Transformers (2007): Bad Taste In Disguise
Written: Jul 05 '07 (Updated Jul 10 '07)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Some of the special effects might look good in a real movie.
Cons: I don't want to think about them any more.
The Bottom Line: Just say no. Hitting your head against a brick wall would be more fun.
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| Ed.Williamson's Full Review: Transformers |
Well, once again we have one of those wonderful biodegradable summer movies (like the Cruise version of "War of the Worlds") where a good idea is taken as a basis, lots of money for special effects are thrown in, but the plot is ridiculously splattered into a gazillion directions, and good taste is thrown out the window as the film-maker tries to see how much bad taste he can get away with on the way to another forgettable movie. Transformers, shamformers. Far less than memorable cinema meets the eye here.
This really is amazing to me, because I saw on the credit roll that Stephen Spielberg was associated with this loser of a project. This is the same Stephen Spielberg, I think, who used to give us some actual entertainment masterpieces back in that other century. Wow, Stephen, I guess it was all just a dream, huh?
Anyway, I raised kids in the 90s with those little transformer toys they used to have and now, some years later, I took one of my now-grown-up kids to see this turkey. After it was over, he just sadly shook his head and said something vaguely like, "This is pure junk. I'm going to have to try real hard not to let this movie get anywhere near the memories I have of when we used to have such great times playing with those toys when we were kids. Who are these people?"
Okay, you probably want to know about the bad taste part(s). Well, again, remember, that the original Transformer toys were made for little children to play with. Children. Small humans. Good little creatures. Little people you really want to have grow up with ideas like respect, honesty, and decency as a part of their makeup. And then comes along this movie(?) which uses those little Transformer toys as a part of its modus operandi mythos. And what do we get?
Urination jokes, including a man being urinated upon. Scatological jokes. Puke jokes. Women jokingly called "B**ches" and "Hos". Parents made to look like idiots. Police and other authority figures made to look like fools. Yeah, just the sort of role modeling and humor you want your young children to see and think is reely kewl, man. Oh, and don't forget all those really funny jokes about masturb*tion that will tickle everyone's funny bones too. Such classic and classy humor.
As if bad taste were not enough, the plot is so silly that it may make some folks get all excited, but don't look for much of worth beyond that. A nerdy kid who had an explorer for a relative is selling the relics of the man's historic exploration on E-Bay so he can buy a klunker car. Somehow, the boy's relative is connected to a mysterious cube that is worth a lot to some warring robots from space. One group of these robots likes humans and the other doesn't. The boy is sent to do a man's job with the cube, and through an accident he deals a death blow to the bad robots and saves the day. Oh yeah, along the way he helps a girl who is also a car thief get all her crimes erased from the books, because she is really a babe, so he can have a roll in the hay with her. Really nice story for the kids of any age, right?
But you want to know the really annoying thing about the movie? I think they set the world record for blatant product endorsements. Just about every other line of dialog is a plug for everything from Chevrolet Camaros to Taco Bell. How did GM and those other companies get so involved in such a mess of bad taste? This movie is really one big multicommercial with some special effects thrown in. I guess if you are a big business person who doesn't care if people are offended by bad taste or you are a used car salesman and feel that way too you will love this movie and you will find all that product hyping very worthwhile, but I thought it was just another smelly scam in a really awful movie that scams on just about anything decent. This hits the bottom of the black pit of summer movies in 2007, except maybe for the wonderful creations from those fine, upstanding men, credits to their race to a man(?), who make torture-porn movies.
Well, I guess there is an audience out there of people that like this kind of high drama. Different strokes and all that. Yet as the old song has it, "But not for me..." I just wish these Transformers had landed on some other planet besides Earth. But we can't have everything, can we?
One Star/*
Recommended:
No
Movie Mood: None of the Above
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Rough cut, missing major effects, music, etc.
Worst Part of this Film: Everything
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Ed.Williamson
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Member: Ed Williamson
Location: Way Out West, USA
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Fight 'em till Hell freezes over, then fight 'em on the ice!
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