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An epic of something or other

This mindless summer blockbuster is action-packed
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By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
August 15th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Who needs earthquakes and fire? Los Angeles is transformed in Transformers.
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Transformers

Directed by Michael Bay
With Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Bernie Mac, John Turturro and Jon Voight

Like most industries in America, Hollywood has run out of ideas. This was painfully evident when studios started to raid the vaults of old television shows and comic book libraries for material. Since Toy Story, audiences have also been treated to the rumored riches of the nursery toy chest. What perhaps makes Transformers somewhat unique is that it represents a product that ties together all three of Tinseltown’s principle strip mines: TV shows, comics and toys. Surely, a recipe for success.
True, there was an amateurish full-length animated feature of the Hasbro gadgets in 1986, whose main claim to fame is it was the last film work for Orson Welles and Scatman Crothers, both of whom lent their voices to the enterprise. At that time, the genius of Citizen Kane took any job going, as an incident in Gore Vidal’s memoirs makes clear. Welles had to cancel a dinner with Vidal after his agent called to tell him he’d been hired for a dog-food commercial. “I don’t eat it,” Welles assured Vidal. “I celebrate it.” He was equally thrilled by his Terminators role. “I play a planet,” he told a friend. “I menace somebody called something or other.”
Welles can be forgiven for being confused by the names, since Transformers comes complete with an entire dictionary full of Unicrons, Megatrons and Cybertrons, as well as Autobots, Dinobots and Decepticons.
For those who have lived in blissful ignorance of the Transformers phenomenon, the creatures are best described as shape-shifting robots that can fold themselves up into standard mechanical devices. The car you drive or the BlackBerry in your bag might very well be an agent of good or evil. So, you can see the possibilities available to any CGI artist on the lot, not to mention advertising sponsors.
Transformers is what it is: a summer blockbuster consecrated with the Spielberg name. It is fast-paced and action-packed, and happily devoid of any ideas or characters that wander toward the three-dimensional. Indeed, if anything, the Transformers themselves seem more human than the human cartoons they must interact with.
The film begins with a ponderous monologue from good Autobot Optimus Prime, aka the Peterbilt truck. He drones on about, to use Welles’ phraseology, some place or other being menaced by someone or other. War has destroyed Transformerland, and now the battle is being brought to Earth.
The two tales within the film dovetail nicely with the interests of the director (Michael Bay) and his producer (Spielberg). Bay, the pyromaniacal mastermind of Pearl Harbor and Armageddon, seems to pour himself into the story of American soldiers in Qatar taking on the arrival of evil Transformers. The Spielbergian tale offers a standard suburban family setting, where high-schooler Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) gets his first car, a racy Chevy Camaro, which just happens to be a good transformer.
Both of the film’s favorite corporate sponsors — that is to say, General Motors and the U.S. Army — contribute much to the film, which in turn nicely serves as propaganda for them. In fact, the film provides a steady stream of product placement for Taco Bell, eBay and Nokia, among others. Were it geared for older people, there might have been opportunities to flog Viagra and Depends.
Mistaking the Transformer invasion as being some secret weapon employed by various evildoers du jour (Iranians, North Koreans, Chinese … though strangely, no mention of the French), the U.S. government comes close to unleashing Armageddon II. But the world will be saved by a few brave grunts, an attractive hacker and a handful of average teens.
The eventual battle between good and evil will demand busting most of the blocks of downtown Los Angeles. This climactic showdown, though summoned up by some of the lamest plotting imaginable, is CGI work at its finest. The extravagant virtual violence, along with the thrilling 9/11-porn of airplanes penetrating office buildings, is obviously the best aggressive product-placing can buy.
If you feel no summer is complete without three hours of noise, car chases and violence, Transformers will be exactly what you’re looking for. It is the epitome of mindless popcorn movie.
    

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (15/08/2007):

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