I think they stole the opening from fifth element. Am I right? The earth and the ship and the spinning letters? Yeah? I’ve only watched fifth element a few thousand times since I was 2…

YES!!! That’s the one! I won’t let that URL slip out of my fingers this time.

@ Chris Wellons:

Did you mean this review? Yeah, I read it a while ago and loved it. The lack of confrontation between Willis and Oldman is a great little touch. In most movies they would have them have a stand-off with Zorg making a silly monologue, without giving Korben a chance to butt in or shoot him in the face. This way Korben can be a total bad-ass without an emasculating “captured by the villain” moment, and Zorg can be quirky and interesting without having to do the villain monologue cliche.

@ Mitlik:

I have not watched the movie but I know Michael Bay’s work too well to give him credit. Here are some questions:

– Was Sentinel shown to develop some rapport with other Autobots? Did they become friends? Were you emotionally involved in that relationship?
– Was his betrayal shocking or heart breaking? Did the audience gasp when it happened? How did it affect other characters emotionally?
– Was his betrayal a turning point of the story, or was it just a bullet point on the log list of “shit that happened during that battle scene”

@ Mart:

I have not seen the A Team. Maybe I will check it out at some point. I think it came out around the time I was just too fed up with Hollywood trying to rape my childhood for profit so I skipped it. :)

@ Matthew Weathers:

Yeah, Willis can be very one-note, but I suspect that this has a lot to do with the fact that he just is typecast to hell. Everyone just wants him to be John McClane in their movie. One of the few directors who steer him away from that archetype is M. Night Shamalamadingdong – both Unbreakable and Fifth Element had him playing considerably more subdued and introspective characters. It’s also played with in Surrogates when he is all John McClane when using the android body, but vulnerable and unsure of himself without it.

@ copperfish:

Pretty much everything that Leeloo says is somehow cute and adorable.

I still see Vito Cornelius when I watch Ian Holm as Bilbo in LOTR :) And I always think of Cornelius in Leeloo’s voice – “cor-nee-lee-oos”.

I agree with you about Transformers, and I liked The Fifth Element a lot, too.

However, I get a little annoyed that Bruce Willis plays the same exact character in every movie. The just-woke-up, slightly hung over, getting over some traumatic family drama in the recent past, ex-law enforcement guy. I guess he does it well, that’s why he keeps getting type-cast in these roles.

And the way Leeloo learns English was stupid, too.

But it’s still a good movie. And you’re right, there are lots and lots of memorable scenes and characters.

One thing that stayed with me on the original Transformers animated movie is the death of Optimus Prime and Hotrod being the new leader of the Autobots. I’m surprised I can still remember those two scenes having seen them over 20 years ago.

I don’t remember anything about the Bayformers movies. Though I didn’t catch the last one either.

One mindless silly movie I thoroughly enjoyed is The A Team. I just watched the extended dvd cut, and it was even more awesome the 2nd time around. I find the flying tank scene the most fun action scene to come out of Hollywood! I can quote everyone’s lines in that scene. :P

Preface: I am drunk and I hope this doesn’t come back to bite me.

I enjoyed transformers 3. I thought it actually had a story line which made it interesting. Admittedly I am too young to have enjoyed the cartoon, but I think that the focus

SPOILER IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT

on Sentinel Prime betraying the Autobots in order to preserve their home world

END OF SPOILER

is actually a good story arch. It leads to an exploration into those grey areas between right and wrong, how ever truncated and punctuated by EXPLOSIONS. The main disappointment is the fact that the last hour of the movie seems dedicated to a single scene in which 90% of the budget is spent and spans half of the movie.

What it lacks is a trademark of Holywood as a whole. Transformers 3 is worth seeing, despite the opening scene being dominated by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s scantily clad ass.

Did you ever notice that the main protagonist and antagonist, Korben and Zorg, not only never meet or communicate, but are unaware of each other’s existence? There was one point where they came very close, and were even in the same cut, but just missed each other.

There is very excellent, in-depth Fifth Element review out there that I read years ago. Unfortunately I have never been able to find it again. For all I know it’s not in the Internet anymore.