Saturday, June 28, 2014

"Me Dissapointed! Me Angry! Grimlock Hate Human Bay!"

I was a real fan of Transformers back in my childhood, I enjoyed the G1 cartoons and I even endure the poorly dubbed animated Beast Wars series, just because. I used to have a lot of Transformers toys, from the small ones up to the almighty Devastator himself. They are all no longer with me, sadly. The last one I had fell over the window of my crib back on my first year of college.

And even now that I have forgotten most important parts from the series, I am still a fan, albeit not as enthusiast as the other real hardcore fans out there. As I grew older, and the technology kept advancing, there was one thought that keeps popping in my head: "Why haven't we got a Transformers movie yet?"

My wish came true back in 2007, a Transformers movie was finally released, and I was overjoyed beyond words. I immediately asked my girlfriend (yes, I had one real, flesh-and-blood girlfriend before, now close that gaping mouth) to watch it with me.

It was astounding. All the scenes with the vehicles transforming into giant robots completely enchanted me. I didn't even care that the acting were so mediocre and the jokes were bad; it was a Transformers movie for crying out loud. I even clapped along with some other fans in the studio to the point we almost did a standing ovation when Optimus Prime finally showed up.

'Almost', because otherwise we would expose our boner from this one scene

Sure, there were several retarted scenes, especially the joke scenes. Especially the joke scenes. But all in all, I actually enjoyed the movie. I bet my girlfriend was somewhat annoyed that I wouldn't shut up about it on the way home, but who cares. She already left with some other guy anyway.

After the "success" of the first movie, however, Hollywood decided to give another go for the sequels. And that's when things started to go wrong....


Really wrong.....


As expected, the sequel sucked bigger balls than the ones they put in the movie. It was a complete disaster that I could no longer ignore for the sake of my passion for Transformers series. I really hoped that Hollywood and Michael Bay himself learned the error of their ways and decided to put and end to this madness once and for-

"Nope."

Fuck.

Well, at least the third one was better than the second. But it's still a heap of junk compared to the first one. And by looking at the ending, it would seem that the nightmare was over, Transformers fans can finally sleep in peace knowing that there could be absolutely no way that the movie would continue unless they made up some even more forced stories and half-baked dialogues-

AW COME ON!!

"But Isaac," an nameless individual says, "the casts are completely new, they even got Mark Wahlberg in for the ride! And did you know that they're going to include the Dinobots in the movie?"

"Of course I knew about it," I replied, "that's what the teasers and trailers were all about! But I've seen how the last 2 sequels turned out to be, no way in hell I'm going to watch it on the big screen like I did with the second movie - which I regretted even now, mind you - unless someone asks me to tag along"

And someone did asked me to tag along... so I reluctantly go and watch the movie together. I expected the same Michael Bay bullshits: Explosions, plots that make no sense, explosions, military, explosions, dry-ice jokes, explosions, sexy girls to distract you from thinking too much, and more explosions. But I never expected this much..

Oh, the horrors that I've seen...

I thought I was prepared for anything ever since I accidentally saw that
My Little Pony hentai cover and didn't lose my mind...

Anyway, here's some breakdown for the things that I would like to point out from this movie. Spoilers ahead, but that shouldn't matter because screw this shit anyway.

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1. The Human Good Guys
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We got Eren Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), a barn-shut-in robotics inventor nerd who repairs stuffs (mostly junks) for money. And his daughter Tessa Yeager (Nicola Peltz), a 17 year old high-school girl who's trying to get to a college. And then there's Shane Dyson (Jack Reynor), Tessa's secret boyfriend who is a professional driver who claimed to have been sponsored by Red Bull.

Just like previous Transformers movies, the girl is only an eye-candy for the viewers, and a burden who couldn't do anything useful until the last minute of the movie. However, unlike the previous Transformers movies, the military good guys are no longer there, so they need to create a role for the vacuum 'male human casts who can actually get things done'.

The Best Part

That's where Mr. Yeager comes in and went all-out Nathan Drake slash Gordon Freeman throughout the movie. I would comment about how a shut-in nerd could be able to handle a goddamn alien rifle with the efficiency of a trained Marine, but I suddenly have the mental image of a red crowbar and dare not to speak any further.

Nobody's doubting your ability Mr. Freeman, everything's cool. Please don't come closer with that crowbar.

The Worst Part

And there's Shane, the professional driver who rescued the Yeager family (and leaving that fat guy to die, good riddance) in such a way that I think he wanted to be like Jason Statham one day. The guy even tried to talk back to Cade during their first meeting, probably trying to establish his bad boy image. One would think that he would be the 'Epps' for Cade's 'Lennox' from the first three movies.

