Starting life as a series of Japanese toys adapted for the American market in the early 1980s, like so many products aimed at kids in that era, the Transformers’ cache and sales were boosted by an associated animated show that set out the ongoing battle between the “good robots” (the Autobots) and the “bad robots” (the Decepticons).
An attempt was made to bring them into cinemas via a 1986 movie (whose frankly incredibly vocal cast included everyone from Eric Idle to Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Casey Kasem – and even Orson Welles), but fans were outraged by the makers’ decision to kill off a number of their beloved characters, apparently because toymakers Hasbro thought a refresh was needed.
But with major advances in CGI and an increasing desire to exploit existing IPs from all parts of pop- culture, it was no real surprise when a live-action movie was finally unleashed in cinemas in 2007.
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From the original Transformers movie to Dark of the Moon and Bumblebee, the battling-robots franchise has been notable for Bay-hem, impressive casts and leering cameras.
Ahead of the now seventh flick in the series rolling into New Zealand movie theatres this week, Stuff to Watch has taken a look back at the six tales so far (bombastic action, ubiquitous lens flare and curvature and chassis-obssessed camerawork and all) and come up with our ultimate countdown of the Transformers movies – from worst to best (and where you can watch them right now).
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No amount of CGI jiggery-pokery and trademark Bay-hem could paper over the fact that Transforrmers: Revenge of the Fallen was an under-written, muddied, muddled mess.
6. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009, iTunes, GooglePlay, Neon Rentals, YouTube)
Visual incoherence, clunky dialogue, racist robots and Deception Balls. This first follow-up truly was a sequelus horribilus.
Plagued by a writers’ strike that left director Michael Bay with only a “scriptment” (the plot, such as it is, involves an ancient Decepticon voiced by Candyman’s Tony Todd seeking to find and activate a machine that would give them an Energon source and destroy our sun at the same time) and pre-visualisation (see kids, this is a cautionary tale for what could happen if Hollywood doesn’t sort the current contretemps with scribes soon), no amount of CGI jiggery-pokery and trademark Bay-hem could paper over the fact that the end result was an under-written, muddied, muddled mess.
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Many people thought the awful Transformers: The Last Knight would spell the end of the franchise entirely.
5. Transformers: The Last Knight (2017, iTunes, GooglePlay, Neon Rentals, YouTube)
Nominated for no less than 10 Razzies (although it actually didn’t “win” any), this saw Anthony Hopkins join the returning Mark Wahlberg for a tale that involved the return of a deadly threat from Earth’s history and the hunt for a lost artifact. Missing from most of the main action was Optimus Prime, who buggered off into space to try and find his creator.
“An exhausting distillation of everything that can possibly go wrong with a blockbuster,” wrote Sight & Sound magazine’s Anton Bitel, while New York Post’s Jonny Oleksinski thought that “watching an actor of Hopkins’ calibre swear at his robo-butler and attempt to wring out laughs by uttering the word ‘dude’ is painful”.
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“A hugely overlong, incoherent and witless slab of naked product placement,” thought Graeme Tuckett of 2014’s Age of Extinction.
4. Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014, iTunes, GooglePlay, Neon Rentals, YouTube)
Introducing a whole new human cast (Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Sophia Myles, Kelsey Grammer), as well as the Dinbots, this fourth tale focuses in on Wahlberg’s struggling inventor and single-father Cade Yeager.
It is his discovery of a damaged truck, which, naturally turns out to be a Transformer, that places him and his daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) at the epicentre of a situation that will likely lead to the extinction of humankind.
“A hugely overlong, incoherent and witless slab of naked product placement with a cash register and stock ticker where its heart and soul should be,” thought Stuff to Watch’s own Graeme Tuckett.
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Rosie Huntington-Whiteley joined Shia LaBoeuf for Dark of the Moon.
3. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011, iTunes, GooglePlay, Neon Rentals, YouTube)
A four-decade old conspiracy involving the Apollo programme, Chernobyl and the Transformers’ home planet of Cybertron spark LaBoeuf’s Sam and the gang back into action in this three-quel.
Boasting countless effects shots and lashings of bot and car-nage, as well as clocking in at a posterior-numbing 157-minutes, Moon is very much Bay’s Magnu-tron opus.
While Ehren Kruger’s plot follows the technical MacGuffin formula of the earlier pics (here, it’s a series of pillars) and the suggestion that the Decepticons have been supplementing genocide and mass destruction with (shock, horror) cooking Nasa’s account books is frankly laughable, its intertwining with real-life incidents give the franchise new energy and verve.
Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was drafted in after the acrimonious departure of the first two films’ Megan Fox, while the rest of the eclectic cast includes Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Ken Jeong, Buzz Aldrin and Leonard Nimoy.
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The plot was very much secondary to the action in Transformers.
2. Transformers (2007, iTunes, GooglePlay, Neon Rentals, YouTube)
Yes, it all started with such promise. Sure director Michael Bay’s last couple of outings had been critically mauled, but he had also previously delivered crowd-pleasing fare like Bad Boys, Armageddon and The Rock that packed out multiplexes.
With a couple of hot young stars in LaBoeuf and Fox and state-of-the-art CGI, he gave the world a kinetic, frenetic and suitably rambunctious first live-action adaptation.
The clearly secondary-to-the-action plot involved a race to find the AllSpark – a MacGuffin that would allow one set of robots to rebuild their Cybertron home and provide the other with the chance to create an army by giving life to Earth’s machines.
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Bumblebee delivers more tears, fear and Tears for Fears than any child of the 1980s might have dared hope for.
1. Bumblebee (2018, Neon)
After five previous failed attempts, this remodelled spin-off/prequel was finally the live-action Transformers movie fans of the original cartoon have always wanted.
Director Travis Knight stripped back the story, rewound the clock and installed a charismatic presence in the driver’s seat (Hailee Steinfeld) to create a family movie that one of the series’ executive producers – a certain Mr Steven Spielberg – would be proud of.
A rousing, crowd-pleasing rollercoaster, from the opening Cybertron-set battle scene to the emotional epilogue, Bumblebee delivers more tears, fear and Tears for Fears than any child of the 1980s might have dared hope for.
After previews in select cinemas on Wednesday night, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts opens in cinemas nationwide on June 22.