I really wanted to rate this one higher, really, I did, but there are just one too many things holding this movie back for me to call it anything more than "above average".
The first main issue with this movie is how it mistakes "kill a whole bunch of people off" for "dark". There's a lot of character deaths in this film, most of them happening to characters that aren't established well enough for them to have much emotional meaning. I know, this was made for fans of the show, but this is also a feature film. It needs to stand or fall on its own, and fall this film does. Kinda hard.
For the main problem with the film, you see, is tone. This movie goes from mess-your-drawers planet-eating monstrosity to kick-ass 1980s opening song in an instant, and the tonal whiplash HURTS, man. Then there's the moment where Galvatron walks in and he doesn't just MURDER, Starscream, he turns the dude into ash and then crushes the crown he was wearing, all from a blast with that Hanna-Barbara "shyoomp" sound effect attached to it. I get that it was something on the show, but this goofy sound instantly sucked all the menace out of Galvatron. Tell a good story first, appease raging fanboys like myself LAST. Finally, the story itself plays more like a three-part episode from the show than a movie. After Optimus's death, the movie just meanders from scene to scene with the Autobots trying to evade Galvatron while working their way towards their home planet Cybertron in order to stop Unicron from eating it. There's a lot of popcorn action, but roughly half of it involves. Shoot, the good guys only learn Unicron's name by sheer coincidence, in a subplot that's completely disconnected from the main one, on some planet with some kind of weird law system where the innocent are put to death and... I have no idea what happens to guilty, nor can I fathom it. Point is, that whole detour, again, comes off like the plot to a filler episode rather than a plot beat of a movie. Oh, and Unicron's defeat is a complete deus ex machina. His opponent never even fights him proper, he just opens this Matrix of Leadership thing and then Unicron blows up. Makes you wonder why previous Autobot leaders didn't go out and do that, you know, BEFORE Unicron set his sights on Cybertron.
On top of that, Unicron himself manages to get progressively less threatening as the film goes on. When he starts, I was genuinely frightened of him as I watched him devour the screaming inhabitants of a planet and grind them up into primordial soup to power his veins. And then he wet himself when he realized he'd sent a tyrant off to collect the one thing that could destroy him, and then he transformed into his robot form and proceeded to get his eyes blown out and his head blow off, all while systematically shrinking as the animation severely downsized his scale in contrast to the "normal" sized Transformers. He had his moments, and he was certainly a threat worthy of a feature film, but overall I felt he was squandered in the end.
By all rights, I should find this movie pretty forgettable. Outside of Galvatron icing Starscream, the death of Optimus Prime, and the sheer pants-darkening terror that was Unicron's first scene in the movie, there's nothing to this for me to really keep. I'm not a G1 Transformers fan. I grew up watching Armada and later checked out Transformers Prime, and this movie banks pretty heavily on its audience already being fans.
That is, except for one thing: THE MUSIC. Holy crap, this movie has a soundtrack to rival the likes of Star Wars and Highlander in its sheer, magnanimous badassitude. As Team Four Star proved in their Bardock Abridged special, you could stick some of these kick-ass hair metal tunes over any kind of action scene and they would fit like a glove. Unicron's medley as he prowls across space and eats a planet is equally frightening as the scene itself is, and Optimus Prime's death is sold almost entirely on the music. Prior to that, Prime had maybe 2 scenes and no substantial character moments to speak of, so there's nothing to get attached to in the movie itself.
I'd rate this movie as merely "above average", but this soundtrack is so awesome that I can't in good conscience rate it any lower than I did. If you're not a Transformers fan, just skip the movie and put on the soundtrack. I wasn't lying when I implied that it's one of the best movie soundtracks I'd ever heard.
The first main issue with this movie is how it mistakes "kill a whole bunch of people off" for "dark". There's a lot of character deaths in this film, most of them happening to characters that aren't established well enough for them to have much emotional meaning. I know, this was made for fans of the show, but this is also a feature film. It needs to stand or fall on its own, and fall this film does. Kinda hard.
For the main problem with the film, you see, is tone. This movie goes from mess-your-drawers planet-eating monstrosity to kick-ass 1980s opening song in an instant, and the tonal whiplash HURTS, man. Then there's the moment where Galvatron walks in and he doesn't just MURDER, Starscream, he turns the dude into ash and then crushes the crown he was wearing, all from a blast with that Hanna-Barbara "shyoomp" sound effect attached to it. I get that it was something on the show, but this goofy sound instantly sucked all the menace out of Galvatron. Tell a good story first, appease raging fanboys like myself LAST. Finally, the story itself plays more like a three-part episode from the show than a movie. After Optimus's death, the movie just meanders from scene to scene with the Autobots trying to evade Galvatron while working their way towards their home planet Cybertron in order to stop Unicron from eating it. There's a lot of popcorn action, but roughly half of it involves. Shoot, the good guys only learn Unicron's name by sheer coincidence, in a subplot that's completely disconnected from the main one, on some planet with some kind of weird law system where the innocent are put to death and... I have no idea what happens to guilty, nor can I fathom it. Point is, that whole detour, again, comes off like the plot to a filler episode rather than a plot beat of a movie. Oh, and Unicron's defeat is a complete deus ex machina. His opponent never even fights him proper, he just opens this Matrix of Leadership thing and then Unicron blows up. Makes you wonder why previous Autobot leaders didn't go out and do that, you know, BEFORE Unicron set his sights on Cybertron.
On top of that, Unicron himself manages to get progressively less threatening as the film goes on. When he starts, I was genuinely frightened of him as I watched him devour the screaming inhabitants of a planet and grind them up into primordial soup to power his veins. And then he wet himself when he realized he'd sent a tyrant off to collect the one thing that could destroy him, and then he transformed into his robot form and proceeded to get his eyes blown out and his head blow off, all while systematically shrinking as the animation severely downsized his scale in contrast to the "normal" sized Transformers. He had his moments, and he was certainly a threat worthy of a feature film, but overall I felt he was squandered in the end.
By all rights, I should find this movie pretty forgettable. Outside of Galvatron icing Starscream, the death of Optimus Prime, and the sheer pants-darkening terror that was Unicron's first scene in the movie, there's nothing to this for me to really keep. I'm not a G1 Transformers fan. I grew up watching Armada and later checked out Transformers Prime, and this movie banks pretty heavily on its audience already being fans.
That is, except for one thing: THE MUSIC. Holy crap, this movie has a soundtrack to rival the likes of Star Wars and Highlander in its sheer, magnanimous badassitude. As Team Four Star proved in their Bardock Abridged special, you could stick some of these kick-ass hair metal tunes over any kind of action scene and they would fit like a glove. Unicron's medley as he prowls across space and eats a planet is equally frightening as the scene itself is, and Optimus Prime's death is sold almost entirely on the music. Prior to that, Prime had maybe 2 scenes and no substantial character moments to speak of, so there's nothing to get attached to in the movie itself.
I'd rate this movie as merely "above average", but this soundtrack is so awesome that I can't in good conscience rate it any lower than I did. If you're not a Transformers fan, just skip the movie and put on the soundtrack. I wasn't lying when I implied that it's one of the best movie soundtracks I'd ever heard.