In Continuum.

Transformers



Spoilers alert!

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."

- Optimus Prime

If you are left with ten dollars this summer, and you intend to spend it on a movie that is going to be worth the money, spend it on Transformers. Because this is the ultimate summer movie there is right now, the kind that requires minimal brain activity, the kind of movie-going experience that is all about the visual impact and extravagance. Transformers is all about robots, explosions, more explosions, and more robots. This is not a movie that is going to win Academy Awards for Best Picture or whatever, but a movie that is out to satisfy the audience on a lazy Saturday afternoon such as this one. Strap yourself in, because Transformers is going to take you on a ride that will transform your cinema experience literally, at the very end.

Ever since the announcement was made for a live-action Transformer film, I had my doubts initially about the possibility of it all. However, with Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg helming the film, it was hard for it to go terribly wrong. Most of the doubts that arose were utterly shattered when the very first trailer of the movie appeared online, and the expectations all across the world and cyberspace was deafening. Everybody wanted to watch Transformers, and everybody had their hopes blowing through the roof and going sky high. Most movies fail to meet such expectations, like the hype that surrounded the released of Spider-man and Pirates earlier in the summer. When your expectations are THAT high, it is not difficult to see yourself missing the bar and falling back down to where you came from. So the pressure was on Bay and Spielberg's shoulders to deliver. And to calm down those fanatics out there, trust these two men when they say that their movie is going to be awesome. Because they kept to their word, and the movie was awesome.

As a fan of Transformers since I was a child, I collected those plastic toys that transformed from a car to a robot often. I had a whole box of Transformers, and even a set of alphabets and numbers that could transform into robots as well. It was the cartoon I watched most often when I was a child back in Taiwan, when the robots were dubbed in Chinese, which was confusing to me when I found out that they spoke English in Singapore instead. Being new to the language, I watched the English version of Transformers as a kid for its action, and not much for the storyline. It's not that I didn't want to get involved, but because I simply could not understand what they were saying. However, the explosions and the fighting got me hooked to the television every weekday afternoon, despite it being too violent for children that age. Which is probably why I lived my life remembering the robots but not their names or the storyline - which sort of disqualifies me as a fan but, I guess as long as I was a fanatic as a child, it counts.

Now, you may think that a movie adapted from Hasbro toys are going to be a movie for children. After all, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles flopped at the box office because it was targeted for children, and adapted from a children cartoon. However, like I mentioned before, in the hands of Bay and Spielberg, not a lot of things can really go wrong. Even the little alterations that they did to the storyline as well as the design of the robots did not occur to me as anything significant in the course of viewing the film. Because seriously, nobody wants to see boxy robots - like the ones from the original cartoon - fighting each other on screen with laser beams that can blast through walls and rocks but not nearly as much damage as each other. And of course, nobody is going to want to see Megatron transform into a gun either. It's going to be like Darth Vader transforming into a light saber, it is simply not going to work on screen. Oh, and seriously. Stop complaining about Optimus Prime's lips. They worked. Not to mention all the classic lines from the cartoon, they are there too.

So armed with an army of technicians from Dreamworks, Bay and Spielberg crafted this film about robots beating the hell out of each other, and the end product was an excited two hour ride that proved the tag line of the film: Everything changes. Booking the tickets three weeks before the actual release of the film was a wise move, because the crowd in the morning at The Cathay stretched all the way from the box office to the escalators. Ahmad and I met up at ten in the morning, and even then the place was already rather crowded with excited crowds, all trying to get tickets to the first screening of Transformers this weekend. Sitting in the theater, I was very much surrounded by people who were obvious fans of the cartoon. So when the stars of the Paramount logo started to fly into frame with altered sound effects, there was a piercing silence in the crowd and the air was thick with anticipation.

Transformers tells of the story of - well, robots kicking each others' ass basically. In between the intense battles, we get the humans messing around each other and some making a fool out of themselves. The story begins with an US military base in Qatar being attacked by an unknown MH-53 Pave Low helicopter, which transformed itself into a robot that unleashed electromagnetic pulse that managed to wipe out the whole camp. The survivors of the attack - trailed by the deadly Scorponok of the Decepticons - tries to make contact with the Pentagon through the desert wastelands. In America, Shia LaBeouf plays a 10th grader named Sam Witwicky, an ordinary teenager who works hard at school as well as at home to buy his very first care and hopefully, earn the liking of the girl from school, Mikaela, played by Megan Fox. Sam becomes entangled between the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons due to the 'giant ice snowman' his great-great grandfather found in the arctic in the early 20th century. It was the frozen body of the Decepticon leader Megatron, who was sent to Earth to find the Allspark - an energy cube that is capable of transforming ordinary machines into robots - to create his army of robots to take over the universe. Somehow, the location of the Allspark became engraved on the glasses of Sam's great-great grandfather during the discovery of Megatron, and the heirloom was being passed down to him with the secret lost to all - save for the robots which was heading to Earth to seek out the glasses which Sam placed on eBay for sale.

