Roger Ebert "The Brainiac" explains his ROTF review

I attacked the critics at first, but after all the discussion I see where they are coming from. Now I enjoyed the movie, but thats coming from a TF fan who used to dream of live action movies. The action was awesome, but too enjoy the movie the most you gotta just watch it the whole way through, and don't analyze anything, just enjoy it for what it is. When you actually start thinking about everything, thats when you realize how bad it really is, which is what these critics jobs are. They aren't paid to just "enjoy the ride" they gotta be fair and break the whole movie down.

That being said considering how rushed it was, adding the writers strike into the mix, its a miracle we even got an enjoyable movie at all!

Gosh I love his review. And he is right. We were groaning in our seats by the time Jetfire took what felt like half an hour to explain the movie- and then we realized we still had almost an hour more to go! My goodness but it was a terrible film. Did justice to none of the characters- and every minute that featured Skidz, Mudflap or Devastator could have been given to Ratchet, Arcee and the Fallen respectively.

All the crud having to do with the location of the "matrix" could have been slashed and no would have cared.

Terrible.

The dude's right.

As a movie, that touches you and makes you stop and think about life.. it's crap.

As a movie that's about robots kicking each-others ass, it's fecking A!

Guess what. most people aren't interested in robots kicking each-others ass.

The movie lacks about all the emotions that were even in the animated movie 23 years ago and the only thing it has going for it is a lot of 'splosions. mindless fun? yes. a good movie? no.. .a good Transformers movie? not by a long shot...

Roger Ebert is entitled to his opinion, just like anyone else. The only difference is that he's paid to publish his opinion.

Personally, I believed the 68% user rating on RottenTomatoes.com than the 90% from Paramount.

I'll defend Mr Ebert because he has the right to his opinions. Personally, I find I disagree with most of them as I find what he enjoys from films doesn't match with my own tastes.

I learned ages ago after reading negative reviews of movies I really liked to ignore reviews entirely. I attend movies or buy DVD's if they appeal to me. I'll still read reviews in the paper, but a can't think of a single written review review that has stopped me from seeing a film I want to watch or vise versa.

What I don't get is people who say "You gotta enjoy it for what it is". Why? Why do I have to enjoy it? Why must I settle for this? Don't I, don't YOU, deserve better? Are you gonna argue with me that its about alien robots and blah blah blah? Really, is that the best you can do? Cause Star Wars was about nothing BUT aliens and it was a WAAAAAAYYYYYY better film(s) then ROTF. The new Star Trek got great response from fans.

Yes you're always gonna have the never satisfied group of people that will bash anything thats not 100 percent the way they want it, but I am far from that person, being very open minded, loving the first film and getting crushed by the second.

Action = great, story = pure junk, no one can refute that.

I must admit that while I tend to disagree with a lot of his film assesments I do have a lot of respect for his years of experience and the viewpoint from which he approaches things. I've always felt that that viewpoint was more often narrow than it really should be but to each their own.
UNTIL he made the following comment...

"Those who think "Transformers" is a great or even a good film are, may I tactfully suggest, not sufficiently evolved. Film by film I hope they climb a presonal ladder into the realm of better films, until their standards improve."

I'm well into my 30's and, while I may have my favorites in the realm of music and movie genres, I by no means limit myself to these and actually enjoy all aspects of films from docu-dramas, to indies to even so-called "chick flicks" or "feel-good" movies.
I enjoy art museums and science exhibitions as much as folk life or Rennaisance fairs. I can spend all day digging ditches and then don a suit and tie and rub elbows with folks at the yacht club (which was quite fun actually) so I must say that Mr. Eberts remark was no less than offensive, rude, selfish and absolute, narrowminded BULL****! (One good turn deserves another.)
Despite how many of my posts come across, I do have a very good command of the english language and I can assure you that I could have found a far more eloquent, less blatantly rude manner in which to insult an entire fandom than what he did. He just found a way to give us all "the finger" and still have it done with a "G" rating.

He really didn't so much as explain his position as indicate that those who found objection to his position didn't posses the cerebral capacity to understand his viewpoint in the first place and that he really didn't HAVE to explain himself since he had put in enough time in the industry as to be above reproach.
It was a fascinating article but once you filtered out the unnecessaries and got to the actual core of his response, you were left with nothing less than a whole lot of self righteousness.

I, personally, am still left with ever growing conflicted feelings about the movie myself as the newness wears off and I've had time to rethink the film from all angles. The team behind this film failed horribly on many aspects and I do feel cheated in a lot of respects but at the same time I cannot ignore the fact that it was an epic venture on several levels. It truly did fall into the singular category of the highest grossing, most breath-taking, astounding, award deserving failure of cinematic history. How the hell does someone pull THAT off?

Wow. That's a really cool feeling to see Roger Ebert mention Seibertron.com ... and not just mention, but more-or-less acknowledge that he read through our discussions to see what we had to say about the movie (and possibly his review). I certainly wouldn't mind connecting with him since we're both fellow Chicagoans.

T-Macksimus wrote:I must admit that while I tend to disagree with a lot of his film assesments I do have a lot of respect for his years of experience and the viewpoint from which he approaches things. I've always felt that that viewpoint was more often narrow than it really should be but to each their own.
UNTIL he made the following comment...

"Those who think "Transformers" is a great or even a good film are, may I tactfully suggest, not sufficiently evolved. Film by film I hope they climb a presonal ladder into the realm of better films, until their standards improve."

