How Michael Bay ruined my childhood

As a kid, I loved watching the old Transformers cartoon, I had Transformers toys, and thought Transformers were better than GI Joe (blasphemy, I know).

I got C an up-converting DVD player for Christmas, and we thought what better movie to test out 1080i on our TV than with the Michael Bay directed 2007 live action/CG remake of Transformers.

Now up until last night, I thought the worst movie I’ve watched in a while was Live Free or Die Hard. Seriously, someone needs to let Bruce Willis know he shouldn’t reprise the role unless they get some real writers to somehow make the explosions and car chases make sense and have some flow.

My observations about Transformers:

• I had heard a lot about seeing Detroit streets filmed in some of the climactic scenes, and I must say it was very distracting to have the cameras pan down the street and see places I knew. I spent more time trying to recognize Detroit buildings than watch the climactic fight between Optimus Prime & Megatron.
• Sorry GM, but I saw right through your giant car commercial. Why was I not surprised to see H2/H3’s everywhere, including one of the Transformer characters.
• This movie had some of the worst dialog I’ve ever been forced to sit through. Maybe I spoiled myself by watching Pulp Fiction earlier this week and was again dazzled at Tarantino’s ability to write dialog, or maybe it was the cheesy one liners and bad delivery on the part of the Transformers actors themselves. Regardless, it stunk.
• What the hell was going on with the cheese factor?! I couldn’t figure out if I was being forced to watch a tedious teen after-school-special-eqsue drama or some unrealistic military shoot-em-up. It was like there were 2 movies edited together that didn’t have much else to do with each other than some giant GC fucking robots.

I can say one GOOD thing about this movie, and thats the computer generated Transformers took on a truly real look and feel. I was amazed at how fluidly they integrated with the live action, and just how good they looked in general.

Some people (C) might say I’m too hard on the movie for what it is: an action film with explosions. Fine, maybe I’m a bit harsh, but I really had some high expectations going in that weren’t met. The good (or bad) news is that there is going to be a sequel in 2009, so they have another chance to woo me over…