Transformers (Two-Disc Special Edition + BD Live) [Blu-ray]
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Rachael TaylorDirector: Michael Bay
Studio: Paramount
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
Running Time: 144 minutes
DVD Release: September 2nd 2008
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DVD Review
From director Michael Bay and executive producer Steven Spielberg comes a thrilling battle between the heroic Autobotsr and the evil Decepticonsr. When their epic struggle comes to Earth, all that stands between the Decepticonsr and ultimate power is a clue held by young Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf). Unaware that he is mankind's last chance for survival, Sam and Bumblebee, his robot disguised as a car, are in a heart-pounding race against an enemy unlike anything anyone has seen before. It's the incredible, breath-taking film spectacular that USA Today says ''will appeal to the kid in all of us.''
User Reviews
OH COME ON PEOPLE!! - Rating: 5/5
After reading all the negative reviews for this movie, I have to add my two cents. This is a kids movie based off of a
kids cartoon. It's for a younger audience, not elderly people and middle aged adults. Kids don't care about plot, character development, acting, etc. It's all about the action and special effects and nolstalgia for fans of the original cartoon! Most of these negative comments are coming from elderly people who don't like action movies, and therefore don't like Michael Bay films. IF YOU HATE ACTION MOVIES, DON'T WATCH MICHAEL BAY FILMS!! IF YOU HATE ROBOTS AND SCI FI IN GENERAL, DON'T WATCH TRANSFORMERS!! It's that simple! If you hate kids movies, don't watch this movie! Stop complaining! Don't watch the sequel either! Or the other films that shall come from this franchise! What do y'all expect, an oscar worthy movie for adults? There are PLENTY of those types of films, but you all should have KNOWN from the start that this was an action movie because the Transformers have been around since the early 80's!! Grow up and stop watching movies you KNOW YOU ARE GONNA HATE!!!!
Now, for my review: I saw it opening week and it was awesome! I actually thought the story, acting, and special effects were great! The musical score was a major aspect as well. Apparently, fans prefer the score to the soundtrack. I did like the ending Linkin Park song, though. I know there's a lot of bad reviews for the sequel, and some of them are from people who actually love this movie! So...maybe the sequel IS INDEED bad, but the reviews that are from people who hated this movie as well...well....you knew what you were getting into, right?!
One shall stand and one shall fall - Rating: 4/5
Transformers follows suit along with several other classic cartoon series making the move to the live action big screen. Unlike Scooby Doo (Scooby snacks couldn't even make that trite not suck) and many of the rest Transformers was actually good. Transformers was a fantastically popular cartoon series from the 1980's. The shoes this movie had to fill were Megatron huge but Michael Bay surprisingly pulled it off. Bay pulls out all the stops in this leviathan of a film guaranteeing it to be a summer blockbuster smash.
Story/Script (Classic & Coming of Age): Classic story of Good vs. Evil. Alien robots called Decepticons (Evil) will basically stop at nothing for power. Their leader is Megatron whom is especially sinister. The heroic Autobots (Good) also alien robots lead by Optimus Prime are all that stands in the Decepticons way and Earths destruction. Aside from all this there is Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) average American high schooler. He is just trying to get his first car (Which turns out to be the Autobot Bumblebee) and go out on a date with the hottest girl in the country Samantha (Megan Fox). Sam bridges the Autobots to the story by befriending them. He also helps them seek the Allspark an all powerfull cube that the Decepticons would use to conquer the universe. Complaints about the dialogue can be made but I love all the Transformers rhetoric.
-Optimus Prime to Megatron
"One shall stand and one shall fall"
--Megatron and Optimus Prime have some mid-battle banter, Transformers style
"Humans don't deserve to live."
"They deserve to choose for themselves!"
"Then you will die with them! Join them in extinction!"
--Megatron and Sam Witwicky have a tense moment on a Mission City rooftop.
"Give me the All Spark, and you may live to be my pet."
"I'm never giving you this All Spark!"
"Oh, so unwise..."