Well, it turns out that he's another useless pussy. So, instead of seeing a 'Riggs & Murtaugh'-esque duo, you'd be looking at more of a 'Pinky & Brain'. Seriously, he won't do anything useful anymore until the end of the movie, together with his also-useless girlfriend.

He also didn't do anything during the infiltration scene. And he actually tried to surrender to the enemies right after Cade decided to do a surprise attack together with him. To make the matter worse, Cade eventually approve of this dork's relationship with his daughter. Maybe he just want to finally got rid of them in hopes that they end up in a car crash or something.

Oh, and there's also the fact that little Ms. Yeager keeps her ridiculous act as a stuck-up rebellious teenager until near the end of the movie. It's a shame that the rocket that misfired into the house was a dud.

She probably got the role due to her outstanding performance resume in her movie career

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2. The Human Bad Guys
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Yes, the antagonist of the movie are also humans, because we're also assholes in the inside. Some shady CIA black-ops branch called the "Cemetery Wind", which sounds like an appropriate name for a donkey perfume, and also the scheming company called Kinetic Solutions Inc. (KSI) that works together with them.

The 'scheme' is that the Cemetery Wind would undergo an operation to hunt down the last of the Transformers left on earth, and then they would deliver the scraps to the KSI to be studied and developed into new defense technology.

The Best Part

The CEO of the KSI, one Mr. Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci), is an ambitious man who is also a passionate inventor, just like Cade. He's also arrogant and an iron-fist leader within the company who strives for perfection. He built the company from the scratch since he was a young man, and he got his own photos pictured in several places within the company, holding a round metal that he aims to be able to be transformed into anything.

That's right, he's one jeans and a black shirt away from being an exact replica of Steve Jobs, and I actually found that amusing since they didn't even bother making it subtle.

They even share that same smug smile

He also turned a good guy in the end, probably because the studio don't want to anger Mr. Jobs and make him file a lawsuit from the afterlife.

The Worst Part

The chief of the "Cemetery Wind", Mr. Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer), tried so hard to show that he's actually fighting a good fight, with the hopes that we could at least sympathize with him.... which sounds completely hollow, because everything he did contradicts any reasons he came up with.

"It is a good day to be a total dick, let's make up some reasons along the way"

First let's hear him out, "Defending the nation from alien war" and "My chilhood dream is to make the world a better place". Hmm, sounds noble enough, let's see how he does it then: He launched his crusade and starts to hunt down every Autobots he can find.

Wait, what?

It's stated in the movie that they're specifically lying about hunting Decepticons, even though their intel said that there are still some of them on the run as well. Was it something personal? Nobody knows, he never mentioned anything aside from "families lost in the last Autobots vs Decepticons war in Chicago".

Is it because he wanted every single one of them gone from earth? Then why start with the ones that pose no immediate threat and completely ignore the ones that are still out there biding their time to launch another attack against humanity?

Is it simply because none of this makes sense anyway? What do you think?
"Whatever, I'm just here for the lulz"

All this added up with his alliance with another Transformer bounty hunter, Lockdown, to help them destroy the Autobots, which completely negates his 'anti-alien' standing. To spice it all up, he gave him the "by any means necessary" permission for termination in the end, which leads to the estimated destruction of multiple buildings and at least hundreds of people dead.

What's that? It's okay because it happened in China and not in the US soil? Alright then.

"Eh, they could afford to lose another thousands of people. It's China."

So yeah, not only that he's being a generic evil antagonist, he's also a big fat hypocrite.

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Of course there has to be the Decepticons present (Lockdown is pictured neutral, so he doesn't count). And where there's Optimus Prime, there's Megatron, because arch-nemesises tend to stay close to each other while hating each other, like quarelling lovers. Here, Megatron got accidentally revived by the KSI in their attempt to recreate their own Transformers, and he's conveniently called 'Galvatron' too.

It's like naming your firstborn 'Hitler', but who am I to judge.

The Best Part

The "I'm not dead yet" thing is kind of a cliché in stories with long-time villains (just ask Megaman, and a lot of other comic book villains), but it usually works fine, so I guess I won't rant too much on that.

There's also him regaining his consciousness and manipulated the Transformium (the name of the transforming metal Transformers are made of, I know it sounds lame) printer to make him look more like his past self instead of getting remodeled into an Optimus Prime replica, or a sex-bot.

His artistic taste is poor though

The Worst Part

The fact that the Transformers made by the KSI, including Galvatron, are made with Transformium means they can reshape into anything, which means that after Galvatron took over the 50+ KSI Transformers, he got an army of unstoppable shape-shifters that are potentially far more dangerous than a giant T-1000.


