July 10th, 2007
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| Original Release Date: July 4th, 2007 |
| MPAA Rating: PG-13 |
| Genre(s): Action |
| Director: Michael Bay |
| Runtime: 143 minutes |
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 Mention "1984" to me and I'll probably get various mental images of lame hair bands on MTV, Andre The Giant, and probably Thundercats and He-Man. Mention that same year to somebody a bit older than me and I'm sure they'll be like "Oh shit, Transformers!". Yes, it pains me to say it, but I missed the boat almost entirely on the Transformers franchise.
I was born in 1986, which means I didn't have a damn clue what was going on around me until around '88 or '89 -- which was around the same time the Saturday morning cartoon came to a close. So, this review might not be from a die-hard Transformers fan and 80s pop culture buff (sorry, I support the 90s lol), but I know enough about them to get me by.
Besides, I watched Beast Wars almost religiously every morning before school back in '96 and there's something called "the internet" -- you know, that thing Al Gore supposedly invented? I didn't "read the book" on the series, but I read the cliff notes enough to take the exam on it if you can catch my drift. Plus, Transformers isn't complicated to understand in the first place since it has the most ludicrous concept ever anyways.. (I'd love to hear the pitch to the executives to get this film made..)
The once popular franchise has been laying dormant since the original show stopped airing, with the noteable exceptions of rehashes on The Cartoon Network here and there. Still, nothing really gave it the shot in the arm and swift kick in the ass it needed to bring it over a new generation of mainstream fans. I had heard the live action version of the series has been in the works and I was BEYOND skeptical this crap would even work in a real environment.
My brain was seeing some bastardized version of the cartoon mixed with Who Framed Roger Rabbit? with a pinch of the live action version of Scooby Doo . I also didn't have any interest whatsoever in the film and figured it would be another lame attempt at resurrecting, then anally raping, something held near and dear to almost everyone born in the 80s. I was getting ready to slip in my Triumph The Insult Comic Dog mode to say "Yeah, it's a great movie -- for me to poop on!"
Then, while surfing the 'net one day, I found the teaser trailer for it and it changed my pathetic little life into something significant lol. Hyberole? Maybe. But you can't sit there and tell me you didn't get a raging boner from the trailer. Girls included. Michael Bay, the director (Bad Boys I & II, The Island), totally sold me with the teaser. It was incredibly modernized and I liked the potential of the direction, although many people shared the fear in the back of my mind that with such potential, it could either rock your socks off or just be the crappiest, cheesiest, most campy film of the century. Even with Steven flippin' Spielberg on the project, the fear was still looming over as a black cloud over our childhood, just ready to rain over our memories drawn in washable marker (adult memories get the Shaprie lol).
As I handed over the $8.50 to get a ticket, I anxiously walked into the theater to see this highly anticipated event. The buzz on the street from the advanced screenings is that it's a killer movie, but I thought Spider-Man 3 rocked and most of the planet hated it... then you have to consider that I enjoyed both The Hulk and Daredevil, and it's easy to see I have different opinions on films than the mainstream public sometimes. Blame my high tolerance of dealing with crap in movies.
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