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July 02, 2007
Transformers (2007, ** 1/2)
DESPITE THE EAGER POLLYANNA IN MY HEART OF HEARTS, a half hour into Transformers, I could only recall that Michael Bay remains the man who made Bad Boys II, a movie that reveled in debasement of man, morgue and that marvelous mouthful, “motherfucker,” proving once more that the late Richard Pryor is be the only human who earned making that oath into relentless refrain. Transformers also proves that perhaps Steven Spielberg should be the only person to make pseudo-Steven Spielberg movies. Even at their most politically incoherent, there are other niceties of form and emotion that Spielberg (executive producer of this Paramount-DreamWorks production) has accomplished in even his messiest movies. Just shy of redemptive lunacy, Transformers is in the end, a bold, bravura swamp of conflicting elements, uninteresting characters, and elemental incoherence. One of the few things missing in this mulligatawny is Lloyd Bridges wide-eyeing the line, "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!”
Plot: Evil robots attack American troops. Teen Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) wants his first car. America must save the world. Sam needs a girlfriend. Intercut; compare-contrast. This movie, Black Hawk Down meets Gremlins, is not-fast but furious, boasting as much cheese as in all of France, Spain and parts of Belgium. There are moving moments, mushy moments, action movie satire, elegant stunts, mass destruction, extremely vulgar humor and a brace of piss jokes. It doesn’t hold together, and Transformers shares a similar dilemma as with Pixar’s abysmal Cars: are we really supposed to feel a heart pulsing beneath these feats of fanciful design?
There’s beauty to spare: the shadow of a Sikorsky Pave Low helicopter undulant against the sands of supposed Qatar is an graceful augury of the rippling of metal that accompanies the first Transformer attack. I’m seldom against the inclusion of politically resonant contemporary material into whimsical movies, but there are sustained passages where an isolated patrol of American soldiers are repeatedly threatened that border on the obscene. Eventually, the reason for their centrality to the tsunami is revealed in the to-be-expected conclusion: they’re the clean heroes, the racially diverse bunch who represent America against a threat that is finite and right in front of your face at multi-story scale. Easy solutions to hard problems!
And of course, since Transformers is set against the backdrop of a manufactured America, manufacturers, aside from Hasbro and plot-integral repeated citations of eBay, there are plugs for electronics like Blackberry, Nokia, Technics, Zenith, Panasonic SD cards, the Energizer bunny, Radio Shack; the branded vehicles include a beater Camaro, the Saleen S281 Mustang, Porsche, the Pontiac Solstice, the H2 Hummer, Cadillac, GMC’s Topkick eight-wheeler; plus munitions like the Buffalo Mine Protected Clearance Vehicle, Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor. Plus USA Today, Chanel eye shadow, Dewalt drills, Payless Shoes, Express Mail, Wells Fargo, KPMG, and of course, the Department of Defense. And characters and toys like E.T., Furby, Freddy Krueger, Wolverine, Smorking Labbit and My Little Pony. Oh! Not to forget necessary comestibles such as Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Taco Bell, Arrowhead Water, Ding-Dongs, Canada Dry, Burger King, a “double macchiato latte” and Pepto-Bismol.
As in a Richard Donner film, Bay makes self-reference—a tubby kid with a video camera shoots footage of alien explosions, exclaiming, “This is easily a hundred times cooler than Armageddon, I swear’!”—and offers glancing details in the margins that suggest leftward political interest, such as the satirical deck of Bush Cards in Sam’s bedroom, and Shepard Fairey's “Obey” sticker on lampposts during the final urban demolition derby on the streets of downtown Los Angeles and on sets alongside the strategically placed retro-weathered Mountain Dew, Dickies and Pepsi placards. (The most political line is the final one in the movie, just as the credits begin, much more Spielberg than Bay.) There are multiple seat-belt awareness references, to err on the side of PC. That’s if you discount the scene with Bernie Mac as a shyster car salesman bossed by his “mammy” and the Latino soldier told to speak English but who does refer in Spanish to a bad robot coming up their “culo.” Jon Voight plays the Secretary of Defense with familiar slicked-back hair and dismissive crackle, although he’s a good foot taller than the diminutive, disgraced Donald Rumsfeld. His line, “The next couple of hours may define this presidency!” got the heartiest grown-up laugh.
Sam’s sidekick, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) is presented with typical Bay discretion as the hottest freckled baby-oiled large-teeth-overbite full-downturn-mouth teenage surf-chick stripper-in-the-making of the summer. Meanwhile, Maggie Madsen (Rachel Taylor) is a teen Tasmanian hacker with lip-gloss reflective enough to blind advancing armies and who saves the world while bounding about in stiletto heels and jeans hacked off at the knee. (Nice tan. Nice calves.) Still, the creepiest moment is reserved for John Turturro, Al Pacino-ing his way through a role as an agent from a super-secret spy agency. Turturro's methedrine-sweaty acting style at its worst when he turns to Mikaela and amps up the slobbers, “She’s a criminal. Criminals are HOT.” Fox is allowed to become neater, cleaner and better groomed in the second hour of the movie. Moral: Heroic selflessness can transform even the rattiest juvie skank.
The barrage of special effects is mostly clean and imaginative: the most elegant shot is a confected 180-degree pan across the Sixth Street downtown L.A. set where one of the immense monster machines bounces along the street and frame; the shot pivots around a screaming woman in the center of the widescreen frame in a bright, sheer turquoise dress shrieking in fear of imminent mutilation or obliteration: we have never seen her before and never see her again, but as elegant, Keaton-esque design goes, it’s a sweet meeting of math and Maxim.
And Shia LeBeouf, DreamWorks’ newly groomed house star, with this, the surprise hit Disturbia, and a role as the young Indiana Jones currently shooting, it is only necessary to shorthand, Shia is the shit. In interviews, LeBeouf covets Tom Hanks’ career, but he’ll have his own: engaging even when acting the most vulgar parts of the movie, and capable of registering Everyman surprise at the most unlikely turns, he’s become a terrific, and game, screen actor.
Posted by Ray Pride at July 2, 2007 11:59 PM
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