So for those who didn’t hear my story of woe, I tried seeing “Transformers” on the 4th of July at the Des Peres Wehrenberg Theater. There were a few “projector issues” at the beginning (of course, after sitting through commercials and previews…), but the movie got started about 10 min late. Then, about 2 hrs into the 2.5 hr movie, it died. And by “died,” I mean that screwdrivers and wrenches were coming out in the projection booth. Needless to say, we were not pleased with this development, but were given passes to see it again at another time…
…so we saw it again last night, but this time at the Wehrenberg Galaxy theater, where they have digital projection and a “Mega Screen” (not as big as IMAX, but noticeably bigger). Now, this is the way to watch a special-effects ridden movie, lemme tell ya… It’s like the jump from 25″ standard-def and TV speakers to 50″ high-def with THX-certified surround…
Oh yeah, so the movie itself was quite good, even with having to see the first 2 hours twice. The story (simplified) is about bad-guy robots that are after information a guy contains, and then good-guy robots (nearly all of which come from General Motors vehicles…) are protecting him. There’s plenty of comedy (you know, when your car starts chasing you and helping you get dates…things like that…) and plenty of action, whic is to be expected. The story itself makes a general amount of sense, and translates relatively well from the 1980s television show to the big screen.
The special effects have been described as “the best ever” for a movie, and while I’m not sure if they’re the absolute best, they come damn close… The acting, on the other hand, I’m unsure about. The main character, Shia LaBeouf, was really good and makes me excited for “Indiana Jones 4,” where he’ll play Indy’s son. A few other bit part actors were alright, but then there were others that seemed to either “call in” their performance, or were just given crappy lines…including Jon Voight, Anthony Anderson, and John Turturro. It’s not like they were acting badly, but something seemed a bit “off” about their performances…amongst others…
Anyway, it was a great action movie with damned incredible special effects…to the point that, frequently, the Autobots looked very realistic. It was only in that last climactic fight scene where I really started noticing the CGI effects, when you’re getting really close in with the actors and the robots… Still looked good, but wasn’t perfect…
If you plan on seeing the movie at all, you need to see it in the theater… Otherwise, you can borrow the DVD from me when I buy it in a few months… 😛