transform and roll out

To start, I have loved the Transformers ever since I was a little boy. My cousins, who were born in the 70s (thanks to my gigantic family) have all watched the cartoon/collected the comics since THEY were little, and since they used to babysit me and I used to idolize them, I obviously liked a lot of the things they did. As a result, the best music is from the 70s/80s, the best movies (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future) are all from that era...and of course, so are the Transformers. I have a lot of the original toys (Soundwave is my absolute favourite, ever), and I have watched the 80s cartoon movie enough times that I know every line of dialogue as well as all the music.

So, when they decided to make a Transformers movie, I was pretty goddamn excited! The first one was siiiiick, but, no Soundwave. Understandably, I was a little saddened, but then again, Megatron and Starscream were in it, so it was all good. Also, Peter Cullen still voiced Optimus Prime, so that was cool too. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen was....less good, in pretty much every way, but, that's cool. Soundwave was in it! He had a very minor role, but he was still IN it. I cheered when he came on screen, just so you know.

Fast forward to tonight, now that I have seen Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon. Let me start by saying this movie was pretty good. I would rate it a 6.5-7/10, which is pretty decent, to me. It's about average, I would say. At its core, it's about robots fighting each other, and my goodness, it does not disappoint in that regard. It still has some of that cheesy humour, but I think director Michael Bay listened to all the complaints about the 2nd movie, because he really fixed them. First of all, Skids and Mudflap, the racially toned dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks pair of Minis in the 2nd movie....they aren't even in the movie at ALL. Thank god, because that exclusion right there made the entire movie better. Soundwave got WAY more screen time, which made me cry tears of joy. Okay, maybe not tears of joy, but it was SO AWESOME.

My complaints with this movie are pretty small, if only because I went into the theatre expecting explosions, sweet cars, and more explosions, and I was not disappointed. I won't spoil anything, don't worry, but I think it's pretty fair of me to say that I have never in my life seen a movie that has more things that blow up in it. There's a part near the mid-point of the film where everything kind of lags, because it's just a bit of exposition; it's literally just the filmmakers trying to explain to the audience why everything is happening the way that it is. It makes sense, as far as the movie goes (that doesn't mean it's not a bit silly, because it is), but when they just throw exposition at you, I kind of doze off a bit. Bay must have known that would have happened, because half way through that exposition bit, he throws in a few explosions and a nice fight, and all of a sudden the movie picks up again. The end game of the movie takes place in Chicago....I would hate to have been in that city when the end of the movie went down, because my goodness, that place gets ****ed up. SO MANY EXPLOSIONS. It was awesome! People are dying left and right, Autobots are beating the crap out of Decepticons and vice versa....it was great. Shockwave, one of my other favourite Decepticons, makes his appearance near the beginning of the movie (in a kind of confusing way, to be honest, I'm not sure why he chose that moment to appear, the film didn't make it very clear), and it was pretty cool. One of the more stunning visual effects of the entire movie is when Shockwave sics his worm thing on a building in order to kill a bunch of humans....it's in the trailer, so you can see it w/o being spoiled, but on the big screen it looks absolutely fantastic.

I've pretty much stopped with the complaints, because, like I said, there aren't that many from me. I'm biased, so you might not feel the same way after it's done, but...I greatly enjoyed myself. I have long been a Decepticon fan, and so it will come as no surprise to ANYone when I say that they lose. I mean, come on, no one expects them to win. Every single movie they lose, and considering this is the last one....well, yeah, they're going to lose. I wasn't HAPPY about that (especially the way they get rid of Soundwave...I was a little sad, I'm not going to lie), but, I accepted it. I suppose that also makes the movie have a little less suspense, because there's no WAY that any of the important Autobots (Optimus, Bumblebee) are going to die, and obviously Shia LaBeouf and his new girlfriend are going to be protected by the mighty forces of movie magic as well. Speaking of that new girl, she's ultra hot, and the filmmakers did not squander an opportunity to show you. There are a gratuitous amount of shots that have her standing in small, tight dresses, with her long legs shown to the audience....okay, I guess it's important to have eye candy that doesn't revolve around sweet cars. But, man, the first shot of her you EVER see in this movie is the camera focused on her....rear end, as she is wearing nothing but a very tight pair of underwear, and a loosely buttoned shirt. I guess they wanted to impress upon you the departure of Megan Fox, because this girl is smoking hot. She IS a Victoria's Secret model, and they made use of her in that way.

Anyway, she was a passable actor, and much like Blake Lively in Green Lantern, she just had to stand there and look attractive and pouty. Which she did, very well! Gooooood for her.

At the end of the day, I went to go see massive robots beat up on other massive robots, and that's exactly what I got. I was pleasantly surprised by the way Bay cleaned up the movie when compared to the second one, and this is something I'd go see again on the big screen if only to enjoy the ridiculous amounts of explosions again. Small roles by Patrick Dempsey, John Malkovich and Alan Tudyk are hilarious as well. You know what else was awesome? The trailers. I saw trailers for: Harry Potter 7.5, Cowboys and Aliens, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and Captain America. By god, I am going to see ALL of them. I already have my midnight tickets for HP7.5, and Cowboys and Aliens as well as Captain America come out towards the latter end of July. The new Mission Impossible movie, which looks AMAZING (I thought it would be garbage, but it looks so cool!), comes out in December, so I have time before I see it =P I had not seen the HP7.5 trailer until then, and....well, despite not liking the HP movies at all, this movie looks like it's going to be absolutely fantastic. I've said this SO many times, but it's going to demolish every box office record known to mankind...and I'm excited to be a part of it.

Anyway, Transformers 3. It's great, and I recommend that you see it. It's entertaining, a good popcorn flick, good action....if you're not expecting a deep acting masterpiece, then you won't be disappointed. It's all action, all the time, with the Autobots and Decepticons! You know the drill; transform and roll out...to the theatre, that is.