2001: A Space Odyssey is off the hook now because Transformers is officially the worst movie I've ever seen.
I think Peter Sobczynski's review closely mirrors many of my own views on the film:
1 Star, "Might As Well Be 'Uwe Boll's Go-Bots'"
The Transformers came along several years after I had already outgrown both toys and syndicated television cartoons that were barely-disguised commercials for said toys, so I was unable to experience them first-hand during their heyday. (I do recall slinking into a movie theater to catch the cheapo 1986 animated film “Transformers: The Movie,” mostly because at that time, one didn’t easily pass up on the opportunity to see a film that utilized the vocal talents of both Orson Welles, in the last film before his death, and Judd Nelson, in one of the last films before his career death.) As a result, I went into the screening of “Transformers,” an epic-sized screen adaptation of the property from the collective minds of director Michael Bay and co-producer Steven Spielberg, without any real kind of pre-conceived notions of what should and shouldn’t be on display in such a production. However, even if I had gone into the film expecting the worst, I doubt that even I could have contemplated something as grotesquely awful as this monstrosity. Produced with an abundance of money and technological knowhow and a complete absence of wit, style or excitement, this is less a film than it is a full-out assault on the senses that confuses bludgeoning a viewer with noisy spectacle without actually entertaining them.
Although the storyline for “Transformers” is so bizarrely convoluted that it seems to have been designed solely to defy any attempt at a coherent synopsis, I will nevertheless attempt to provide one. In a prologue, we learn of a faraway planet called Cybertron that was populated entirely by robots under the thrall of a mysterious, all-powerful cube known as the All Spark. Alas, this mechanical utopia was not to last and the robots separated into two factions–the heroic Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, and the villainous Decepticons, led by the monstrous Megatron–that went to war when Megatron attempted to seize the All Spark for his own ends. In the ensuing battle, Cybertron was destroyed and the All Spark was lost in space. For centuries, the Autobots and Decepticons have combed the galaxy looking for the All Spark and as the film opens, it turns out it has finally turned up on some distant and insignificant planet known to its denizens as Earth.
Reps from both sides of the conflict quickly arrive on the planet and, while waiting for their brethren to arrive, go about seeking the whereabouts of the All Spark in their own inimitable manners. A Decepticon disguised as an Army helicopter turns up in Qatar and proceeds to blow the hell out of an American military base, with the exception of a single rag-tag platoon led by manly men Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Epps (Tyrese Gibson), while attempting to download information from the various military computers. When this gets interrupted, another Decepticon, this one in the form of a boombox, somehow finds its way onto Air Force One and only the complete shutdown of the entire military computer system is able to prevent yet another hack. In Washington, the Secretary of Defense (Jon Voight) brings in the top computer geeks from throughout the country (at least the ones who weren’t all blown to hell in “Live Free or Die Hard”) to figure out what this unknown force is looking for. Luckily, superhot computer babe Maggie (Rachael Taylor) quickly discovers that the hacks are focusing on a mysterious government faction known as Sector 7 and their top-secret “Project Iceman.” The military is convinced that the attacks are coming from Russia or North Korea (though al Qaeda is strangely never mentioned) but Maggie is convinced that the threat may not be human after all.
Meanwhile, in California, obnoxiously gawky teener Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is off to purchase his first car, mostly in an effort to win the heart of teen queen Mikaela (Megan Fox). He winds up picking a beat-up Camaro that sometimes seems to have a mind of its own–when Sam actually manages to get Mikaela into his car, it breaks down at the local makeout place and the radio starts blasting “Let’s Get It On.” This doesn’t seem to faze Sam that much but when his car takes off in the middle of the night, he follows it to a junkyard and witnesses it transform into an Autobot and send out a signal. Before long, one of the Decepticons arrives and nearly destroys Sam and Mikaela before Sam’s car arrives in the nick of time, transforms back into a robot and smacks the attacker down. Soon, the other Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen), arrive and fill Sam in on the details. It seems that Sam’s grandfather, an Arctic explorer, accidentally stumbled upon the long-buried Megatron and inadvertently semi-activated him in a way that imprinted the coordinates showing the location of the All Spark on the lenses of his eyeglasses. Now the two factions are once again ready to do battle for the All Spark–the Autobots want to return it to Cybertron and attempt to revive their home while the Decepticons want to use its powers to turn all the machines on Earth against mankind and destroy the world as we know it–and the fate of the world hinges in the balance.