That is basically what you need to know about the story, and all you need to do for the rest of the movie is to sit back and watch those robots bring each other to pieces one by one. As a child, I've always wanted to see robots tearing each other apart, and I was not allowed to do that at all with my own toys at home. So to see them do so on a giant screen was a dream come true of sorts, especially in a movie made by two masters of film-making, it made the dream even sweeter. And of course, it has Megan Fox. Oh. My. God.

Allow yourself a few minutes to imagine the kind of action you are going to expect from a movie like that, and that is probably what you will see and more in this summer blockbuster. Aside from all the punching and all the kicking, we see rockets flying everywhere and laser guns being shot with limitless ammunition at each other. Not to mention the flying tanks, the exploding buildings, the cars being thrown off expressways, the F-22 fighter jets crashing into buildings after being shot down by Starscream, and not to mention my favorite shot: Megatron - as a Cybertronian jet - crashing through an office building in slow motion with Optimus Prime. Though it echoed somewhat of the horrors during 9/11, at least the bad guys got what they deserved in the end, unlike the reality. I liked Megatron's design alteration in this film, from a handgun to a space jet of sorts. And the movie-makers paid tribute to the original design by giving Megatron a giant rocket in the movie that transforms out of his arms. THAT was the ultimate weapon in the whole movie, aside from Ironhide's duel cannons.

Just when you think Michael Bay directs the best car-chases - which he does - nothing beats a car-chase at 100 miles an hour, and having the cars transform into robots at the very same speed. Watch out for Ironhide's split second improvising as his vehicle almost gets into the way of a helpless passerby in the middle of the warfare. He totally showcases the power of his cannons and the slow motion action here was just utterly brilliant. Not to forget the other representatives of the Autobots, which include Jazz - the Pontiac Solstice, Bumblebee - the Chevrolet Camaro, which is also Sam's guardian, and Ratchet the Hummer H2.

On the side of the Decepticons, we have the already mentioned Megatron and his partners. Starscream the F-22 Raptor, Barricade the Saleen-modified Ford Mustang police car, Frenzy the twin-speaker radio which also acts as the hacker of information, Bonecrusher the Buffalo(Mine-protected vehicle), Blackout the MH-53 Pave Low, Scorpnok the mechanical scorpion and Brawl the M1 Abrams. Amongst these bad guys, they all have their moments of brilliance on screen, but Megatron is really the big boss of them all. He has the coolest weapons, the most intimidating looks, and probably the most menacing one as well. It is a shame that the directors included so many robots in one movie, because so many of them, including the ones from Autobots, had so little screen time and lines. Most of them were one-liners, and some of them didn't talk at all. I liked Bonecrusher and the way it literally forked cars out of his way on the expressway. But as soon as he appeared on screen, he also disappeared under the hands - or sword - of Optimus Prime. That was quite a disappointment, but I guess with such a huge CGI cast, it'd be hard to focus on every one of them. Besides, by killing off robots it'd also mean less CG to deal with, and more money saved.

Aside from all the adrenaline pumping action, there is also a strong sense of humor in the film. The best part of the humor shines through in the first act of the movie, from the beginning till the point whereby Sam discovers his car's hidden talents. A hilarious scene includes the Autobots in the carefully tended front yard of Sam's house, trying to move around as quietly as possible without Sam's parents noticing them at all. But of course, transforming themselves into cars and parking them on the front lawn wasn't the best way to disguise, so they had to hide around the corners and under the front porch to stay out of the suspicious eyes of the parents. Ironhide's comments about the parents had me burst out in laughter - though it was obviously not shared by Optimus Prime who shot Ironhide down - figuratively. Not to mention how Bumblebee communicated with Sam and Mikaela through the songs played on the radio, because his voice box was damaged and left unfixed.

This movie is all Michael Bay, and it is an obvious one. Like everybody out there predicted, this movie does have the usual Michael Bay flaws stamped all over. We have pointless human interaction scenes that were a minute or two too long, we have scenes that are sometimes too far fetched even for a movie about robots from outer space. However, amidst the battling robots it becomes easy to forgive Michael Bay for these mistakes and move along with the storyline. Like I said before, this movie was never made to please the academy, but to please the fans and the bunch of audiences out there who have been craving for a live-action Transformers film. As long as we get to see robots being blown up, we care little if their human counterparts are well-developed or not. The movie totally blew me away, with the non-stop action towards the end of the movie, which can only be fully appreciated if the movie is watched in slow motion. Simply because the robots transform too fast and fought too swiftly at times, it is hard to take in all the imagery and information all at once. Like that speed at which Michael Bay filmed those scenes, the action comes quick and ends even quicker, leaving you in your seat and breathless.

So, like I said, if you have ten dollars right now and you have no idea how to spend it, spend it on this movie. It is going to blow your clothes off in the theater, and the grip it has on you is not going to let loose until the credits start to roll. Make sure you do stay back after the first few minutes of the credits to catch critical scenes that may lead to a sequel, despite the awful song choice - Linkin Park - in the background. Watch this movie, because whatever your pre-conceived idea may be of it, Transformers is going to transform your idea. After all, like the robots, there is more than meets the eye.

So what the hell are you waiting for?

Autobots, transform and roll out!