In a Nutshell. Mini reviews of movies old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. And often no sleep.

Sunday, 6 October 2024

Transformers One (2024)


Admittedly, I'm not the target audience for this film, but I'm not entirely sure who it was made for. Kids who have no prior exposure to Transformers? Certainly not the adults who grew up on the '80s cartoon or Megan Fox's ass. This lighter PG animated fare is bright and full of color, but the CG character designs look dull and ugly. The anthropomorphized robots act goofy and incessantly argue with each other, interspersed with some inane and frantically edited action sequences that get tiresome quickly. The tone becomes slightly darker by the end, but I was already checked out by then. As a prequel to the franchise, the whole thing is just a flimsy excuse to show how Optimus Prime and Megatron came to power. There are no surprises here.
One of those movies where you contemplate your life in the margins while you're waiting for it to mercifully end. This one is strictly for the kiddies.

½ a solid REM cycle out of 5

4 comments:

Neg said...

I’ve been waiting for this………


Transformers reviewers are enthralled with it, but I think it’s momentum of opinion. They are used to enjoying animated Transformers endeavors. They’re used to liking that tool Optimus. I don’t have that problem, as a Roddy guy, through and through.

#Megatronwasright

In the ’86 movie, I absolutely root for Megs, as well, but by the end I am solidly there for MY MAN! So, it doesn’t feel dissonant, the way that the end of One does. It’s like they expect you to just agree with Optimus, because he’s Optimus. NO! Megs has every right to feel the way he does about the villain, and Megs damn sure isn’t the villain.

This idea of Optimus and Megs being friends that they’ve been trotting out for a while, now, is ludicrous. Megs wouldn’t be friends with a loser like that.

How do you expect me to believe that the person who won the race, would have won it, given that Blurr and ALL of the Stunticons are in it, and dirty tactics are allowed? I know that they can’t have Menasor kill half of Iacon, as a victory lap, so why even show that they’re in it? Why show that Blurr is, if you want anyone else to win?

Except that, we all WANT Blurr to be in it, because he HAS to be. Thanks for subverting my expectations, Blue Rey~

budarc said...

Yeah, I'm probably not the best person to review it since I don't have a big attachment to the series like others have. I just thought it was way too kid-friendly and all the comic relief stuff felt really shoehorned in. Maybe the fans have been clamoring for an Autobot/Decepticon origin story this whole time... I don't know. Prequels usually leave me bored to tears because they don't add much that we don't already know.

I'd be interested to know what you think when you see it. I could be totally off here, but it did nothing to stoke my interest and the CG design was a total turn-off.

budarc said...

Ah, re-reading that back, did you already see it or were you going by other reviewers' opinions? If so, what rating would you give it?

Neg said...

They did so many pre-screenings that I knew most things about it for at least a month prior to release. I formed my own opinions based on events described by others; I didn't adopt their feelings. I mean, they all loved it, so of course I didn't. Clips did show up on youtube, so I have seen parts of it, myself. They actually managed to make the climax worse than I envisioned, thanks to the editing.

I’m not in a place to assign a score; I haven’t seen the entirety of it.

I’m the kind of fan who wasn’t ever going to be happy, because it’s not a Roddy-centric piece of TF media.

I don’t review things, anymore; I just share how I feel.

Ultimately, I’m just really shocked at how laser-precise they were in making a depiction of Optimus that’s somehow even worse than normal. Are they serious with this? Are people really onboard with a level of mercy that is completely idiotic? Jesus mixed with Batman. Now, Roddy? He’s HARSH, just like Judd Nelson himself~