I wasn’t a Transformers fan as a kid. I mean, I’d watch the cartoon, but I remember being so frustrated because I couldn’t figure out how to turn the stupid robot into a cool jet-fighter. You had to like duck his head through his chest or something. Really, whenever my parents took me to Toys “R” Us, I always wanted GI Joes.
Anyway, so, when news surfaced that Michael Bay was making a Transformers movie, my reaction was “Lovely.” But a sarcastic lovely. Because, while I wasn’t a Transformers fan as a kid, I was a Michael Ban fan. Well, not as a kid, but as a high-schooler/college student (but emphasis on “was”). The first Bad Boys was kick-ass awesome. The Rock was a terrific movie. Armageddon was a decent flick (I own the Criterion DVD, and I do, on occasion, watch it — and, yes, I tear up at the end when Bruce sacrifices himself, STFU). But then came Pearl Harbor, and Bad Boys 2, and any affection I might’ve had for Michael Bay’s film-making talents went down the toilet. It isn’t enough to have flashy action sequences and a cool score and amazing cinematography: without a great script, it all just falls apart.
So, when Transformers came out in theaters, I was all like, “Oh, I might go catch a matinee”, but I didn’t feel like spending the money, so I added it to my Netflix queue.
Flash forward to Tuesday afternoon, when the movie showed up in my mailbox (which is the cool thing about Netflix — stuff shows up in your mailbox!)
I waited until I got home from work Tuesday evening to throw it into the player. Before pressing “play”, I actually went and tried to make a pumpkin pie. Danielle says I shouldn’t make pumpkin pies while it’s still 80-degrees out, but we’re halfway through October and Mother Nature, the tease she is, won’t comply with my desires for autumn to hurry on up and get here already.
As it was, the pumpkin pie came out okay, but the crust crumbled when I tried to cut into it. I wonder if I bought a crumble crust? Or maybe it was “pre-cooked” or something — it was certainly preformed. Do they sell crust-dough in the freezer section? I should never be allowed near an oven and cooking utensils. (Actually, the pumpkin pie itself turned out okay, although it wasn’t really capable of being cut into slices, and the crust was a little burned).
As for the movie …
… I liked it. Sometimes it moved a bit too slowly. Some sequences were drawn out far too long. A lot of characters never got closure (DefSec and his crew at the radio room). I wonder how much was cut from the film, because it really felt like some scenes were butchered to make room for sequences that ultimately did little but feature Transformers trampling around suburban yards trying to shoot dogs and messin’ up the lawn. Mostly, though, the movie was a lot of fun. Optimus Prime apparently listened to a few too many Churchill speeches on his way in to Earth (his speech is full of phrases like “At the end of today, one will stand, one will fall”, yada-yada).
So. Enjoyable. I might even go see Transformers 2 in theaters.