Just got home from watching The Clichéd Adventures of Charlie Watson (and her pet toy robot) at Cineworld Ely. Some of my thoughts:
The G1 Cybertron scenes look better on big screen than in the trailers but I still don't like any of the designs and how the hell is this supposed to please people? So the G1 designs the G1 fans like, will all turn into 'junk' designs if this is a prequel and all the fans of the Bayverse designs (such as myself) now find they all previously looked like blocky toy robot things on their home planet despite that aesthetic clashing completely with those of the previous films AND Shatter & Dropkick from this actual movie? Why does Prime already look very much like the red truck he'll take the form of? How come Megatron's 2007 form doesn't look remotely G1 then when that's his cybertronian mode (since he doesn't take an earth mode until Dark of the Moon)?
Blitzwing had a cool voice and his face was alright but his robot mode was too jet kibbly for me (I've always hated obvious wings in robot mode). And now it's he who wrecks Bee's voice when in all movie tie-in fiction it was Megatron?
All Transformers now speak english before even coming to Earth. Very jarring in the case of the Decepticons who in previous movies spoke 'cybertronian' most of the time even when on earth. Really lost that nice alien feel that speaking in their own language gave them.
Sucks to be Cliffjumper.
How long had Bee been hiding that he had a beehive and such under there. I dunno how long these things take but it seemed like more time than was otherwise alluded to.
Charlie is likable enough but there's nothing all that interesting about her. And the whole dead dad thing is smacked right over your head to try make you cry but it's just too obvious. The diving thing is cheesy as hell and how she 'gets over it' after the final battle.
Charlie's naming of Bumblebee was really cringe-worthy. I get why Bumblebee might be an odd name for an alien robot to already have but why was he just B127 when Optimus Prime and other Transformers have names already (like Megatron proclaimed defiantly in the 2007 film after people had been calling him mega man or iceman or whatever)?
Charlie's family are totally forgettable. And that Ron guy can **** off with that smile book ****. The kid brother can too (and his 'cripple' line reminded me there was a wheelchair-bound young boy sat in front of me).
Bee takes ten seconds and makes a fair amount of noise when transforming while he's in shot, but for 'comedic purposes' when the mother tries entering the garage he can instantly change back into car form with no sound at all while off-screen.
I never cared much for The Smiths either, Bee.
Bee in the house was tedious. Even luckily having a really tall ceiling didn't stop the place getting trashed, sorry Charlie's family. I smiled a bit when he had his door wings finally but then realised it's cos he was half transformed when I saw his lower body and the way he wheeled about. He just looks better with the door wings, dammit!
Shatter must have scanned that muscle car super quick before she smashed right into it. Also I prefer Shatter and Dropkick without all the plane and chopper kibble. Just made them look messy. Shatter has a cool voice. Dropkick doesn't really do much except blast a couple humans into watery splashes and do a crap job of killing Bumblebee. Bee didn't explode into bits like every other dead bot in this film. Silly Dropkick.
Young Seymour Simmons in Sector 7. I kinda grinned out of one side of my mouth at that one.
Bland nerdy teen doesn't actually seem to be all that nerdy despite even having Fourth Doctor posters.
So much unnecessary teen drama movie crap. We had some of this in the 2007 film but it was done a bit better then. I can't even remember if the 'hot guy' Charlie supposedly liked even did anything apart from be shirtless a couple times and jump off a cliff. Also 'The Touch'? Always hated that song. 'Dare' was the better Stan Bush song from the TF86 soundtrack. Also nobody wondered why the empty car blared out a loud tune for a couple seconds randomly.
Movie needs to remind us it's in the 80s by constantly playing well known songs of the decade. At least it breaks up the schmaltzy score anytime the film wants us to 'feel'.
And the attempts at humour in this film are mostly pathetic. Same goes for the blatant and hamfisted emotional bits.
Dropkick apparently can be totally destroyed with human chains despite what he was about to say.
John Cena is comic book style army guy who wants to kill Bee until, wouldn't ya know it, Bee saves him in his burning chopper after it got blasted and just so there's no confusion for Mr Cena as to who his hero is, Bee's face is right there in front of him during the whole rescue.
Glad Charlie and 'nerd' didn't end up with a big kiss. She hadn't actually showed all that much interest in him other than friendship. She showed more romantic interest in Bumblebee. Even reluctant to hold his hand and saying they're not there yet was a nice touch.
This movies had a lot of transformation scenes. Nice. Except with such a small cast it's just the same robots transforming again and again and again. Less nice.
Ok so Bee is the camaro at the end and Sector 7 is a thing which are both exclusive to the previous movies... but all that G1 nonsense and now Prime is already on earth at the end rather than coming from space in 2007? Is this a prequel or a reboot or some X-Men First Class confusing timeline crap? How am I supposed to care about things if they retconned out of existence? Also how many endings were needed here? I thought it was gonna simply end with Bee driving off with the truck we could have assumed may or may not have been Prime.
What was the point of that rather nice if over-large Legendary Optimus Prime upsize/retool of AoE Evasion Prime if he doesn't even look anything like that in this movie? I get Megatron, Barricade and Hot Rod were added to the cheaper smaller line of toys to padd out the ranks a bit but that Legendary figure is like £60 or so...
I came away from the other movies thinking stuff about the lore and histories and looking ahead to the next one. This one just has a one and done approach to it and really did nothing remotely interesting. It was so by the numbers. It was pleasant enough and passed the time (well, until the teen drama bits which draaaaaggged) and gave us a couple cool new Decepticons (well they're dead now but eh). I feel like I wanna give this a 6/10 and even then I feel that's too generous. Not my fave TF movie by a long shot. Each of the five previous ones just entertained me far more to varying degrees and had me eagerly awaiting the blu rays so i could watch them again and pause a lot to study all the details. I loved the robot designs and battles and vehicles in all of them far more than this one (Shatter and Dropkick get a pass cos they're quite neat).
Yeah. Not a big fan and really not keen on what the future holds if this is the feel and direction of the movieverse now...
These be all the thoughts I've managed to remember after coming back home soaking wet from the storm. I need to get in dry clothes and rest. I'll still probably buy the movie on Blu Ray for the few things I did really like (and for completion's sake) but yeah... This certainly wasn't for me.
Have a good weekend.