Transformers was exactly the movie I expected it to be. It was chock full of CGI, furious robot-on-robot action and more explosions and destruction than is truly necessary. That said, it was not a good movie.

On the Internet, a lot of people are attacking Michael Bay (and rightly so), but having looked at his past work, he really was the best director for the job. One of his earliest feature films was Bad Boys, a very good buddy cop action/comedy. A few years later, he gave us hits like The Rock and Armageddon. Say what you will, these were good movies. They may have been taken over the top, but at least Bay has a genuine sense of conflict in these movies and a strong enough cast to compensate for any deficiencies in the script. Continue reading “Transformers Review Response”

Guest Post

An AO response to the live-action Transformers movie was inevitable. Initially, I had no interest in seeing it and I just wasn’t expecting that I’d be writing a response for a number of reasons. First off, I thought it was going to be terrible, which, not so coincidentally, it was. Second of all, Dan Allen had expressed interest in seeing it (his review is coming also). As much as I didn’t want to fuel Michael Bay’s career (I didn’t, since we ended up with free passes, thankfully), the notoriety surrounding the movie was too great. Everyone I know who saw it said “It was awesome,” which was pre-bolstered by generally good reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 59% and a 7.3/10 in the Cream of the Crop (the choice reviewers) section, unprecedented for anything Michael “I think I’m cool because I look like I drive a 5.0 Mustang” Bay directed since The Rock, which didn’t have nearly as high a Cream of the Crop rating. I was afraid I might even like Transformers. Putting temptation over the fact that I started an anti-Bay Transformers Facebook group months before the release, I took the plunge. I had to see it. I shot Dan an IM on Sunday and we were ready to roll for the 4:55 p.m. showing. Continue reading “Transformers Review”