![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Robots and Fireworks
Jul. 6th, 2007 03:29 pmWorked my way down to the edge of the river at MIT right across from the fireworks barge, I’ve never seen the Boston fireworks from down that close before and they have a whole array of fireworks they groundburst underneath the main aerial set, they paint colored fire all the way up into the sky. The explosions are marvelous, you feel the concussion in your chest and your head and your limbs.
Saw Transformers early in the day, it rocked big. There is an unfortunate amount of sentimental exposition by the humans, and Optimus Prime’s soliloquies are pompous windbaggitude, but when the giant robots get fighting all is forgiven. The transformation sequences are flawless, they’ve nailed the physics of weight and motion, the reality of dust and smoke and light, pull it all together so fluid fast and immediately alive, it hits you in the AW YEAH!!! cortex like a ton of bricks. A ton of electrified bricks, and every tenth brick is made of C4 explosive, you know, for tracer effect.
The parts that aren’t robots fighting, well the dialogue varies from forgettable to unfortunate, but I do like the sense of humor, it’s a lot more goofy clever funny than I expected. I loved the Camaro robot dude’s song selection when the geek hero’s trying to get the girl. The little boombox robot has a great personality, it gets the most screen time than any other robot and emotes better than any of the human cast. The military fight sequences are tense and exciting, they represent infantry squad tactics really well, the integration with command intelligence and close air support is brilliantly executed. Camerawork is adequate - there’s one brief but really great shot in the film when the hero chases the Camaro-bot into the junkyard on his bike, he skids to a stop at the front gate and the camera is mounted on the bike’s rear axle so you get this shaky action dust and grit effect, it’s really dramatic and great and makes you wonder why they weren’t more creative with the cinematography throughout the rest of the movie.
For all its shortcomings I’m still really happy they made this movie, and made it as well as they did. Woo!
Saw Transformers early in the day, it rocked big. There is an unfortunate amount of sentimental exposition by the humans, and Optimus Prime’s soliloquies are pompous windbaggitude, but when the giant robots get fighting all is forgiven. The transformation sequences are flawless, they’ve nailed the physics of weight and motion, the reality of dust and smoke and light, pull it all together so fluid fast and immediately alive, it hits you in the AW YEAH!!! cortex like a ton of bricks. A ton of electrified bricks, and every tenth brick is made of C4 explosive, you know, for tracer effect.
The parts that aren’t robots fighting, well the dialogue varies from forgettable to unfortunate, but I do like the sense of humor, it’s a lot more goofy clever funny than I expected. I loved the Camaro robot dude’s song selection when the geek hero’s trying to get the girl. The little boombox robot has a great personality, it gets the most screen time than any other robot and emotes better than any of the human cast. The military fight sequences are tense and exciting, they represent infantry squad tactics really well, the integration with command intelligence and close air support is brilliantly executed. Camerawork is adequate - there’s one brief but really great shot in the film when the hero chases the Camaro-bot into the junkyard on his bike, he skids to a stop at the front gate and the camera is mounted on the bike’s rear axle so you get this shaky action dust and grit effect, it’s really dramatic and great and makes you wonder why they weren’t more creative with the cinematography throughout the rest of the movie.
For all its shortcomings I’m still really happy they made this movie, and made it as well as they did. Woo!
