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The trailer for the upcoming Transformers: Age Of Extinction debuted today, and was met with much indifference by me.
I thought the first Transformers movie was probably as good as a movie about giant transforming robots is ever likely to be. The second one was an incomprehensible collection of set pieces crudely edited together and I didn't even bother seeing the third one.
So far this one looks like more of the same. But hey, it's got giant robots fighting giant mechanical dinosaurs, so it's got that going for itself.
While watching the trailer I couldn't help but notice this:
It's kind of tough to see in a still image, but at one point Optimal Primus (or whoever this is) roars with rage at something and you can actually see his breath in the cool morning air. So apparently robots breathe and exhale hot air when they yell. Got it.
I have a nagging feeling that that's the least stupid thing in this film.
As a bonus, here's one of the character postesr from the film. Because this is a Michael Bay movie, by law it has to feature the American flag flying proudly in the background (see pretty much every scene in Armageddon). Even if I didn't know this was a Transformers poster I'd be able to identify it as a Bay film!
Here's my short visual review of the movie Real Steel:
All in all I enjoyed it well enough. If I was a ten year old it
would be my all time favorite movie. It's about a kid with an incredibly
indulgent father in a cool profession, who has a hot mom surrogate
and best of all has a giant robot playmate. The life every kid dreams
of!
Overall it's about as good a movie as you can expect from the
artistically bankrupt business model that is modern Hollywood.
By the way, the movie is NOT based on the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots game, as most people keep saying. It's based loosely on the 1956 short story Steel by Richard Matheson. It was later adapted into a 1963 Twilight Zone episode.
Pros:
• It's a movie about boxing robots! What's not to like?
• Cool robot designs. I wish there'd been more of them though.
• The robots all looked absolutely real (to me, anyway).
• Huge Ackman doesn't sing or dance during the movie (although the kid and his robot dance).
• Evangeline Lily in a wife beater shirt!
Cons:
• For a movie about fighting robots, there was surprisingly little
robot fighting. Maybe it would have become boring and repetitious if
there'd been more fighting? Plus robot fights are no doubt really
expensive to film, causing them to pare down the scenes.
• The kid in the movie looks disturbingly like Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace.
• Missed opportunity: They should have made the poster an homage to this image of the Ali/Liston fight.
• The ending was a bit predictable, but hey, it's geared mostly towards kids who haven't seen as many movies as cynical reviewers such as myself.
My verdict: Hey, its a movie about fighting robots! What more do you want from a film? I give it a B.
