Blowing Shit Up For Fun and Profit
By SteveThere’s something hotwired into the male strand of DNA that makes us like to blow shit up, and to see shit blown up. Since we spend the fourth of July celebrating the birth of our fine nation by blowing shit up, I figured it made sense to see Transformers, a movie made by a director (Michael Bay) who likes to blow shit up and based on a toy that is designed for boys who want to pretend to blow shit up.
I suppose I should confess that, as with most treasured geek things, Transformers means nothing to me. I’m a wee-bit too old to have played with the toys or cared about the cartoon; I’ve never even seen the show before, though I know the tagline “More Than Meets the Eye” from commercials. I know that some people my own age watched the cartoon but dudes, that was college… why weren’t you all getting all angsty watching The Seventh Seal. Philistines.
But I wanted to see big robots doing battle and that’s what I got. What I didn’t expect was a John Hughes 80s movie grafted onto it, but the humor actually made it more bearable. The film looks amazing, and the digital compositing is terrific. The robots really blend into the environments. But the fact everyone was goofing off around them made it all one extended joke, which thank god it was. I mean, it’s a movie based on a toy. And as Pirates of the Caribbean—the first, non-crappy one—proved, you can take the worst premise and turn it into humorous fluff.
(Some of the goofs on IMDB are awesome. People take this shit too seriously.)
Which isn’t to say Transformers is as good as Pirates of the Caribbean. There’s no central, “WTF” performance like Johnny Depp, though it appears John Turturro gave it his best effort. (He’s horrible.) And Anthony Anderson, who proved himself with his killer role on The Shield, reverts back to screaming all the time for humor. But Shia LaBeouf is a star, the generic girlfriend was hot, the plot was funny, and lots of shit blew up. It’s a good time for the entire family, assuming you’re OK with an extended masturbation joke. (Where’s Long Duk Dong to bring it all home for the Hughes fan?)
It would make a good double header with Live Free or Die Hard, which I saw over the weekend. If anything, Die Hard 4 is an even more over-the-top action film. And it’s less Michael Bay-esque, which is to say it’s not edited and shot solely for over caffeinated 11-year olds. The worst thing about it is that it’s turned John McClane—so memorably vulnerable in the first movie, particularly when it came to his foot problems—into generic action superhero man.
But it’s even more balls-out action than Transformers. It’s basically an extended sequence of action scenes with little bits tying them all together. While everything it’s all well and good, the last one involving the world’s most mobile fighter jet pegs the stupid meter at 11. And I can’t hate on Justin Long too much for his “I’m playing a teenager in this movie even though I’m nearly 30″ role, despite those horrible “I’m a Mac” ads. I signed an agreement to let CGM be used in a movie he was in called Accepted, though I’ve never looked closely enough at the movie to see if it actually appears anywhere in the final movie.
July 5th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Accepted was one of those “god damn that actually worked well” movies. It wasn’t particularly good, but it was fun and had a ridiculously cheesy time getting where it went in a suggestively plausible way.
And as Pirates of the Caribbean—the first, non-crappy one—proved, you can take the worst premise and turn it into humorous fluff.
Hey, some of us liked the third one, aside from the bloated subplots. The quirkiness was back. It was like Boston - Third Stage: A return to unique awesomeness after an entirely failed second attempt that was a complete carbon copy of the first.
As far as Die Hard, I haven’t seen it yet, but I like the idea of a movie that glorifies the cheesiness of B movies. If you’re going to be a B movie, you may as well acknowledge it so that the one liner jokes actually become funny.
And of course, on the subject of Transformers, I can’t say I ever cared either (though in my case I was too young - not that I would have cared anyway; I’m strictly a Looney Toons guy when it comes to cartoons) but I will try to see it if it’s funny enough. Light hearted is the definition of my summer movie plan.
July 6th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
I saw Die Hard 4 recently as well… yes, the jet fighter vs. interstate ramp scene was just over the top… but then again, every die hard movie has scenes that are like that. Also, I feel Justin Long did a respectable job in this role.
So after seeing an edge-of-your-seat action trip like die hard, I watched “Waitress”, a nice, touching indie film… Andy Griffith’s return to film (after nearly a 6 year hiatus) was excellent; without him, the movie would have been so different.
July 6th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Sadly, I am much too old to grok the Transformers.
July 6th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
So am I, but I can still appreciate shit being blown up.
I can’t, however, understand what people are talking about when they complain about how Bumblebee isn’t handled properly, blah blah blah. I love those kinds of discussions; I swear geeks think everything they dig can’t be altered in any way.
July 6th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Oh, and I really like the idea of following up Die Hard with Waitress.
July 6th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I saw Transformers this morning. It’s actually really damn good (for the idea), and it managed to do that while taking itself seriously…
There really weren’t any “god this is stupid” moments. I was pleasantly surprised, given how serious it was trying to be.
August 13th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
The real question is, who would win in a fight: Justin Long or Shia LaBeouf?
You have a short guy named Long and a skinny guy named “buff”. I say it’s a tie. They’re equally weak.