Critical reception
Reviews of the film were "generally favorable".[78] Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 57% of critics gave the film positive write-ups, based on 199 reviews,[79] with a 68% rating from selected "notable" critics.[80] At the website Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 61, based on 35 reviews.[78] IGN's Todd Gilchrist called it Michael Bay's best film, and "one of the few instances where it's OK to enjoy something for being smart and dumb at the same time, mostly because it's undeniably also a whole lot of fun".[81] The Advertiser's Sean Fewster found the visual effects so seamless that "you may come to believe the studio somehow engineered artificial intelligence".[82] The Denver Post's Lisa Kennedy praised the depiction of the robots as having "a believably rendered scale and intimacy",[83] and ABC presenter Margaret Pomeranz was surprised "that a complete newcomer to the Transformers phenomenon like myself became involved in the fate of these mega-machines".[84] Ain't It Cool News's Drew McWeeny felt most of the cast grounded the story, and that "it has a real sense of wonder, one of the things that’s missing from so much of the big CGI lightshows released these days".[85] Author Peter David found it ludicrous fun, and said that "[Bay] manages to hold on to his audience's suspension of disbelief long enough for us to segue into some truly spectacular battle scenes".[86]
Despite the praise for the visual effects, there was division over the human storylines. The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt liked "how a teen plotline gets tied in to the end of the world",[87] while Empire's Ian Nathan praised Shia LaBeouf as "a smart, natural comedian, [who] levels the bluntness of this toy story with an ironic bluster".[88] Ain't It Cool News founder Harry Knowles felt Bay's style conflicted with Spielberg's, arguing the military story only served as a distraction from Sam.[89] James Berardinelli hated the film as he did not connect with the characters in-between the action, which he found tedious.[90] Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan found the humans "oddly lifeless, doing little besides marking time until those big toys fill the screen",[91] while ComingSoon.net's Joshua Stames felt the Transformers were "completely believable, right up to the moment they open their mouths to talk, when they revert to bad cartoon characters".[92] Daily Herald's Matt Arado was annoyed that "the Transformers [are] little more than supporting players", and felt the middle act was sluggish.[93] CNN's Tom Charity questioned the idea of a film based on a toy, and felt it would "buzz its youthful demographic [...] but leave the rest of us wondering if Hollywood could possibly aim lower".
Awards
Before its release, Transformers was voted "Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet" at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards,[95] Entertainment Weekly named Bumblebee as their fourth favorite computer generated character,[96] while The Times listed Optimus Prime's depiction as the thirtieth best film robot, citing his coolness and dangerousness.[97] Visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar was honored at the Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony on October 22, 2007 for his work on the film.[98]
In 2008, the Visual Effects Society awarded Transformers four awards: for the best visual effects in an "effects driven" film and the "best single visual effects sequence" (the Optimus-Bonecrusher battle). The film's other two awards were for its miniatures and compositing.[99] It was also nominated for three Academy Awards, in the fields of Achievement in Sound Editing, Achievement in Sound Mixing, and Achievement in Visual Effects.[100] It received a 2008 Kids' Choice Award nomination for Favorite Movie.[101]
No comments:
Post a Comment