Transformers: The Movie

The famished malevolent Unicron proceeds uncontested throughout the Universe, devouring planets as he randomly travels destructively immersed within timeless space.

As he approaches Cybertron, the Decepticon leadership battles the Autobots, who have retreated to two of its moons and Autobot City upon planet Earth.

The battle is feverishly fought both sides taking heavy casualties, Megatron and Optimus Prime fearsomely opposing one another with embittered fortitude.

As the leaders tumultuously duel, they deal each other fatal blows, Optimus forced to give up the Matrix of Leadership, Starscream banishing Megatron thereafter.

Nevertheless, Unicron has foreseen that only one thing can possibly destroy him, the coveted heralded respected Matrix of honest and fair immaculate Leadership.

He finds Megatron drifting through space and begrudgingly transforms him into Galvatron, before tasking him with furtively retrieving the ancient Matrix foreverafter. 

Always crafty, Megatron decides that if he finds it he'll harness its powers, to defeat ye olde Unicron whom he rather dislikes for presuming omniscience.

But foolish Megatron ignorantly forgets that the divine Matrix only supports just leadership.

The Autobots also seeking to stop Unicron.

As their fight wages throughout the Galaxy.

If you happened to be born at the right time I doubt you'll ever tire of its soundtrack, Transformers: The Movie distilling a passionate craze of robotic rhythms and electro wavelengths. 

It abounds with versatile transformers as one product line replaces another, a trajectory perhaps not followed by other toy brand films after many audiences erupted in fury.

Noble proclamations exuding sublime paths of innocently-defined righteous leadership, embrace community or open-minded togetherness with characteristic sincere savvy. 

Age and youth within the continuum continue their wise and impulsive dialogues, as the reckless Hot Rod and the weathered Kup dispute various subjects throughout their travels.

As Optimus Prime graciously fades it's tough to imagine the Autobots without him, and somewhat frustrating that Megatron bounces back within the film while he does not.

Perhaps another feature that was widely criticized.

The animosity fading with age.

Love watching this film again and again.

Old school longevity, luminescent viscosity. 

Transformers One

Tough and experimental young friends resiliently attuned to calisthenic mischief, bored with their jobs and inherently curious about the political composure of their planet's temperament. 

They work in the mines digging for energon without the requisite cogs which enable transforming, carefree and dreamy yet brave and self-sacrificing they function with enterprising inquisitive accolades. 

Yet as their heroics win them applause their planet's adored leader isn't quite so impressed, indirectly banishing them to an unheard of sub-level where they find themselves managing disregarded waste.

Appropriately, after making new friends, they soon courageously travel to their planet's surface, in search of the long lost matrix of leadership, the location of which may have been revealed.

Further distress despondently awaits them in the inhospitable lands terrorized above, as the treacherous nature of their belovéd leader is freely showcased by a legendary warrior.

To inform their brethren that they were meant to have cogs and that their tireless labours simply profit hostile aliens, definitively emerges as a compelling mission to which they immediately respond with vociferous stewardship.

A revolutionary tale tempestuously told to harness innate hard-working nobility, bold transformations multivariably brandishing integrity and exception across the land.

The citizens denied their honest fair share of the spoils of their labours react with indignity, and collectively express their enraged disapproval with rebellious instinct and distinguished resolve.

Certainly focused on Transformers the sentient robotic aliens fuelling, narrative discord aggrieved animation improvised cognizance intermingling microbes. 

Unfortunately, their inspired insurrection leaves Orion Pax and D-16 at odds, the classic Professor X/Magneto dialectic reemerging with democratic/authoritative repercussions hemorrhaging.

It reminded me of Coruscant in Attack of the Clones when Skywalker and Kenobi chase down the bounty hunter, and ye olde "splinching" from the Harry Potter films when the newfound Transformers have issues changing.

Indubitably textbook evaluations of open-minded leadership resiliently tested, no doubt applicable to political studies should they seek exemplars of seditious tales.

Sad to see the flourishing enmity as it's coldly birthed in revolutionary flames.

To be spread far and wide from planet to planet. 

Megatron and Prime at odds thereverafter. 

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Struggling to get by, an ex-soldier's hardships rapidly increase (Anthony Ramos as Mr. Diaz), his younger brother in need of medical attention (Dean Scott Vazquez as Kris Diaz), his own application for work denied.

He's accused of being unable to work productively upon a team, and even though he consistently excelled, he can't move past one stingy hiccup.

Financial pressures and tormenting temptation lead to inaugural vehicle theft, but within the unsuspecting parking garage, lies a wild unsubstantiated mystery.

