STARRING: Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, Lenoard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Lionel Stander and Orson Welles. Screenplay by Ron Friedman and Flint Dille. Directed by Nelson Shin. Music by Vince DiCola. Animation companies Sunbow Productions, Marvel Productions and Toei Animation. Budget $6 million. Box office $5.9million. Running time 85 minutes. Originally released in 1986.
Sorry to swear right off the bat, but FUCK those godawful live action Transformers movies, every goddam one of them from the first five truly hateful Michael Bay abominations: 2007's Transformers, 2009's Revenge of the Fallen, 2011's Dark of the Moon, Age of Extinction in 2014 and the fucking, unbelievably atrocious The Last Knight in 2017 which brought to an end a decade-long cultural attack that Michael Bay vomitted over the world. Then, just one year later Travis Knight spat out Bubblebee, and finally to add insult to injury Steven Caple Jr ejaculated Rise of the Beasts all over us in 2023.
Those eight live-action movies went to gross over $5.42 billion dollars worldwide, proving that age-old adage of 50 million files eating shit can't be wrong. And so to this, the hand-animated animated feature film that's celebrating its 40th anniversary. Unlike other 40th Anniversary films that have been released this year, this is the only one I've not seen on the big screen and I went as eager as a proverbial beaver to see it. I've seen it a dozen or more so times on video and DVD, but up there on the big screen, never!
Enough rambling, old man, tell us of the film, tell us of its plot, then describe the experience and final wrap it up in a pithy final paragraph before scoring it out of 10 like you normally bloody do!
The plot to this 40 year old film is just about as bonkers as you can get, indeed as I sit here and write I realise there wasn't a plot, there was just a series of explosions linked by a limitless number of transforming robots. There was the giant planet sized one, Unicron voiced by Orson Welles he wanted the gem thingie from Optimus Prime's chest and then there was Megatron leader of the Deceptorcons who also wanted it. He launched an all-out attack on Earth which finally killed Optimus, forcing him to hand the power gem thingie to Ultra Magnus, and Megatron was mortally wounded and revived by Unicorn and told to destroy the power gem crystal thingie. So he chases the Autobots around a bit, until they crash on a junk planet, get captured by some sort of fish-like Trannies, then Unicorn attacked the Transformers home world, and the lead Ultra Magnus gets killed and Megatron tries to double cross Unicorn, but gets eaten, so then the other Autobots unite the Trannies on the junk planet and they attack Unicorn, put out his eyes and blow him up killing him, but not before bringing Ultra Magnus back to life with the Matrix, that's what the glowing gem stone crystal thing was, the power Matrix. And then the film ends.
Jesus that wasn't good, sure my nostalgia for it was strong but even that couldn't help. I know I'm blind to the short-comings of Godzilla films, but not so this. At the end of the day this was a badly animated 85 odd minute toy advert with some truly awful heavy metal songs thrown in. It's repetitive, confusing, and utterly baffling. Then Eric Idle turns up spouting not one line of dialogue, just an endless stream of random TV jingles and ads, at times this film seems to almost Dada-esque in its approach. And spare a thought for Orson Welles in his last ever movie, his voice hidden behind filters to make it almost unrecognisable, save for his last weary death groan as Unicrom get his head chopped off.
But damn it if it wasn't oddly entertaining at the same time. The hand-drawn animation of gigantic planet transforming was spectacular, Unicrom when he finally transforms is amazing but sadly it's not enough. The robots change size quicker than a Conservative heading to Reform, I mean at one point Megatron is huge, then next he's sitting in the fist of another having transformed into a gun. And the ones that go from robot to Boom box and then eject tiny cassettes which transform into little robots. And Grimlock, the sodding transforming dinosaur, who is so stupid he has to be pushed up the ramp of a spaceship to escape death. The dialogue is just sound bits and catchphrases and the voice acting is painful. This is looks like a 85 minute long Saturday morning cartoon. It's cheap looking and scrappy and repetitive and packed full of stupid plot points and holes.
Jesus that wasn't good, sure my nostalgia for it was strong but even that couldn't help. I know I'm blind to the short-comings of Godzilla films, but not so this. At the end of the day this was a badly animated 85 odd minute toy advert with some truly awful heavy metal songs thrown in. It's repetitive, confusing, and utterly baffling. Then Eric Idle turns up spouting not one line of dialogue, just an endless stream of random TV jingles and ads, at times this film seems to almost Dada-esque in its approach. And spare a thought for Orson Welles in his last ever movie, his voice hidden behind filters to make it almost unrecognisable, save for his last weary death groan as Unicrom get his head chopped off.
But damn it if it wasn't oddly entertaining at the same time. The hand-drawn animation of gigantic planet transforming was spectacular, Unicrom when he finally transforms is amazing but sadly it's not enough. The robots change size quicker than a Conservative heading to Reform, I mean at one point Megatron is huge, then next he's sitting in the fist of another having transformed into a gun. And the ones that go from robot to Boom box and then eject tiny cassettes which transform into little robots. And Grimlock, the sodding transforming dinosaur, who is so stupid he has to be pushed up the ramp of a spaceship to escape death. The dialogue is just sound bits and catchphrases and the voice acting is painful. This is looks like a 85 minute long Saturday morning cartoon. It's cheap looking and scrappy and repetitive and packed full of stupid plot points and holes.
But, and I say this in all honesty, it was still somehow stupidly enjoyable! The cinema was packed, the audience of students and dads taking their kids were up for it and enjoyed it, laughing and revelling in the chaos, and it was 1000% better than all of the other animated films trailers before it. Seriously each and every one were just the same generic sassy, wacky kids flicks, all CGI animated and all looked exactly like each other. At least this looked different, infinitely different and I'd watch it over all those in a heartbeat.
Despite all its many failings this is still better than each and every one of those motherfucking, godawful live-action Transformers film put together.
7/10
P.S.
For all you film nerds out there. Name the other film Orson Welles and Robert Culp starred in?
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