TGWTG User Blogs

I have a theory which states that Nostalgia Critics review of Transformers is in fact the origin of Bum Reviews. Since Transformers is a relatively new movie, one could not expect the Nostalgia Critic to review this movie with his usual wit and insight.

To that end, I travelled into the future, about 7 years or so, to a point where Transformers would indeed be eligible for a nstalgic review. How ever I was shocked to discover that this site, thatguywiththeglasses.com, had been taken over by the Illuminati and was (or will be, since it's the future) being used to spread a false message designed to lull site viewers into believing that their secret shadowy overlords were actually down to earth, good people. Worse still, the Nostalgia critic had been (or will be) shot and killed, only to be replaced by Al Gore for some unknown reason (it's not even in the script...plothole?) and that Mr. Gore had decided not to give a critical nostalgic review of Transformers as his lord and master was Michael Bay aka the antichrist aka the spawn of satan aka Oprah Winfrey.

In order to save the human race I have travelled back to the present to write the review that Nostalgia Critic will never write. It's all very complicated...you see if I write the review...Bay won't target this site for assimilation, thereby denying him access to thousands, perhaps millions of loyal followers, thereby ending his chances of ruling the world...in slow motion.

And so to save the world, I give you the Nostalgia Critic Review that never was or never will be, not written by him but by me for the sake of humanity...and fieldmice...yes fieldmice, they're intelligent you know.

A Vadakin Retrospective: Transformers

I remember the cartoon...it was a bit crap. It basically consisted of some pointless plot crammed in between crap blowing up and robots fighting each other. But it always had the potential to be a great cinematic experience. They tried it once with the animated movie, and frankly any movie that has the balls to kill the main hero in the first act deserves some credit even if the film was fairly stupid.

With the live action version, I wanted Bay to make this. I supported him in that regard. The first half of the island showed he could work well with a solid script whereas the second half showed that he needed to reign himself in a bit. There is no doubting his ability to construct an action sequence, though is method of shooting leaves a lot to be desired. Transformers, on the action front, seemed to be the perfect material for Bay.

So...was it? Well here's the thing...the script sucks. The first half of The Island was solid...it was half of a good script (second half was terrible) and as I said above, showed that Bay can be good as long as the script is solid. The Transformers script however, is a piece of crap. I read it months before the film came out and I cringed. But it wasn't a final draft, things could have changed....unfortunately, that didn't happen.

This script is a giant piece of crap and Bay is the laxative that released it as cinematic diarrhea.

Following the opening monologue from Optimus, we find ourselves in Quatar, the Middle East...yeah, the caption actually says "The Middle East". Didn't Team America already do that joke? What? This is serious? It would be like saying: USA, North America. But I guess Bay was being helpful to the stupid people, you know, the ones who watch his movies (present company excluded of course). And so we get our first terrible cliche...you know the one, the part where a bunch of soldiers talk about what they will do when they get home...which as soon as you see it, lets you know that at least one of them isn't gonna make it home. It's right up there with "he was 3 days away from retirement". Then there's the motivation of "the wife and child at home" which lets you know that this guy is gonna survive.

So...we move on...first action sequence...all wide shots, filled with explosions and any close ups are extreme, so you can't make out the full extent of what's happening or even get a good look at the Decepticon, apart from the transformation, which is kinda cool actually. Following the sequence...do we ever actually see that Decepticon again? Frankly they all look alike in Bi-ped mode and I assume he changed his transformation from helicopter to something else because we never see a heli transform again. The movie is full of this sort of confusion.

So then we move on we get Scorponok attacking in the desert...and of course the Indian call centre along with "left cheek, left cheek, left cheek." Dear God, who writes this crap? Kurtzman and Orci? Oh, right. Suddenly it all makes sense. And these guys wrote Star Trek...have fun watching Spock become Kirks drinking buddy.

And a certain type of ammo can hurt the transformers...so much for superior technology. This whole film feels like a love letter to the Air Force.

This movie is full of comic relief characters. You have Bernie Mac...that Ben Stiller look-alike cop that makes no sense, the Sector 7 leader, Jon Voight...wait, that was a serious performance? Could have fooled me.