He's accidentally broken into a Transformer at a rather formidable time, for an ancient Transwarp Key has just been discovered, and Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) is recalling the troops.

Unfortunately, the key has been sought for thousands of years by the minions of the planet devouring Unicron (Colman Domingo), and they too reside on Earth, and hope to acquire the interstellar device.

The Transwarp Key would give Unicron the ability to travel anywhere in space without moving, without spiritual gifts or coveted spice, then consume unsuspecting planets.

Noah and the knowledgeable Elena (Dominique Fishback) have no wish to see their planet destroyed, and agree to help the aggrieved Autobots who see the Transwarp as their ticket home. 

But only half of the key has been discovered, the other half hidden in the jungles of Peru.

In which awaits another ancient manifestation. 

Of unheralded honourable Cybertronic beasts.

Ancient legend and contemporary endeavours boldly reveal our kinship with animals, the wild symbiotic sleuthing that provocatively impressed for thousands of years.

With our technological prowess and seemingly limitless expansion, have we not forgotten the lessons they taught us, as we mythologically depended upon survival?

If a God indeed created the planet would he or she not indeed also love its animals, and see such a grand impregnable imbalance as a misguided perversion of biodiversity?

Would he or she not then send calamitous storms and materialize hostile inclement climates, to cut our enormous numbers down and ensure less reliance on imbalanced slaughter?

As we consume without rationalized reckoning our planet erupts with meteorological tension!

Is it a striking divine criticism? 

Of unsustainable global disparity?

Bumblebee

At the transformative heart of Travis Knight's Bumblebee rests polarized misperception glacially endowed.

Cybertron is lost and the Autobots have fled, B-127 (Bumblebee [Dylan O'Brien]) tasked with finding them sanctuary, wherefrom they can regroup and plan, whereupon they'll be cloaked and hidden.

But the Decepticons have followed, three in fact, eventually, one at first, and if they're able to report their findings, his mission will end in failure.

He has landed upon Earth during its most exceptional decade, even if he's greeted none too kindly, even if he then forgets all.

The internet has yet to revolutionize everything planet wide, however, Cypertron correspondingly suffering from a lack of technological advancement, for even though the Decepticons know he is hiding on Earth, they cannot easily transmit this discovery.

As if Cypbertron and Earth are unconsciously linked through intergalactic evolution, and what happens on one planet contemporaneously takes place on the other, technologically speaking, even if humanity does not explore space.

Bumblebee is found by a defiant young adult (Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie) who is dismissive of her stepfather (Stephen Schneider as Ron) and seeks her own car.

Little does she know that her unassuming angst-ridden pursuits have opened a gateway to starstruck conflict, and that her newfound friend and confidant is sought after by mature disaffection.

The concern of her parents is augmented by the military's presence, everyone eventually rallying to her side, in tune with the spirit of the times.

Although the romantic dreamer within (John Ortiz as Dr. Powell) is depicted as a do-gooding lump, tough-as-nails Agent Burns (John Cena) standing out in sharp contrast, yet as the plot unravels the dialectic pretensions of the Transformers cause both individuals to reconsider, Powell realizing he should never have trusted Shatter (Angela Bassett) and Dropkick (Justin Theroux), Burns accepting he was mistaken about Bumblebee.

Charlie also learns she was wrong to malign her stepfather's goodwill, for even though he promotes compassion, he can still drive like Satan himself.

Functioning like a stern loving synthesis of sorts.

Thus, within this humble Bumblebee we find rudimentary political philosophy reduced to democratic elements, as predetermined judgment is actively critiqued by withdrawn yet impacting middle-ground motivations.

Perhaps not the best transformers film, but that doesn't mean the music and legend of a long past fabled epoch can't still ensure good times, or at least make up for the film's overstated grumblings.

Too much of the, "let's shoot before asking questions and make the guy who asks questions look like a fool" though.

Possibly the best soundtrack ever.

Transformers: The Last Knight

Can science, myth, religion, history, the aristocracy, the people, the British, Americans, the privileged, the self-made, the men, the women, humankind, and Autobots, be chaotically yet adventurously, ideologically yet practically, intergalactically yet locally, or quite simply extracurricularly brought together in a wild brainiacally styled jewelled Nile Summertime extravaganza, complete with a spellbinding mix of the brash and the delicate which epically unites risk, love, service and dedication, to thoroughly entertain while multilaterally seeking knowledge, like a trip to New York, or a voyage down under?

Yes.

I would say, "yes, yes they can."

"Affirmative" even.

A constructive ebb and flow.

It's always fun when the new Transformers films are released but I'll admit I've never enjoyed one as much as The Last Knight.