Acting (Not Shakespeare but spirited): The cast all gave a lively performance. LaBeouf really keeps this movie moving with his spirited performance. The Transformers have a lot of the best dialogue and some of the best delivery. No Oscars for acting but several entertaining performances. Megan Fox is the token hot girl Samantha but her performance was more than adequate. Several decent actors played significant roles such as Jon Voight, John Turturro along with the voices of Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime and Hugo Weaving as Megatron.
Special Effects (Tip of the spear): This is a Michael Bay film and one thing he does well is making sure the effects are on point. Expect huge explosions, beautifully inserted digital Transformers doing what they do best transform back in forth between robots and cars, several well crafted scenes of robots going fist to cuffs, and a lot more explosions. Really this is only part of the film that deserves an "A".
Music (Patriotic): The music is great. Not a John William's classic great but it provides a feeling of momentum for the film. Several classic songs also inserted in the film were well placed. Plus cool Linkin Park song during credits.
Last take: Greatest Sci-fi flicks of the summer 2007 hands down. Five stars for all lovers of the classic cartoon but only three stars for nonsci-fi lovers.
In Blu? Awesome. In SD? Meh. - Rating: 4/5
Oh, Transformers, you guilty pleasure, you. I still remember when Transformers came out in theater, and my girlfriend and I bought tickets to the midnight showing a week before it played, then downed a couple bottles of soda in order to stay awake through the lengthy film. The way the seats shook, the screen lit up, the crowd cheered...it was definitely a great experience in the theaters.
Unfortunately, the DVD release didn't capture the same spirit as the original theatrical one, and Transformers became just another okay-but-not-great flick to watch with friends when nothing better was going on. How could a DVD hope to live up to the big-screen projection and booming speakers of a movie theater? It couldn't. Thankfully, with this new release of Transformers on Blu-Ray, there's now a home version of Michael Bay's robo blockbuster which can.
The Blu-Ray release of Transformers is a godsend for the movie, because the emphasis of it is certainly on the visual and audio aspects-not so much the story. The story revolves around Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeoulf), a young confused-but-spunky teen trying to get the hot girl to like him. His plot to popularity begins when he makes a deal with his dad to purchase a car, which he gets from a shady used dealer (played by the late Bernie Mac). The car is seemingly absolute trash, but after a few crazy nights it becomes apparent that there's more to it than meets the eye. (I know, I'm sorry.)
It turns out Sam's car is actually an organic robot named Bumblebee, which is part of a group known as the Autobots which came to earth to prevent the Decepticons from finding the Energon Cube which will allow them to animate earth's machinery and take over the planet. Multiple other robots make appearances in a virtual who's-who of auto product placement, and the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons (with Sam and the rest of humanity in the middle) grows and grows like a snowball of cliché until the final, climatic battle.
In other words, it's the perfect Michael Bay vehicle: action, hot girls, CGI, explosions, and giant cliché robots.
Obviously, Transformers didn't (and never will) win any awards for writing. The dialog is cheesy, the plot resembles Swiss cheese, and pretty much every character fills some sort of cliché requirement for a blockbuster action hit. But that doesn't really matter, because the movie is a non-stop adrenaline ride (if you can weather the first half hour) and will keep you on the edge of your seat, no matter how many times you see it.
Coming to Blu-Ray, the two-disc special edition doesn't feature anything new from the previous HD-DVD release. So for those with both capabilities, there's no reason to re-purchase Transformers in high-def. For those of us who only got the movie in DVD form, however, this Blu-Ray release is a must-buy for action, video, or audio junkies.
VIDEO AND AUDIO
Now, saying Transformers is a fast-paced film would be akin to saying Pauly Shore's career is a complete mystery-everyone knows that. The DVD release struggled at times depicting all of the detail Bay wanted seen, and handling his twitchy jump cuts resulting in a lot of blur, grain, and color distortion. With this HD release, Paramount eliminates any and all possible video issues. Presented in a 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 (2.40:1) encode, no matter which scene of the movie you select, Transformers is a near-perfect Blu-Ray demo reel. There's never a loss of clarity, grain, or weak blacks.
The only issues visible are very, very rare instances of colors being too sharp in the earlier portions of the film before the CGI kicks in, resulting in some odd tones for a split-second. It surpasses Jumper as the best-looking release, which is not an easy task.