Since this is pretty much the point in “Transformers” where the storyline pretty much devolves into a series of loud and ungainly sequences in which giant robots beat the crap out of each other while laying waste to Los Angeles, the Hoover Dam and other sundry locations mixed in with conspiracy theories, heartfelt speeches and a highly unexpected explanation for the existence of the Hoover Dam, let us now take a moment to leave this bizarrely convoluted storyline and wonder what the hell screenwriters Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman could have been thinking when they slapped it together. Let’s face it, anyone attending “Transformers” is going to do so for one reason and one reason only–to see as many robot smackdowns as humanly possible. Therefore, you would assume that anyone charged with putting this on paper would want to figure out the simplest and most direct narrative line to get to the CGI carnage. Here, Orci & Kurtzman have given us a storyline so unwieldy that it often seems at times as though they are going out of their way to frustrate viewers.
For starters, while the opening military base attack does have a certain oomph to it, virtually all the subsequent material involving the military team could have been excised without losing anything but about 40 minutes of the absurdly overlong 145 minute running time. Then there are the strangely juvenile and utterly nonsensical sequences that have been shoved in for reasons that completely elude me. For example, there is a protracted sequence where the Autobots, in their various car and truck forms, follow Sam back to his house so that he can look for those damned eyeglasses. Now if you or I were an Autobot trying to keep a low profile, we might retain our auto forms so as not to arouse suspicion from anyone in the area. Of course, such logic might not appeal much to the ADD-afflicted 12-year-olds that this film is clearly being aimed at because these Autobots instead choose to assume their full-on robot forms and clomp around in Sam’s backyard so that we can all revel in the hilarity of a) Sam’s clueless parents somehow not noticing the GIANT ROBOTS IN THEIR BACK YARD and b) said giant robots trying to hide under porches and alongside walls in order to avoid detection. (I will spare you the various urination and crotch-smashing gags that have also been included, even though you would think that such concerns would be meaningless to giant robots.) The screenplay is so incompetent, in fact, that when the writers do stumble upon a potentially decent idea, such as having the grandfather discover the frozen Megatron in the Arctic, they don’t have any idea of what to do with it–what might have made for a great prologue in an ordinary blockbuster is instead tossed away in a flurry of mid-film exposition at a point when most sentient beings will have already mentally checked out.
Granted, one does not go to a film like “Transformers” for the complex narrative–one goes to allow our inner children to revel in the sight of enormous robots wreaking elaborate and expensive havoc on everything they see. And yet, if anything, the film is actually a bigger failure at this than it is at storytelling. For starters, the film is visually ugly–maybe it was the inevitable degradation of the image that comes from adding in the countless CGI effects or maybe cinematographer Mitchell Amundsen figured he could clean things up in post-production but whichever it was, there were points in the print that I saw where the image was so grainy that it almost looked like a bootleg video. This is especially odd when you consider that Michael Bay, whatever his faults as a filmmaker may be, can usually be relied upon to create a good-looking movie.
Then again, it soon becomes apparent that he isn’t exactly on his A-game either. Over the years, many have dumped on Bay for being nothing more than a purveyor of soulless cinematic junk food–and you can hardly blame people for thinking that of the auteur of such craptaculars as “Pearl Harbor,” “The Island” and “Bad Boys 2" (my personal choice for the third-worst movie ever made)–but to be fair, the man can usually put together a decent action sequence and I will even cheerfully admit to more or less liking both “The Rock” and “Armageddon” for the way that they provided their fenderheaded thrills with style and humor. With “Transformers,” however, he seems to have forgotten everything that he once knew about shooting an action scene and instead presents us with one of the most graceless action extravaganzas I’ve ever seen. As usual, his whiplash editing style–if there is a shot on display lasting more than ten seconds, it has escaped my mind–means that it is impossible to get any real sense of what the hell is going on or where any of the characters are in relation to each other. This time, however, he couples that flaw with the bizarre decision to shoot most of his scenes of robots duking it out in close-ups instead of pulling the camera back to let us get a better look at them and their sheer size in relation to everything else. Because of this, the scale aspect is lost and since the various robots rolling around on the ground or shooting at each other are more or less interchangeable, it becomes almost impossible to determine which one is which at any given point. (One of the Autobots apparently dies in battle but it is handled so badly that I didn’t even realize it until Optimus Prime eventually offered an elegy to his fallen comrade.) The results are such a mess, in fact, that I would be willing to bet that a little kid armed with nothing more than a couple of action figures and Dad’s DV camera could come up with better and more coherent action scenes than the ones seen here.
