I love snobby movies.

I just finished a film noir kick and still can't get the zither music from The Third Man out of my head. A bunch of Hitchcock is due from Netflix soon, but I have my sites on something much different and somehow much more exciting.



so next time someone calls me a snob for hating Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, and every Rambo movie ever, I will just remind them that Neil Patrick Harris riding on a unicorn is way better than the words 'rosebud' whispered over a snow globe.

Transformers: The movie: The review: The RIDE!

    Let me preface this by saying that I am not a transformers fan. The toys were cool but I had Go-bots instead and preferred the Thundercats cartoon.

    Transformers the movie is the most enjoyable shitty movie in theaters. It is devoid of plot, dialogue, anything that remotely resembles a movie. It is a 2 ½ hour special effects circle jerk. But, you at least get to participate in the circle, so it isn't all that bad.

Spoilers ahoi.

1)    Los Angeles is not 30 minutes from the Hoover Damn by car. Even by transforming alien car. Las Vegas is. But you didn't show Las Vegas.

2)    No, you did not backwards engineer all that technology from Megatron. The car predates the 1930's. Megatron (for some reason) is some alien jet, not a car. The jet engine was developed by the Germans in the 1940's, not America.

3)    You are telling me that you had the technology in the 30's to transport a cagillion ton robot from Antartica to the Nevada/Arizona border all the while keeping him frozen? No.

These are just some of the drool educing holes that a simple trip to wikipedia could solve. (For example, I just verified the local of the Hoover Dam.) Some other things that made no sense.

    The thing with these giant sentient robots is that they are "Robots in Disguise" It is the most memorable thing about them. They pick an object and learn to transform into that object and back into a giant robot. Deception, stealth, they are like three story tall ninja robots. So why is it that we had 15 minutes of five robots fumbling around in the act of sneakery? Did you just miss the sneaking around part of your nature?

    The coolest character is Starscream. He is sniveling. He is a would be usurper. (My first name means 'usurper' so I feel a kinship) And he had one line in the whole movie. That is less than the main characters stupid best friend who played a comical role for all of three minutes on screen.

    This is the biggest problem. There are no characters in this movie. There are CGI sequences and explosions, and dull pedestrians who continue to walk across the street with their shopping bags as Las Vegas/Los Angeles gets blown up around them. Each of the autobots get about one line in the movie: they introduce themselves. Even Optimus Prime can't seem to remember their names either. He is moved to pronouns as his thousands of years old friend's dead body is in his arms. Who are these creatures? I have no idea, and the many, many interesting dynamics that have been fleshed out in the 20 odd years of Transformers could have made a compelling film but instead... shit just blew up for 2 ½ hours.

    2 ½ hours? Ya. That is a long film. There is 20 minutes worth of footage about computer hackers that could be cut out. The films one black character, though not guilty of any crime, tells police officers to stay off the carpet, his grandma doesn't like anyone on the carpet, especially police. Yup, the obese black family is constantly having police over because... you know, they are black and all. I wont get into the sexism either.

Transformers is a great big fat advertisement for GM cars, Sprite, the Xbox. The bad guys are jets and tanks and junk because they are brandless. The good guys are GM because... well, because we are xenophobes.

And for the love of Christ Michael Bay, shaking a camera around like you have Parkinson's does not make the scene more action packed; it makes us unable to see the colossi battling, which is the only redeeming part of the film.

No story, no characters, plot holes and still enjoyable some how. I recommend a drinking game to ease your way through it. Otherwise you better be a fanboy.