OK. I know. What was I thinking? WHAT WAS I THINKING? I mean, it’s a movie based on a toy franchise. How good is that going to be?
Only, Empire magazine, usually a dependable barometer of all things celluloid gave it a positive review. And I was compiling my list for Love Film and there it was on offer, so I thought, well let’s just see…
Actually, for a while, it threatens to be a good movie. It really does. Shia Le Beouf plays this nerdy kid who is selling stuff on Ebay and is desperate to cop off with this really cool looking girl from college and then his dad buys him a car and the car starts driving around by itself and helping him, putting on “Sexual Healing” when he’s giving the girl a lift and stuff like that and it’s really good fun for a while, honestly it is. Or at least it looks good compared to what follows. Actually it looks like ruddy Citizen Kane compared to what follows.
Because then the cars start turning into these big robots that are hunting down this cube thing (I’m still not sure exactly what that is) and they have names like Optimus Prime and Magnatron and while they’re rendered in state-of-the-art CGI, complete with dents and scratches, you’re never quite sure which are the good robots and which are the bad robots, and anyway it doesn’t really matter because whatever they do, there’s no denying that this is arse biscuits taken to the Nth degree.
Meanwhile, decent actors like Jon Voigt and John Turturro shuffle around looking embarrassed, as well they might and there are a lot of explosions and big buildings get smashed to smithereens and a lot of soldiers run around on the periphery of things, firing guns and throwing bombs and diving through plate glass windows, but as they’re having no apparent effect whatsoever, you can’t help wondering why they don’t just adjourn to a bar and have a few drinks; and then the two lead robots have a big punch up, only you’re still not quite sure which is good and which is bad, but by this time you’re past caring and then there’s a really BIG explosion and then mercifully, it’s over.
I can only assume that the Empire reviewers were of that certain age where they had the toys as kids and got a bit over-enthusiastic, but I wouldn’t recommend this for anyone except maybe people with impaired hearing who are desperate to hear some noise of any description. If anybody out there is planning to deliver a lecture entitled “What’s Wrong With Cinema”, save yourself the effort and just run this appalling, turgid, bloated, hysterical, thick-eared, stupid, tub-thumping, smelly, imbecilic excuse for a movie instead and save yourself the effort.
