It’s not a film that I would have seen on my own, but since my son wanted to expose me to the 3-D experience at I-MAX a la the movie Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, who could refuse? An experience it truly was. We sat fairly close to get the full effect, meaning that one could almost smell the oily armpits of Sentinel Prime, a major mechanical character in this rusty junkyard come alive. As a movie it is as good as it gets in this age of special effect extravaganza. My comment on the film itself is that it represents what you get when its producers have unlimited access to the latest digital technology on the one hand and the dictionary of ten thousand clichés on the other. It was verrrrrrrrrry long and the dialogue further confirmed that since Bette Davis they don’t make films for grownups.
As a parable with pretensions to any meaning, a grade of “F” for this creaky mélange would be overpraise. But then again, we are constantly reminded, films are meant as vehicles for escape. Well, congratulations. Those Polaroid cheaters that are worn through the film provide some serious escape. The anti-hero played by Shia LaBeouf experiences the standard vindication of his bumbling and seeming ineptitude played against a vaguely patriotic theme of the threatened human race. The humans are in league with robots who have “hearts of gold” (or other precious metal) called Autobots fighting the evil Decepticons, robots operating out of total self interest (sounds like some brokers I’ve known). Unfortunately, I got no uplift as Chicago was laid waste by ponderous machines, some speaking with the voices of easily identifiable American icons. Sentinel Prime in all the august majesty of his well made shocks and struts has the voice of Leonard Nimoy. One can detect John Wayne among others. How cheap.
What did occur to me while the screen piled up increasing amounts of mechanical clutter was the brilliance of the technology. This is not your grandmother’s 3-D animation. The old song “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘um Down on the Farm” seems apt. Why would anyone be satisfied watching any film that wasn’t made with this technology? I imagined some really great films made with it such as the life of Christ or Buddha or Michelangelo, the tales of Sherlock Holmes, documentaries depicting the real dilemmas facing the world. The experience and interest of the audience could be immeasurably enriched. I will not hold my breath until such films are made. American audiences are so stultified that making historical films is almost out of the question. The Civil War is now 150 years behind us but making an historical film of that war in 3-D would not be easy because it appears at least to me that the politics of such a thing would be a disaster.
As our economy is torn apart by waves of Decepticons, people are content to watch their metal cousins engage in WWF-type slamdowns on the big screen. Whatever message might have been buried in the film it is so deep that even alien powers would be challenged to retrieve it. In fact, I couldn’t help but think that in this summer of “Debt Ceiling Chicken,” the newest game being played in our nation’s Capitol, Transformers was indeed the perfect film. It has been a point of curiosity for me exactly what Americans would sit still for. Now I know.