“Transformers” is a gargantuan mess from start to finish and even the fan-heavy and highly enthusiastic crowd that I saw it with seemed to begin growing restless as it lumbered along to the sequel-set-up that it calls an ending. To be fair, there were two elements on display that helped serve as minor respites from the rest of the noisy non-spectacle. The first is the presence of Megan Fox as the central hottie–there is no real purpose for her character and there is certainly no evidence that she can indeed act but she is such a gorgeous presence on the screen (even though she is theoretically supposed to be playing a high-school junior) that she will inspire the kind of reactions in most male viewers not usually seen outside of the collected works of Tex Avery. The other is the completely screw-loose supporting performance from John Turturro as a shadowy government agent who crosses paths with our young hero. By any sane critical standard, his performance would be considered an embarrassment of scenery-chewing on a level not seen since Marlon Brando put on the prairie dress and sauntered through “The Missouri Breaks”–perhaps this was his manner of rebelling against the substandard material. However, his barking-mad turn gives the film the only real juice it has (and its only genuine laugh when he interrupts a jargon-heavy briefing to admonish an underling with “Try to keep up with the acronyms!”) and when “Transformers” comes to its blessed end and you flee to the parking lot with a throbbing headache and an emptied soul, it is the only aspect that doesn’t hurt too much to think about a second time.
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 1118
Location: Kansai, JAPAN
While I never agreed with you about 2001, I agree very much with you and Mr Sobcyn-whatever, I'm not gonna spell that name right. While he claims to be too old to have been smitten by The Transformers in all their glory, I was right in their prime demographic when they hit the US. I went to see that original animated movie in theaters and it was a profound experience. Obviously I'm a hell of a lot older now and even that original movie has so many flaws, both in narrative and artistic presentation, that I have trouble enjoying it much these days. But even as I tried my best to enjoy this new Transformers movie as some kind of pure spectacle (I knew the story would be awful) I was repulsed by it, as were the two friends I went to see it with.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Hmm... it's really a piece of crap , but it's still not worse than the Lord of the Rings series...
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Transformers is officially the worst movie I've ever seen.
You haven't seen many movies, then? Like, maybe 4?
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
Hmm... it's really a piece of crap , but it's still not worse than the Lord of the Rings series...
I have never understood, and will probably never understand the concept of "worst movie ever seen" or "piece of crap" as most people seem to define it.
Now, I *do* understand the opinion "I did not like this movie". That makes sense, and it's perfectly logical. People like different things, and what one person likes, another person may dislike. "Not liking" a movie is a perfectly understandable concept.
Another concept I understand is "I expected it to be like this, but it wasn't, and thus I was completely disappointed". People have expectations when they go see a big movie and they always get disappointed because the movie was not exactly like they expected in advance. That's just fine. If people want to ruin their own movie experience with expectations, they can perfectly go ahead and do it.
However, the concept of "worst movie ever" and "piece of crap" just escapes me. I can't see any logical correlation between those concepts and the movies they refer to.
How could Transformers possibly be the "worst movie" you have ever seen? It makes absolutely no sense, unless you have seen something like a dozen movies in total during your entire life. There certainly are tons and tons of movies which are way, way worse than that. You either have succeeded in avoiding all of them (quite unlikely), or else you mean something else with "worst ever" than what that concept usually means.
Well, it's not unusual for people to use words with a different meaning than what people usually understand those words to mean. (For example the FSF uses the word "free" in relation to software with a meaning completely different from what "free" usually means in spoken language, including in relation to software.) I just have difficulties in understanding what is it that people really mean with expressions like "worst ever" in this context.