I mean, I'll actually watch this one again.

It's number 5 too.

So many metamorphic developments.

Plucky little Izabella (Isabela Moner), resiliently in search of friends and family.

The hyperreactive robotic butler (Jim Carter as Cogman), who flamboyantly yet earnestly adds neurotic inspirational spice.

Agent Simmons (Jon Turturro) is back, theorizing and analyzing his way to the heart of the narrative's conceit.

Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins), youthfully and mischievously contemporizing more than a millennia of British legend.

England and the United States romantically come to terms?, the couple in question perhaps creating an invincible universal super being?

Plus secret entrances, spontaneous sushi, cheeky self-reflexive criticisms of blockbuster music, Cuba once again warmly featured in a 2017 American mainstream release, prophetic books preserved, getting-away-with-it explanations, scenarios, Bumblebee (Erik Aadahl), First Nations fluidity, Tony Hale (JPL Engineer), whales.

The wild script energetically shifts from sentiment to shock to certitude to sensation, manifold short scenes eclectically yet straightforwardly stitched together with (en)lightninglike speed and ornate dishevelled awareness.

Fascinated, 'twas I.

I've often thought these films don't focus enough on Transformers, but Last Knight presents a solid shapeshifting/organic blend, its biological proclivities overwhelming desires to see Transformers discursively deliberating, relevant contributing human factors, caught up in the thick of it, creating solutions intuitively their own.

In fact, the subplot involving Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) was my least favourite part of the film.

The extraordinary examination of British History and its relationship to transforming-lifeforms-from-space easily made up for it though.

I'd love to see Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice during the witching hour.

How did they move those rocks?

They be pretty freakin' huge.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Humanity has forsaken and betrayed the Autobots in the latest Transformers sequel, forcing them to strategically dissimulate in order to avoid detection.

An intergalactic jailer by the name of Lockdown (Mark Ryan) seeks to imprison Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), punishing him for disobeying his creators, uniformly inhibiting his hard-fought freedom fighting.

Megatron's brain has been harvested and the technological secrets residing within have led brilliant scientist Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci) to believe that the power of the Transformer can be governed by Homo sapiens.

A new generation of Transformer is therefore created, to be used as military drones, the Autobots having become obsolete.

Fortunately a feisty independent struggling inventor has discovered the whereabouts of Mr. Prime, and he remembers the sacrifices he made, improvisationally fighting by his side.

Scolding his young daughter all the while.

The resulting combat, wherein the American individual boldly teams up with the abandoned to challenge the forces of oppression, is ingeniously summed up in the film's best scene, which sees Mr. Joyce cowering in a Hong Kong elevator, a momentary respite, from the cataclysmic confrontations.

Anyone notice the apartment complexes in Hong Kong?

Wow.

The act of creation unites the converging storylines, along with issues of operational control, to thematically cap the series's 4th instalment.

Convincingly hypothesizing a new set of sociotechnological indicators, while economically aligning them for the film's terrestrial inhabitants, earning a living subconsciously contends with manufacturing a soul, to experimentally produce a sensationally revelled playing field.

Because Age of Extinction is so long, the introduction of the Dinobots seems somewhat tacked-on.

However, the introduction of the Dinobots, is, awesome.

The President doesn't make an appearance and I'm betting when he or she does it turns out to be one of the members of Dark of the Moon's most disputatious romantic couplings.

Their presence was missing from Age of Extinction.

But the anticipation is something to look forward to.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

The Autobots and Decepticons battle once again in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, one group caring for the future of humanity, the other, not so much.

Enjoyed the first act of the film as Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) struggles to find a job, competently dealing with the shocks of the working world while reservedly accepting that successfully defeating the forces of evil twice does not necessarily guarantee that one will find full-time rewarding employment. Nevertheless, he still finds a position in the mail room of an innovative company and proceeds to prove himself while impressing partner Carly Spencer (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) and mollifying his ill-tempered father (Kevin Dunn).

Until fellow employee Jerry Wang (Ken Jeong) suddenly provides him with top secret intelligence regarding the Ark, a spacecraft which escaped Cybertron during its transformational Armageddon and proceeded to crash land on Earth's moon.

Reunited with Seymour Simmons (John Turturro), they then unravel a plot involving the stockpiling of pillars on the moon and the murder of many of the people involved with American and Russian moon missions.

It turns out an Autobot named Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy) piloted the Ark away from Cybertron in order to ensure the Autobots's survival, but had really struck a deal with Megatron (Hugo Weaving) to betray them, believing that the future of the Transformers would pay more dividends in Decepticon hands.

