Respect Authority

Ever since last year, when I made my first attempt at watching Shia LaBeouf flirt with women way out of his league in Transformers, I have had a vehement hatred for the movie which was, among other things, poorly acted and exceedingly melodramatic.

I’ve always understood that there’s an element of superhero tales, and Transformers in particular, that I will never understand or appreciate – I was, after all, never a 13-year-old boy. And even though the social issues brought up by X-Men, or the chiseled abs highlighted in Batman, had enough universal appeal to cross gender lines, Transformers was a distinctly male show. (This is the point at which indignant females will insist that they watched, and loved Transformers. To which I say, shut up and stop lying). The concept, after all, is a veritable orgy of adolescent male favorites – good guys and bad guys, cars, trucks and giant robots. Throw in a cowboy and some astronauts and the sheer perfection would emotionally stunt boys the world over.

So it was with trepidation that I even approached the film in the first place. After all, I have no real nostalgia for Transformers and until Optimus Prime t-shirts re-entered pop culture as go-to apparel for endearingly nerdy 20-somethings, I barely had any idea what to expect, save a lot of metal and…gears and stuff.

Yet despite my initial rejection of the movie – and subsequent refusal to accept anyone else’s opinion on the matter – I took it upon myself to give the whole thing another go this week. Last night I sat down with some warm soup, cold beer and a bowl of …“Cheerios,” turned the lights off and settled in for some intense robot-on-robot action. (I’m talking about fighting, jeez). After all, my neighbors have been playing an ancient Mary J. Blige CD on repeat for weeks, at an absurd volume, so two hours of gunshots and screeching steel seemed a fair auditory rebuttal.

My conclusion? Transformers still isn’t very good – but it is pretty fucking entertaining. Watching robots engage in fist fights is surprisingly more awesome than I would have initially assumed, even though it never quite made sense that Megatron felt a swift kick to the face was the best means of dealing with Optimus Prime. I mean, you’re robots guys ….advanced DNA-based alien robots. I expected things might have progressed a bit beyond the traditional throwing of ‘bows.

In any case, I was surprisingly captivated by the entire movie – even the completely ludicrous idea that this group of altruistic robots traveled all the way to Earth simply to save the idiotic human race from destruction. Names like Autobots and Decepticons gave the thing a distinctly adolescent feel, perpetuated by the convenient fact that Autobots refuse to harm humans (making for far less bloodshed). But even as an adult, I found Megatron more than a little frightening, and either way, watching shit blow up and buildings get destroyed is decidedly non age-specific.

That said, and with the haze of last night’s Cheerios now gone, I can say with some degree of confidence that watching the movie stone-cold sober might have been less enjoyable. The camaraderie between the robots was a little too Space Jam campy for me, as was Soundwave, the little Gremlin-esque bot that mumbled to itself and seemed wholly responsible for any success the Decepticons may have had, however temporary. Were Soundwave not responsible for most of the villainous computer-hacking in the movie, I would have suggested that he be removed altogether – as it is, his presence veers into a little bit of the Jar Jar Binks annoyance category.

On the human side, there were equally annoying moments. Although the movie wasn’t made too far ahead of either Eagle Eye or Indiana Jones, Shia LaBeouf seems significantly younger than in either of the later movies, making it just that much less believable that he’d ever get attention from abnormally gorgeous Megan Fox, whose sole flaw is that no amount of movie makeup can disguise her bad skin. (Consequently, Shia’s skin also looks awful for most of the movie, as it did in Eagle Eye which, in fairness, I saw in Imax, likely exacerbating the issue). In addition, John Turturro’s performance as a Sector 7 agent is completely bizarre; I couldn’t decide whether it was a function of his status as a top-secret government operative, or because he never quite got past playing that weird butler in Mr. Deeds.

In the end, I enjoyed myself – and my vote would be that anyone who hasn’t seen Transformers might as well, at the very least so they can have an educated and informed discussion about its merits the next time the subject comes up. As for the merits of ranting about a movie now nearly two years old that half the world has probably already seen and formed their own opinions on, I figure with Transformers 2 set to hit the silver screen in June of next year, it’s okay to take a look back. Indeed, I find myself hopeful that the franchise’s second cinematic incarnation might work outs its kinks and prove better than the first, in the vein of Terminator 2 and Aliens. At the very least, I hope Soundwave dies. Or powers down. Whatever.