If you want *truely* bad movies, look here: http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/badmovies.html
If you claim that any of those movies is better than Transformers or the LotR, then I suppose I can't do anything else than deduce that either of us is crazy.
But more importantly, if you agree that even *one* of those movies listed is worse than Transformers or LotR (please be honest, no stupid denial principles thank you), then you'll have to explain what you mean with "worst movie ever". Because I certainly can't understand what it means.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Thank you very much Warp, I totally agree. Maybe the next time someone thinks about posting about the "worst day ever" not mentioning 9/11 or the holocaust, or the "worst game ever" without mentioning E.T. for the Atari, will reconsider.
Maybe the next time someone thinks about posting about the "worst day ever" not mentioning 9/11 or the holocaust, or the "worst game ever" without mentioning E.T. for the Atari, will reconsider.
Those aren't the worst, either, just the most hyped.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
mmbossman wrote:
Maybe the next time someone thinks about posting about the "worst day ever" not mentioning 9/11 or the holocaust, will reconsider.
Every day is the worst day ever because life is nothing by a swirling tumult of pain and suffering until you are alloted a respite in the cold and definitive embrace of death. Also, Transformers was a let down, but it was not the worst movie by far.
There you go.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Zurreco wrote:
mmbossman wrote:
Maybe the next time someone thinks about posting about the "worst day ever" not mentioning 9/11 or the holocaust, will reconsider.
Every day is the worst day ever because life is nothing by a swirling tumult of pain and suffering until you are alloted a respite in the cold and definitive embrace of death. Also, Transformers was a let down, but it was not the worst movie by far.
There you go.
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Well if it makes everyone feel any better, Transformers 2 will be released in 2009 by Spielberg. Michael Bay doesnt seem to be involved. Also, by that time, there have been repports implying that the CGI will significantly be enhanced so expect a much greater CGI. But you have to admit that the the CGI in the first movie looked amazing. Which makes you wonder exactly how good the upgraded CGI will produce. With Spielberg directing it, Im sure he will create a better plot. Also, the amount of money the movie made "should" make way for even greater action scenes :)
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
erokky wrote:
Do you mean that Spielberg will direct it? Because he was involved with this one too, but he was executive producer.
Yes Spielberg will direct it. Michael Bay had the final call in the first movie but that all seem to be gone for the second movie. As I understand it, Michael Bay is a terrific director when it comes to making action scenes but he hasnt exactly build himself a reputation of creating movies with a strong plot :) And we all know Spielberg is a master when it comes to that + action scenes.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Thank you very much Warp, I totally agree. Maybe the next time someone thinks about posting about the "worst day ever" not mentioning 9/11 or the holocaust, or the "worst game ever" without mentioning E.T. for the Atari, will reconsider.
With that, do you mean that "worst movie I have ever seen" does not actually mean "wost movie I have ever seen", but something else? It really means something like "this is the worst *big-budget* movie I have seen *in some time*"?
I don't really understand that. Why write "this is the worst movie I have ever seen" when you don't really mean that? It's not even a common expression which everybody understands.
Hey Warp, some relevant links.
exaggerationhyperboleoverstatement
If it really isn't the worst movie he has ever seen, these probably apply.
Perhaps what he means is "I thought this movie sucked" and just really wanted to get the point across.
Google knows, but it doesn't seem to list anything worth being "the worst day ever". Unless, you consider "American League Division Series (ALDS) Game 3" to fall in that category.
The END DAY
Savage war engulfs the world... civilization is destroyed... An evolution had taken place. The Earth's axis shifted and all creatures became mutated. Life would never be the same... Those surviving vowed not to repeat their mistakes of the past and erected a great tower in the sky... To oppress evil forever...
someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster.
I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Boco wrote:
mmbossman wrote:
Maybe the next time someone thinks about posting about the "worst day ever" not mentioning 9/11
Wh
What.
You're serious aren't you?
I don't consider it one of the worst days ever because of the number of people who died, or that they were American. I believe it to be one of the worst days ever because it showed with stunning clarity what destructive forces hate and religious fervor are, and how very destructive just a few souls can be. Politics aside, it is one of the most recent and most chilling examples of why I believe that the worst plague ever to befall man is man himself. Feel free to disagree, but with that explanation I hope I've explained myself a bit more.