Sam's intro stuff is lame but I can understand its inclusion. LeBouff isn't that bad...he basically plays the same guy he played in I, Robot only less confrontational, and he handles the material well. I never understood the appeal of Megan Fox though. I prefer the Aussie hacker girl. But seriously, did they really call the dog Mojo just to set up the weird cop scene?

The comedic lines in this movie are just plain stupid. There was one in the script that I liked, where Ironhide suggests killing Sams parents, which was ok, but the execution in the film itself was flat.

And then there's Bumblebee, the so-called heart of the movie. They give him no voice and force him to speak through the radio as a gimmick...he acts like a child but when he finally speaks at the end, he sounds like an old man...that's kinda disturbing, like one of those internet predators, only he's a car. And how does he speak at the end? Apparently Ratchet can't do anything as a medic, but if you kick Bumblebees ass, the beating repairs his vocal circuits.

Anyways, we have Frenzy on Air Force One...the Bush reference was just plain stupid...why does Frenzy sound like he's on an acid trip? And later on, we get the first big fight between...uh...cop car Decepticon (Devestator? I have no clue, Bay is robo-racist, making them all look the same) and Bumblebee...great, some Transformer action...and then we leave it to follow the humans...this whole movie is about leaving the robot fights to follow the humans.

When we get back to Bumblebee, the other decepticon is gone...wtf? I mean, did Bumblebee beat him? Did he run away? It makes no sense...one minute he is there, fighting Bumblebee, the next he is nowhere to be seen. But he can't be dead because he shows up again later on. You see that? That's a hole. You see what's in it? That's the plot...you know why? Because it's a damn PLOTHOLE. This film is full of them. Every movie, no matter what the subject, has an internal logic. Superman can see through things because of solar radiation. It makes no sense in the real world but in that world it works. Transformers has no logic whatsoever. It's just a bunch of badly shot action scenes strung together and a couple of hacks writing crap in between.

Following the case of the missing Decepticon (that's three by this stage...the Heli- decepticon, Scorponok, both of whom are never seen again, and the cop Decepticon who disappears and reappears) we have the best scenes in the entire movie - The Autobots arrive.

This scene is cool. It really is. And it's a shame that the rest of the movie couldn't live up to it. Of course even this sequence is almost ruined by "are you the tooth fairy" and "this is way cooler than Armageddon"...who writes this...never mind.

It's a good intro for Optimus, though it turns out that Jazz thinks he's generic rapper number 77. I kept waiting for him to say "pop a cap in your ass".

And so the story moves on and we get another "classic" line.."were you masturbating?" Come on...what's next? Bumblebee taking a leak on....wait...oh dear God.

So by the time we get to Hoover Dam, we find that Sector 7 has the cube and Megatron and that they were the basis for all our modern technology, like microwaves and cars and....wait...go back....cars? Do these guys ever research anything? The car was invented long before Megatron was found in the ice of the Arctic. Wow, there really is no logic in this film.

Frenzy touches the cube and gets his full form back...wait...bay and ILM go to the trouble of having the size and weight of he transformers match the machines they are replicating, and then they throw it out the window by having Frenzy grow a new pair of legs? Heck the reason the Optimus truch didn't have the flat front was because the size wouldn't match...but Frenzy not only grows legs, he can also throw metal discs? Where did they come from? At full size, Frenzy transforms into a stereo. Dear God...this movie makes no sense.

And so Megatron is revived into a cliche robot version of Doctor Evil, tells Starscream he has failed him again...wait, when was the first time...never mind...it doesn't matter, the film is already in the gutter and only a solid action sequence can save it now...so they go to hide the cube in "Mission City"...ok, I get that..but wait, turn around, the Decepticons are following...don't lead them in to a populated area...turn around dammit....noooooo.

How stupid are these people? They take the device that the Decepticons are after into the heart of a densely populated area...and they're in the military...they should have some sense of strategy...but no, it's all an excuse for Bay to stage an action scene, screw the logic.