With the help of Spencer's boss and Witwicky's rival Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey), the Decepticons conquer the earth and prepare to use Sentinel's technology to transport Cybertron to its solar system.

There are many quirky scenes that make the first act stand out, including the struggles of Alan Tudyk's character Dutch, awkward elevator encounters, and Sam and Jerry's discussion in the stall of a men's washroom. These scenes infuse the film with a catchy comedic sensibility that lightens the tension and disrupts the action, briefly, the sharp introduction of a distinct staccato which doesn't ruin the overall affect as it did in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (the comedy in a Transformers film finally worked for me).

The film also features the significant transitions most of the characters have entertainingly negotiated since Revenge of the Fallen, which, I suppose, is one of the principle points.

As if we're all Transformers.

Transformers 3's second act is primarily concerned with the Autobot/human counterattack and the momentum fluidly built up beforehand stalls significantly. I suppose if you have a constructed bountiful world that is then devastated it makes sense to ensure that its dynamic isn't present in the Decepticon aftermath. But it also makes sense to then build towards a salient climax wherein that world's productivity is brilliantly revitalized, and Dark of the Moon does contain a climax and its origins are revitalized, but the content used to fill this traditional form didn't exactly motivate me, apart from the quasi-rapprochement entre Simmons and Mearing (Frances McDormand).

Nonetheless, its saving grace is represented by how it presents the ways in which the right perverts "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" maxim, by placing it in Decepiticon hands, who, basically want to bring their world to ours, or supplant Earth's culture with another, the imperialist few using their resources to destroy the longevity of the many, in the interests of the one, the dark of the moon (note the necessity of maintaining a prominent place for the study of First Nations culture within educational systems).

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen picks up with the Autobots and the American military chasing down villainous Decepticons throughout planet Earth. Humanoid hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is preparing for both college and a long term relationship with love interest Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) before discovering that his previous encounter with the Allspark has given him exceptional scientific and linguistic abilities. And Starscream (Charlie Adler) has rallied the troops with the assistance of The Fallen (Tony Todd) and is preparing to resurrect Megatron (Hugo Weaving) so that he can lead an invasion force to use an ancient device buried within a pyramid to harvest the energon lying within our Sun.

But he didn't count on contending against the power of love.

With nearly two and a half hours of footage, the film covers a tremendous amount of ground planted with the same silly comedic distractions and fast-paced shallow dialogue that dominated its predecessor. At the same time, with so many characters demanding their voice be heard, and so many plot threads requiring a cinematic stitch, I suppose terse dialogue is necessary if not disappointing. John Turtorro (Agent Simmons) steals the show once again and revitalizes the second act with an energetically offbeat and charismatic transformation. And there were a number of points after the second hour where I thought Revenge of the Fallen was going to end in an Empire Strikes Back like fashion (without a carbonite parallel) and leave us eagerly anticipating the next installment. But it kept going and the audience kept cheering and I couldn't help feeling old for searching for something more than explosive battles, competent clichés (Turtorro stating "not on my watch" for instance), and frustrating familial filibusters.

One Transformer did stand out for me however because his presence attached a bit of ambiguity to the either/or dynamic lying at the heart of the Autobot/Decepticon feud. Jetfire (Mark Ryan) was once a Decepticon but decided to join the Autobots after centuries of fighting. True, there are still only two choices, Autobots or Decepticons, but it's nice to see a freethinking character who was able to change his allegiances based upon his subjective interpretation of his historical circumstances.

Transformers

Michael Bay's new film Transformers unravels a teenaged synthesis of hormones, military paranoia, and tryin' too hard comedy. The Decepticons and Autobots are back in another epic battle, fighting over the Allspark, a giant cube with the power to create or destroy worlds. Along for the ride are a number of would be high school heroes, numerous military personnel, cranky, mind-your-own-business parents, and the ever weird and wonderful John Turturro. The action sequences are slight, the offbeat comedy tedious (except for the masturbation bit), and Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's script borrows heavily from every big time blockbuster this side of Cybertron. Focusing primarily on the myriad humanoid characters, Transformers forgets the main reason behind Transformers: Transformers. Instead of providing us with an elaborate narrative, transporting the Hasbroian folklore to another dimension, Bay caters too intensely to his earthly plot devices and quickly drowns his tale in banal political mumbo jumbo (note that Iranian scientists are not to be credited but North Korea's military is on par with that of China). Optimus Prime does wax quixotic about goodness and we are briefly reintroduced to Megatron's acerbic abuse of Starscream, but their scenes are far to brief, making me wish I'd simply rented seasons one through three, as well as the first full-length feature film.