More Than Meets The Eye

Michael Bay finally found what he's born to do. Not making movies about historical event, or a bunch of losers trying save the world from earth crushing meteor, but about alien robots who can change shape into vehicles and beat the crap of each other.

That's judging from the success Transformers (2007) have received since it opened on 28 June (Indonesia and most of Asian countries), and 4 July in US. The movie broke in even in just a week, pulling $ 158 million, from domestic and overseas income.

Hasbro probably never dream about this, when they bought the right to market the toys from Takara toy company in 1984. The toyline, which was first designed to help kids developed their hand-to-eye coordination, consists of robots that can be change into vehicles and other things. The toys were cool enough, but Hasbro decision to give the robots a backstory and names proved to be the masterstroke. Comic book writers Jim Shooter and Dennis O'Neil envisage that these robots are warring alien race from planet Cybertron which are divided into two pact, based on different ideologies, the good Autobots,and the evil Decepticons. Bob Budiansky later created names for most of the character (bar Optimus Prime, which is O'Neil's idea).

With backstory and characters in place, Hasbro then developed an animated television series based on the toyline, which become a huge hit. Many kids religiously followed the adventure of Optimus Prime and his fellow Autobots to foil Megatron's Decepticon devious plans. Since that, for more than 20 years, Transformers has gained a cult following, especially for kids who grew up in the 80s.

Many of these 'kids' were adamant in their protest that Bay would ruin their childhood. Especially after seeing some of the design for the robots. Bay have decided that the robots boxy look from the animation series would not fit his vision, and created more other-worldly designs.

In the end it all paid off beautifully. The robots may not be easy to look in still pictures, but the transformations, the way they moved, looked fantastically realistic. Watching the movie, it doesn't feel much of a stretch that a Chevy Camaro can transform into a 30 feet robot.

The movie followed a similar story as in the animated series. In here, the Autobots and Decepticons were fighting over a life-source energy called The Allspark. It was what gives life to all the robots in the first place. When their home planet destroyed, the fight continue to Earth, the place which The Allspark has fall to. Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf), holds the key information about the location of the Allspark, and with the beautiful Mikaela (Megan Fox), they're trapped in the war between the two robots' sides. Josh Duhamel (Las Vegas), Tyrese Gibson (2 Fast 2 Furious) played as Special Force members and Jon Voight (The Champ) as US Secretary of Defense, to represent the military response of the war.

The story moved at breakneck speed, and clocked at 2.5 hours, it doesn't even feel that long. Sure, perhaps the subplot involving genius hackers (Anthony Anderson and Rachael Taylor) can be trimmed, but it doesn't really lessen the pleasure of the movie.

All in all, Transformers is a very good choice if you want to spend 2.5 hours of entertainment, without worried too much about complicated plots or storylines. It'll be a good choice for your DVD collection too. Because, lets face it, who doesn't want to see those transformations in slow motion?

Still Kicked Ass After All These Years

"You're an analog player in the digital world McClane"
taunted Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) to John McClane (Bruce Willis). While that might be true, John McClane didn't care one bit, he is still able to kicked anyone ass. In this latest Die Hard movie (Die Hard 4.0 or Live Free or Die Hard), McClaine come up with something he never came against before, in the form of cyber-terorist Thomas Gabriel, who managed to get hold of United States computer systems such as banks, power, traffic and wreaking havoc. With the help of expert hacker Matthew Farrell (Justin Long), McClane battles his way to defeat Gabriel, in the most Die Hard-ish way possible.

With just about 15 minutes of introduction, including establishing John strained relationship with with his daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the rest of the movie was full of mind blowing action sequences. Len Wiseman (Underworld) has a pedigree as an action director, and it seems he took on the Die Hard mythos to heart. When Die Hard first came on in 1988, it introduce a new kind of action hero. Movie-goers have become accustomed with invicible heroes that was the norm in the 80s movies, such as Stallone's Rambo series. So when the looking battered, tired and vulnerable John McClane managed to beat a terrorist group who held hostage the building his wife works on, he became an instant hit. McClane was potrayed not as the usual action-hero, he was just simply a regular guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. The current incarnation of McClane still have those same qualities, but it's acoompanied by a sense of world weariness, noting that McClane had been doing this kind of thing for a long time.

The humour was put in good use in this movie to keep the audience from taking the action sequences for granted. Justin Long did well to provide the comic relief, as it provide a nice contrast with Willis' McClane. The movie did well enough for me to ignore all the plotholes in the movie, as the aforementioned action sequences was fantastically good. If you're looking for mindless entertainment at its best, you can't go much wrong with Die Hard.