ROTF - awesome to watch, hard to classify.

smkspy · 08-02-2009, 11:35 AM

ROTF-

a quarter war movie
a quarter summer blockbuster
a quarter sci-fi
and a quarter screwball comedy.

But you know the real problem with the critics? They really don't care about Transformers and they just didn't get it. They watched the movie, wrote their little reviews, and moved on with lives without a second thought. The real travesty is that they're not contemplating the realism that Michael Bay brought to fictional robots having a war, while gushing over how the forest battle was the best use of cgi ever, a month after watching the film. Fuck the critics with their indie films and harry Potterz.

shroobmaster · 08-02-2009, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smkspy

ROTF-

a quarter war movie
a quarter summer blockbuster
a quarter sci-fi
and a quarter screwball comedy.

that's true in many ways, it's like Bay woke up one day and tought to himself "man i wonder what would happen if somebody decide to mix all genres in one... nah forget no one would be crazy enough to do that... no one.... hmmm!"

microclone · 08-02-2009, 12:03 PM

There are many, many films that are arguably unclassifiable or are a mix of genres that have critical acclaim, they in every respect trounce ROTF from a very great height

ROTF is ultra mainstream pablum, slightly polished but ultimately a mess, to suggest it somehow has confused critics because its not a specific genre is somewhat naive.

heck, you could even count star wars as a mix of genres:action/war/fantasy/sci fi/hero driven epic.

i'd also say that most war films also tend to have a bit of, er, action in them, its hardly new.

lets just say that in 10 years time, nobody is going to look at ROTF on anybodys disc shelf and say 'wow, you bought that genre bending masterpiece summer blockbuster by michael bay in 2009. thats just sooo out there'.

StayingInTheBox · 08-02-2009, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gordon_4

You know I think the OP is onto something here. It does occasionally seem like parts of different movies pasted together with the same acting crews. I do think Josh Dumhal has a future acting in films about soldiers since he seems to take to it rather well.

Parts of this film are so god damned mind blowingly cool like the forest battle and Shanghai (some dubious dialogue aside) are just the peak of excellent excellent robot action. Hell even Bumblebee's attack on the kitchen robots was cool.

And then there are parts of the film that are mind-numbingly bad or just plain fucked. The dropping of Optimus Prime (regardless of the novel ret-con) made me physically flinch because I thought it was cruel, Sam's treatment of Bumblebee made him look like a total arsehole and frankly as "realistic" (and I use the term losely) as Sam and Mikalea's relationship troubles were, I found myself not caring if he said her loved her and frankly wanted them both to either shut the fuck up or break up.

It's actually a little surreal seeing such awesome action (Minus Egypt, I'm looking at you Mr. Railgun) mated to some truly abysmal interation between the people.

Except of course Kevin Dunn's crowning moment of awesome. I believed he didn't want to leave his son in a war zone full of warring alien machines. I believed he loved that young man with all his heart and would cause the fall of nations to keep him safe. Hell for a minute I actually though Shia was Kevin's son.

I can't call it a bad film, not anymore, because it isn't fair to say that. It isn't a bad film (I've seen bad films, really bad films) but for some reason the whole thing doesn't seem to fit together some times. And despite the fact that most of us rail defiant at Critics not liking it (and rightly saw it to make up our own minds) I still feel a little sad that it couldn't be both entertaining of a high standard of writing. Oh well, there's always Transformers 3.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Autobus Prime

Folks:

My wife and I saw it today, and it was AWESOME! I loved it! Seriously!

Why don't the critics like it better?

I think I know. They don't know what to classify it as. It's part action movie and part war movie.

Now, an action movie is all about heavy stylization and individual heroics.

A war movie is about realistic detail and teamwork in action.

This movie blends the two, and with great success...but they're two well-separated genres. People who go expecting stylized action bog down in the military stuff. People who expect realism are bothered by the improbabilities. But if you can get past the genre-mixing, it's a wonderful movie!

Now, of course there's a lot of little bits of this and that I'm not sure of, and things I want to discuss...but on the whole? Awesome!

Go see it if you haven't yet!

Very well said to the both of you.

In my eyes, ROTF was a badass film. I think the OP really captured something here.

Ruthie · 08-02-2009, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gordon_4

I can't call it a bad film, not anymore, because it isn't fair to say that. It isn't a bad film (I've seen bad films, really bad films) but for some reason the whole thing doesn't seem to fit together some times. And despite the fact that most of us rail defiant at Critics not liking it (and rightly saw it to make up our own minds) I still feel a little sad that it couldn't be both entertaining of a high standard of writing. Oh well, there's always Transformers 3.

This! The natural progression for this movie series is to have the audience discover things about the TFs that helps us see them more as a "people" who happen to be a race of mysterious alien robots at war. Obviously that's what this movie intended to do, it just never got there because all of those interesting story elements were improperly developed. This is exemplified in either how little the TFs interacted with their own history and how ineffective it was when they did. There was little connection between and among the TFs in terms of anything the story presented about the Fallen or the Primes. Those discoveries and responses were all seen through Sam's and Simmons's perspectives. And even though BB and the Twins were nearby, none of them were given the opportunity to be in awe as they "learned" about Cybertron's past.