So you have this big fight, and again, they take it away from the Transformers and focus on the humans...then Jazz dies...he's supposed to be second in command and he jumps on Megatrons back? Yeah that's a great command decision. The robots are as stupid as the humans in the movies. But it doesn't matter since Jazz had like 4 lines in the entire thing.

Then, here we go...what every Transformers fan has waited for...even if everything before it sucked, this would make up for it...Megatron vs Optimus Prime..ok this will rock...wait...stop, where are you going? No I don't wanna know what the guy from Las Vegas is up to, I wanna see the fight dammit.

You know, I think heli-bot...uh Blackout, shows up again...that might be him shooting the missile at the helicopter that Sam runs to...but then he disappears again...wow...great.

So after a messy action sequence with terrible shot selection and the focus on the wrong elements, Sam goes to shove the cube into Optimus' chest...and Optimus says no....Sam doesn't listen but that line from Optimus is so out of place, it's unbelievable. And then he thanks Sam for doing it. What the hell? And then it stops...it just stops, there are other Decepticons still around but they apparently decide to pack up and go home. Everyone else just stands around and nobody questions what happened to the other Decepticons. And then Optimus calls Megatron "brother".

Ok...never mind that it would piss off the fans, we catch a glimpse of Megatron during the flashback with Optimus...no mention of any relation, throughout the whole fight, no mention of it...just that one line at the end. the truth is, in the leaked draft they were brothers, but it was cut from the film, all except for that one line. All they had to do was remove the word "brother" and there would be no confusion, but again, this movie makes no sense.

And so Bumblebee gets beaten up and can suddenly talk, Voights character says to leave no evidence...so are they going to exterminate everyone in Mission City who saw the battle, the countless news crews who no doubt covered it and the people at home who watched it? It's kinda hard to cover this up without killing a lot of people. Again...no sense.

And so the movie ends with a voice over from Optimus Prime...and between some of the credits we get confirmation that the government were trying to cover up the Transformers appearance as Sams parents are interviewed about it....then StarScream blasts off into space having had a couple of lines in the whole movie and it's over.

And I haven't even gone into Anthony Anderson, most of the Sector 7 chiefs antics, the lack of development for the stars of the movie, the Transformers, 90% of the main jokes or the Bayification shots...or the vending machine transformer who appears and disappears, the steering wheel transformer, the xbox transformer...there is just so much wrong with this movie.

ILM did a great job rendering the Transformers...but that work was ruined by Bay's inability to buy a tripod and keep the camera still.

The score is a mix between generic Bay movie music and Batman Begins with a little Bourne thrown in...hardly original.

People have made the argument that it's "only" Transformers and that you shouldn't complain about a movie based on a line of toys...well Superman is "only" a comic book and people complain about its films. They want the best for the character. The same applies to Transformers. The origin of the source material is irrelevant. What matters is a solid script with an internal logic that works for the story. Sure, it's a summer popcorn movie, but that doesn't mean it should get away with not making any sense.

To be fair, it has a couple of good, solid moments. But as a whole, there are so many bad points that they not only overshadow the good, they highlight just how bad this movie is. It's the worst movie Michael Bay has ever directed. All bay films have plotholes and are complete cheesefests. But this one...dear God.

Transformers sucks. Utterly and completely. It single-handedly manages to prove that Hollywood is going down the toilet and is dragging the audience down with it.

I've gone from thinking that Bay could do a good job on Transformers to being mad at Spielberg for giving him the job.

It's a big budget pile of dog feces that has sadly been embraced by the public and following the horror of X-Men 3 has led me to believe that the age of good popcorn films that sprang up in the early 80's is truly over.

Final Score:

1/10

And in case you missed it:

This script is a giant piece of crap and Bay is the laxative that released it as cinematic diarrhea.

And thus the day is saved, the future is saved, Nostalgia Critic is saved...but I'm afraid the poor fieldmice didn't make it. You see, during the course of this review, Michael Bay sent his Kitten Assassins to kill all the fieldmice...but their deaths served a noble cause...no sacrifice, no victory...unless you cheat.