Which means all of them can transform into literally anything! Holy shit, these guys are invincible! They could fly around in their nano-swarm form, they could avoid any damage by simply dematerialize before taking it, they could ditch their car form and turn into whatever tank they want to be, or all 50+ of them could join form and turn into some kind of a Megazord and-

Wait, nevermind, turns out they seem to be stuck in their robot form after transforming, since they got completely owned as if they were merely as dangerous as Putty Patrols.

At least they're not trying too hard to not looking weak

Following his minions' defeat, Galvatron escapes. Presumably he got fed up because he only showed up so late in the movie and has fewer lines than any of my presentation slides ever.

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The good guys in the Transformers universe, hunted simply because they overstayed their welcome and didn't pay any rent. Hey, it's tough living in America, let alone being an illegal immigrant.

Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, established a relationship with the human good guys after Cade somehow were able to repair him. And the group joined with the rest of the surviving Autobots still on Earth; Bumblebee, Hound, Crosshairs, and Drift.

The Best Part

They managed to put the final battle of Bumblebee against Stinger, his KSI 'upgraded' copy. I kind of expected that they would simply forget about it after all that rivalry they (stupidly) pictured, given all the ridiculousness that has been happening.

"Bitch, I'm more fabulous than ya!"
"What'chu talkin' about, ya stupid ho?"

The Worst Part

Optimus for some reason suddenly have jump jets on his legs at the end of the movie after his battle against Lockdown, and was able to fly with it. Which means he could've done that since the beginning. This is even worse than Gipsy Danger's sword, because at least it got used for something useful.

"Taste the wrath of my weapon of plot convenience!"

And then Optimus left Earth (see the sudden ability to fly above) in order to prevent anymore hunters coming for him and to confront the ones sending them, leaving the rest of the Autobots to protect the Yeager family... And completely forgetting the fact that he's the only one capable of fighting Galvatron who could be anywhere by now, and the only one able to control the Dinobots and prevent them from going on a rampage on Earth.

So much for being responsible huh, Optimus?

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5. The Dinobots
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And here we are, the one thing that makes Transformers fans somehow tried to overlook Michael Bay's past sins and decided to give him another shot: The promise of casting the Dinobots in the series. 

For those who didn't know before (you poor thing), the Dinobots are the Autobots affiliated Transformers. They are not directly under the leadership of Optimus Prime, and they have the attitude despite their lack of grammar vocabulary. They're like Optimus' personal The A-Team, which shows how badass they are.

And if every single member are Mr. T

Their leader is Grimlock, with a trans mode befitting him for the leader of his own Inglourious Basterds; the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The big guy is capable of beating up Optimus Prime and Megatron if he wants it, the only thing stopping him from doing that is because there's no sport in there, also he kind of respect Optimus' leadership. Hell, he even kicked the ass of Thanos' equivalent in the Transformers universe. If Samuel L. Jackson has a spirit animal, it would be Grimlock.

The Best Part

Grimlock's redesign actually looks good, and he's still the same bad motherfucker who refuse to actually obey anyone when Optimus interacts with him for the first time.

"Rawr"

The Worst Part

Everything else.

They only showed up literally at the final part of the movie. They got no dialogue lines, because here they are pictured as pure savages. Their only role were as a ride for that one single battle. They didn't even transform back to robot form until one scene showed them briefly doing it to form a perimeter on the bridge.

Yes, they're basically treated like goddamn animals. Even Yoshi got better treatment, and he's a literal animal.


And then the movie completely forgets about them until Optimus... released them to the wilds. Wait, what? You're seriously setting these guys, some of the most powerful Transformers, free roaming around with no control? In China?? Where the human population is estimated around 1.4 Billion people???

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU????

"Rawr.. goes 20 screenwriters"

This is not only an insult to the original Dinobots, this is just plain brainless stupid. You know what, I don't care anymore, I'm going to end the review here.

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Conclusion
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I completely failed to enjoy the movie at all. There are so many things that went wrong, and the only things that were able to save it from a complete FUBAR are A) Optimus Prime still have his original voice actor, and B) Mark Wahlberg's effort to act despite all the stupidity.

I really wish someone else could take on the movie, but there is already a plan for yet another sequel by the same guy. And there's nothing that can stop them now, may God help us all.

The movie has only been out for 2 days, so there is a chance that you haven't watched it yet. So, if you're planning to do so this weekend, here's my advice:

Don't watch it.
Ever.

Or let's just pretend it never even existed like this movie.. Oops

Especially if you're a Transformers fan, because this movie will break your heart and ruin your childhood memories. But if you're okay with movies that wants you to shut your brain down and simply enjoy the (chaotic) view, or if you never give a damn about Transformers anyway, then go ahead.

You've been warned.

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