Transformers

Holy Shit. I just saw Transformers and it blew my mind. Thank you Ronald Reagan for making this movie possible. You are truly a great American. [Prior to 1984, the FCC forbid toy companies from making program-length commercials. But the Reagan administration got rid of that reg and paved the way for program-length commercials for toys like "Transformers," "Strawberry Shortcake" and "Masters of the Universe," among others. That's right, my favorite TV show when I was nine was just a commercial.] I'm sure my appreciation for this flick is mostly based on nostalgia. When I first saw the Autobots driving in a caravan down a dessert highway, I got goosebumps. Awesome stuff.

Michael Bay has never made a movie that I would call "good," but I think he was a good guy to direct Transformers. You don't really need "character development" or "believability" or "a plot" in a movie about giant alien robots that turn into cars that come to Earth to fight other giant alien robots. And Bay actually made a couple improvements to the Transformers mythology. Most notable is that none of them drastically change size when they transform. When I was a kid I had a huge problem with the fact that the Megatron character was totally gay. He changed from a 30-foot tall robot into a little handgun. It was just retarded. Usually, Soundwave would fire Megatron when he was in gun-form. Soundwave was pretty lame too. He changed from a giant robot into... a tape player. In case the Deceptacons wanted to... like... record something... onto a cassette tape. The concept of Megatron turning into a gun and Soundwave shooting him at the Autobots would be akin to Darth Vader turning into a lightsaber and having one of those A-holes in the grey suits that he always chokes to death go after Chewbacca with it. Well in the Transformers movie, Soundwave doesn't appear and instead of being a little handgun, Megatron is this big-ass jet thing. Most of the Autobots were changed into GM cars for obvious product placement reasons too. The biggest change being that Bumblebee is a Camarro instead of a Beetle, like Herbie the Lovebug or the car that Mandie Moore drives in the video for Candy. Thanks again President Reagan.

[Spoiler warning]

So anyway, the "plot" of Transformers is that there are these huge sentient robots from planet Cybertron. They destroyed their own civilization through wars and stuff and were scattered across the galaxy. They're looking for this thing called the "allspark," which transforms electronic stuff into living creatures. It is essentially the Transformer God, except that it's a big cube instead of a muscular guy with a magic hammer like our god.

So the allspark ended up on Earth and was discovered frozen in the arctic circle by some old explorer dude a hundred years ago. He discovered Megatron there too. This old explorer dude's grandson, Sam, now has some artifacts from grandpa's exploration, including a pair of glasses that Megatron etched instructions for finding the allspark on.

The Deceptacons learn this and go after Sam, while the Autobots try to protect him and find the allspark themselves. A 1 hour, 45 minute car-chase/shootemup/robot fight follows. Awesomeness ensues. The end.

Transformers isn't without it's problems. It had several massive plot-holes, as is common in Michael Bay movies. And there was a little too much ham involved. They tried to make the characters more contemporary or something. Like they made the character Jazz a total douchebag. He was all "hip-hop" or something. I was happy when Megatron tore him in half.

But the biggest problem was the two assholes sitting behind me in the theater that wouldn't shut the hell up for the entire movie. Could someone please explain to me why two people that wanted to have a conversation would go to a movie? Why not go get some coffee or a beer? Why not just sit in your F-ing living room for Chrisake? We avoided the Mayfair theater because we didn't want to deal with this garbage. But I guess people talk in movies at the FoxBay theater too. I would have said something, but I think that people who talk in movies usually pack heat too. Also, these two assholes appeared to like the Jazz character, who, as I previously noted, was a douchebag.