Added on to the home theater-showcasing video aspects is an incredibly well-done audio track. On the HD-DVD release, we were given Dolby Digital-Plus Surround, but on this newer Blu-Ray release they've upped the ante by providing a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround track (48kHz/24-bit). The subwoofer keeps busy the entire movie, and the dialog is pitched perfectly in regards to the louder effects. Unlike many action films where you have to play "Let's Adjust the Audio!" throughout the feature, Transformers hits the mark perfectly in terms of keeping voices and effects on a nice equilibrium.
EXTRAS
Much like the HD-DVD release, Transformers on Blu-Ray serves up a plethora of special features in the two disc set. With the movie comes a Michael Bay commentary, which may be the only time I've ever enjoyed hearing the man talk. (Other than his FiOS commercial.) He pokes fun at his own product, and offers a lot of nice little stories about the making of the movie.
The second disc is where most of the goodies are. Two documentaries ("Our World," and "Their War") are the biggest dogs on the disc, and offer a great look into the world of the movie, and how it came to be. Our World is my favorite of the two, as it offers a good look into the history of Transformers and how the movie came to be, while Their War seems to focus more on the technology aspect of the CGI and the robot creation. Both are entertaining in their own rights, though. The other video feature on the disc is a behind-the-scenes look at the dessert fight with Skorponok, from storyboard to post. It's entertaining to see how the first big battle vs humans was made, but it's not nearly as inviting as the longer, 2+ hours of documentary video.
If that doesn't seem like enough, the movie has some new, Blu-Ray exclusive extras as well. Rather than traditional PIP tracks, the track on Transformers (calleed the H.U.D.) is a catch-all of facts, trivia, and other random tidbits. The plethora of information ensures that you never see the same thing twice (until you run through everything once), but it's very haphazard. With no on-spot visits or actual consecutive commentary, it's like watching Pop Up Video: Transformers. Entertaining, but tiresome.
The other during-viewing feature is much more inviting. Coined the BD-Live "Intelligence Center," it allows you to watch the movie with several possible widgets running. These widgets perform tasks from keeping track of robot names and stats (like watching a live-action videogame), to a GPS tracker showing where action is happening. My favorite is another random-factoid type thing, which constantly points out little facts you may not necessarily care about, but will be entertained by nonetheless. In addition, there are also BD-Live features giving you a full 360 degree view of all robot models in the movie, as well as "MyClips," which allows viewers to share their favorite Transformers moments with their friends.
CONCLUSION
To say that the Transformers Blu-Ray release is massive would be a gigantic understatement. It is, without question, the most ambitious Blu-Ray release yet. While the movie is run-of-the-mill action shtick we're all used to, the effects are so vivid and lifelike in this latest HD release that most people really won't care. When you have the best video available in the world for a home theater, some of the best audio, and one of the biggest and most unique selection of special features... What's not to like? If you own a Blu-Ray player and an HDTV, this is the biggest no-brainer must-buy the format has seen thus far.
MOVIE: 3/5
VIDEO: 5/5
AUDIO: 4.5/5
REPLAY: 4.5/5
EXTRAS: 4/5
OVERALL: 4/5
A pleasant surprise - Rating: 5/5
I expected this movie to suck. I was never a fan of the toys or television series. however, I was extremely surprised by the movie. Not only did I like the movie, but it made me a fan of everything Transformers. The movie was not too corny nor was it too serious. There was a perfect blend of fun, story, and action, and that is what impressed me about this film. It made giant robots quite cool. There is a lot of replay value to this film, even if it is almost 2 1/2 hours long. I love long movies, especially if they are done right. My only complaint about the film is that I really wish that there was more character development between robots. All in all this was an excellent movie that can be appreciated by all ages.
Believe it or not, my favorite part about this movie was the soundtrack. The music is intense and powerful. I believe that the same person that does the score for the movie is the one that does the Gears of War 2 soundtrack (a Xbox 360 game). So if you liked that music you should get the soundtrack to this movie.
Optimus was great - Rating: 5/5
I watched transformers when i was young & even though the movie was good, based on the story of Transformers...it could've been better. The focus on the humans was ill a bit & the visual could've been better it seemed an ad for GM