I'm well into my 30's and, while I may have my favorites in the realm of music and movie genres, I by no means limit myself to these and actually enjoy all aspects of films from docu-dramas, to indies to even so-called "chick flicks" or "feel-good" movies.
I enjoy art museums and science exhibitions as much as folk life or Rennaisance fairs. I can spend all day digging ditches and then don a suit and tie and rub elbows with folks at the yacht club (which was quite fun actually) so I must say that Mr. Eberts remark was no less than offensive, rude, selfish and absolute, narrowminded BULL****! (One good turn deserves another.)
Despite how many of my posts come across, I do have a very good command of the english language and I can assure you that I could have found a far more eloquent, less blatantly rude manner in which to insult an entire fandom than what he did. He just found a way to give us all "the finger" and still have it done with a "G" rating.

He really didn't so much as explain his position as indicate that those who found objection to his position didn't posses the cerebral capacity to understand his viewpoint in the first place and that he really didn't HAVE to explain himself since he had put in enough time in the industry as to be above reproach.
It was a fascinating article but once you filtered out the unnecessaries and got to the actual core of his response, you were left with nothing less than a whole lot of self righteousness.

I, personally, am still left with ever growing conflicted feelings about the movie myself as the newness wears off and I've had time to rethink the film from all angles. The team behind this film failed horribly on many aspects and I do feel cheated in a lot of respects but at the same time I cannot ignore the fact that it was an epic venture on several levels. It truly did fall into the singular category of the highest grossing, most breath-taking, astounding, award deserving failure of cinematic history. How the hell does someone pull THAT off?

T-Mack,

I think you missed something. His response was aimed towards the people that have been flooding his inbox with "Transformers was awesome, you suck old fart" comments, not TF Fans in general. Hell he even complimented us on Seibertron.com, the ULTIMATE Transformers Resource.

"How the hell does someone pull THAT off?"

By pouring another 50 million into marketing and releasing the film in a spot with no competition. With nothing else to see, might as well see the robots blow stuff up...

The cool thing was that he actually mentioned this site, and complemented our moderating team.

"Seibertron.com: All-transformers-all-the-time."

That would be a cool slogan.

But Ebert is still wrong on movies most of the time.

First Gen wrote:Action = great, story = pure junk, no one can refute that.

Amen! I have been saying this since I saw it. Still enjoyed it nonetheless but I do believe we are owed big time for TF3. Unicron and the dinobots at the very least.

Zeds wrote:

First Gen wrote:Action = great, story = pure junk, no one can refute that.

Amen! I have been saying this since I saw it. Still enjoyed it nonetheless but I do believe we are owed big time for TF3. Unicron and the dinobots at the very least.

The only way I can see a Dinobot or two would be if they crashed near a museum (Like MOTR, for instance) and scanned a Tyrannosaur as an alternate mode, or if they never changed the altmode at all, since the altmode has a resemblance to a dinosaur.

However, I can definitely see Unicron.

Rodimus Prime wrote:He is still wrong most of the time.

His job is to give his opinion on movies. That is, he's no more wrong about movies than you are.

Badass Grimlock wrote:However, I can definitely see Unicron.

I could live with that. I want to see some apocalyptic destruction.

Personally, I don't even bother listening to critics. It all pretty much comes down to different tastes.

Though I am slightly offended when Ebert said that whoever thought that this was a good movie hadn't evolved. Well, I loved ROTF and my favorite movies of all time are The Good The Bad And The Ugly, Seven Samurai, and The Godfather.

And wasn't Ebert the one who liked Batman And Robin? Or was that somebody else?

I hate this guy and I always thought his reviews were laughable but this time around i find my self agreeing with some of his comments. Hell I am one of the few that thought this movie sucked. I think that this is one of Bays worst films. As a TF fan im disgusted and as a movie fan im just as appalled. The action parts are watchable as long as you dont try and figure out whats happening and why. The rest should just be thrown out. The story (if you can call it that) was pure garbage and dont get me started on the mediocre acting. To much was thrown in and done wrong. This could've been the best thing since movies were created but once again Bay and the people who wrote the script dropped the ball big time. People think that this movie was great but they dont realize that it could be so much more if put in the right hands. This version is the lowest rung on the latter. Bay owes us and every one else who saw this movie. TF3 better be the film that redeems this franchise. And that doesnt mean Unicron. You destroyed the Matrix in this one so theres no point. And i dont want Galvatron just yet. Megatron still needs an earth mode. Plus i dont want Unicron to get completely screwed up like so many others have in these films.

On another note its pretty damn cool how much seibertron.com gets mentioned these days. And i agree with Rodimus Prime, "Seibertron.com: All-transformers-all-the-time" should be the sites slogan. Or at least added to it. "The ultimate Transformers Resource" sums up the site but put the two together and you have an epic win of a slogan . And The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly is one of the best movies of all time.

Shadowman wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:He is still wrong most of the time.

His job is to give his opinion on movies. That is, he's no more wrong about movies than you are.

OK, I should have said in my opinion he is wrong, because most of the time, my opinion of a movie after seeing it differs from his. Happy?

Seibertron wrote:Wow. That's a really cool feeling to see Roger Ebert mention Seibertron.com ... and not just mention, but more-or-less acknowledge that he read through our discussions to see what we had to say about the movie (and possibly his review). I certainly wouldn't mind connecting with him since we're both fellow Chicagoans.

He didn't say a whole lot, but what he said leads me to believe that he has respect for the opinions as well as the "spirited" debates that are in the threads of this site. He seemed to mention this site because it is a very respected Transformers site. That really should make you proud!

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Shadowman wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:He is still wrong most of the time.

His job is to give his opinion on movies. That is, he's no more wrong about movies than you are.

OK, I should have said in my opinion he is wrong, because most of the time, my opinion of a movie after seeing it differs from his. Happy?

Not really. He has different opinions from you, that doesn't make him wrong. You can't call someone "wrong" for a differing opinion, you can only disagree.