that special place in my youth, along Ninja Turtles, G.I Joe, or Tiny Toons Adventures. Upon first release, this movie believe it or not was panned with many critics hating it. But as always, it developed into a cult film and people loved it. Released in a Anniversary edition, but also to tie in to the forthcoming live-action film, this is probably the best the film has ever looked and it helps since it's so awesome.A huge moon-sized Transformer named Unicron proceeds to completely engulf a moon base and mash it to pieces while absorbing it. Meanwhile, the Decepticons, led by Megatron, find a perfect opportunity to lead an assault against the Autobots. The battle has heavy casualities including a massive one in Optimus Prime. The Autobots find themselves chased by the Decepticons as well as the foreboding threat of Unicron.One cannot think of the Transformer movie without thinking of the death of Optimus Prime. This is essentially like if they wrote Bugs Bunny out of Warner Bros. cartoons or got rid of Mickey Mouse from Disney. While it most likely will infuriate diehards as well as bum out kids, it's handled extremely well and not done just to create false emotion. Oddly though I can't even remember when I first saw it but even being in my 20's, it's still quite a powerful scene.Does the movie fumble? Well, I guess in 2 areas: the music and the pacing. This movie just screams 80's made since there's quite a few cheesy hair metal-like songs including "The Touch" which I still can't stand. The film would've worked immensely better if it had a proper score rather than songs from bands who didn't even get one hit wonder status. As for the pacing, well the first act is awesome when we see an all-out battle with Autobots defending their city against the Decepticons. We get the aforementioned death as well as a great end to Megatron's scheming right hand man but after that it kind of falls apart. It's not that it's badly-written, it just doesn't have that sustainability the film started with.The extras are of course well worth it, unlike certain Anniversary Editions. We get a creator's commentary as well as a fan commentary and my all-time favorite DVD feature: the trivia track, similar to what's found in Gladiator or the Abyss. We get featurettes on the film as well as a sneak peak of the forthcoming Michael Bay movie. It's not that informative but it does spark your interest.For Transformers, this is definately a must. For animated film fans, you'll probably like it but since I'm a fan, I'm slightly biased...just a tad.