Its like a bad taste you just cant get rid of after enjoying a bucket full of toffee. you know it was awesome at the time, and yet you also knew it wasn't fit for human consumption.
recently went to see the new full motion, real life adaption of the animated cartoon, Transformers. (for those uninitiated to the life of a gen X'er in the 80s, Transformers was a huge cartoon and toy phenomena during the 80s, where giant robots would "transform" into any marketable machinery known to man) .... where to begin.
what we have here is hollywood and its boardroom fatcats coming up with the latest cartoon / comic ripoff to the silver screen. marketing something that is unoriginal, but guaranteed to succeed at the box office, because for 20 years prior, its been the love of every kid on the block in its cartoon and comic form.
so who do we have directing this carbon copy? none other than Michael Bay, the bad boy action director himself, so famous for his work on such movies as Armageddon, Bad Boys, The Rock, Pearl Harbor .... seeing a pattern anyone?
What's wrong with the movie you might say? well it depends how you like your toffee really. Bay was assigned to this project for one reason only. to make a huge action explosion and spend the studios dollars on pyrotechnics and not story-line. so if thats what you want, then its a ripper, showing the best example of CGI wizardry since some of the Lucas greats. the sad thing is to also witness this film from the otherside of the looking glass, from a marketing perspective. from the get go its just one big advertisement for the latest cars, phones, computers and americana SoCal lifestyle. and people just lap it up without question. I
In a time when we are all sending our youth off to fight in the middle east, Bay has secured the rights of the American Army to use the latest and greatest real life weaponry and machinery to showcase "just what its like to fight for the flag against the bad evil doing terrorists" people just dont get it ... they might as well have just had a voice over during the film saying "Your nations army needs you today, Sign up and play with our toys, dont worry about killing people, just have fun"
But as with 99% of these "comic book ripoff" films these days, i came away just thinking, you can give me all the eye candy in the world, but your still failing to present that magic of its original medium. Not to mention the dangerous path we are on, as the only movies these days being funded are 20 year old kids stories, whilst the creative minds producing original scripts are tossed to the side as "unmarketable"
support creative independent films where you can. support the future in cinema, and dont fall for the bright lights and plastic faces.
TRANSFORMERS : The Movie 2007
MICHAEL BAY : IMDB Info
4 comments:
hmm interesting!
i was going to go and see this tonight but it got delayed. dissapointing to hear but i only expected as much given the way movies are going lately! (that being generally crap!)
BUT
being the age i am i cant help but want to go and see this film! so i will and i will come back with my opinion on it then!
and what might be next? He Man:Masters of the Universe? hehe if only!
yeh id like to hear your take on it mate, once you've seen it.
btw : HE-MAN and Thundercats are coming to the silver screen in the next 2 years lol .... you spoke too soon.
S.
What the hell happened to 'Beam me up Scottie" or "To infinity, and beyond!" or even further back [not much further] "This isn't a hospital! It's an insane asylum! And it's your fault!" Sally Kellerman ("Hot Lips")in MASH (1970).
If you haven't seen the movie I recommend it, get it out on DVD.
LMAO @ M*A*S*H
back in the days when scripts and character development was more important than showing the kids how cool an M-16 is to fire down on enermy terrorists, or how cool it is to blow up everything on screen and the only thing to survive are those wearing stars and stripes... the good guys.
ahhhh. yeh. jaded.
bring back the movies where original ideas lead to script plots that had you on the edge of your seat. not because the DD surround sound blew you off it ... but because you actually felt something, and you didnt know where you were going to end up in the story. ie fightclub, six sense, alien, pulp fiction, jackie brown (he slipped up with Kill Bill in my mind hehe)..
we can do it. the problem with these cartoon / comic book movies is that WE ALL KNOW THE ENDINGS!!! we've seen them for 20 years.
S.
Post a Comment