Hi-tech bots and nu-metal
Transformers is polluted with product placements and patriotism
By Beth Capper
Published: July 11th, 2007 | 2:10pm
If there’s one thing the new live-action Transformers movie isn’t short of, it’s advertisements. There are numerous plugs for NASCAR and other companies — Coke and eBay most prominent among them. There’s a Decepticon that transforms into a Mountain Dew vending machine, and I don’t even wanna know how much RCA paid Shia LeBeouf to wear that Strokes T-shirt. But, given the Transformers comic books and cartoons from the ’80s were essentially part of a major advertising campaign for toy company Hasbro — courtesy of comic book giant Marvel — this should come as no major surprise.
What did come as a major surprise is that Michael Bay’s action-packed take on Transformers is actually rather enjoyable. By enjoyable, I mean it’s crammed with enough special effects to make your eyes bleed and eardrums fall out, and most importantly, enough to last audiences until the release of Transformers 2, slated for 2009.
The main chunk of the film’s plot line — the part with the boy and the girl and the reason they’re involved with giant robots from outer space — is entirely made up by screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and it’s fair to say they didn’t let their imaginations stray far beyond the confines of Hollywood’s narrative hit list of hackneyed storylines.
Shia Lebeouf plays Sam Witwicky, a nerdy high school student who desperately wants to make it with super hot, super popular girl Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox). Luckily, he has help from Bumble Bee — an autobot disguised as a beat-up Camaro that Sam unwittingly picks up from a used car salesman. Unfortunately, no one told Bumble Bee that it’s no longer the ’80s, and the romantic tunes he picks on the radio to help Sam woo Mikaela are a little outdated (although they’re a cut above the film’s nu-metal soundtrack).
For fans of the cartoon film, this is the only trace of the ’80s left in the new film with the “The Touch” — Stan Bush’s song which made the final fight scene in the cartoon film so poignant — omitted for something distinctly modern and distinctly crap.
The rest of the film involves narrative devices that inevitably lead up to some robot-on-robot ass kicking and some major-scale damage to Los Angeles in the process.
The key thing to remember when watching Transformers is that Michael Bay also made Pearl Harbor and Armageddon — two films that make the Die Hard Trilogy look like commie propaganda — and Transformers is heavy both in its patriotism and its veneration for the U.S Army.
If you can handle that, you’re in for a thrilling ride.
Issue #35
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