BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

dprkforum I was, and still am, a Transformers fan. With that out of the way, the bias is going to show.I was so excited and stoked for this movie when the teasers started to appear in the newspapers and TV. A full-length motion picture of my favorite toys. I was very attached to the characters from the comic books and TV show. Little did I know how the movie was going to turn for said characters. It was unexpected and extremely emotional for me. I heard others in the theater openly crying in certain parts.Yes, this was probably made to promote the new line of toys that were being released, and needed new story lines for them. The movie... well, it was epic. The battle between good and evil. The struggles of loss. Meeting new friends. Facing new enemies. It opened new vistas, and even some glimmer of hope. The story was well-written, and will cure the itch for any G1 fan.The animation is a tad dated, but this was made over 30 years ago, so considering the age, it is not that bad. I watched it again after twenty odd years later, and it still hit the feels.My childhood revisited. Although not the best of times, but things like this made them a little happier.

Cameronius Explodius McMonius I need to get the fact out of the way that I grew up with Transformers and this film too so revisiting this was quite an exciting ride. This review is coming from a fan of the franchise by the way and why I believe this movie is significant to all of the Transformers fans (including myself). This movie was rather controversial to the fans of the show when it released. The sole reason for this movie being made was to kill off much of the main cast and progress in development with some of the original characters so that the show would be prepared for the third season. This results in lots of the main characters being wiped out within the first 20 minutes; including Optimus Prime himself. However, what the company didn't realise was that people had become attached to these characetrs and therefore the film received negative reviews for how it disposed of many characters they had been previously building up in the show. I believe that this is a movie that gets better with age. As I said before, people were critical of the film at the time of release due to what it did with the main characters, Optimus Prime especially. His death was so controversial that in the UK DVD release it included a narration at the end stating that 'Optimus Prime will return'. Thankfully on the new blu ray release it is the original without anything added as people now know that these characters lived on to this day and weren't just forgotten about; Optimus Prime plays as big a role as he did back then, possibly even bigger at the moment. Now into the film itself. I've got to say that I thought the voice performances were great, it may be because these are the ones I've came to know but every single one was unique, the ones that stood out to me were Peter Cullen as Optimus (I loved him as usual, despite his role being very small), Leonard Nimoy (Spock himself) as Galvatron (the reincarnation of Megatron) and also none other than Orson Welles in his final film role as the villain Unicron. I really liked the animation which was always bright and appealing and very impressive for the time, with them needing to animate battles, transformations and whatnot. The character designs were also very creative and much more appealing of those nowadays. The thing I believe makes this film unique is that it's just an animation from the 80s. It really has an 80s feel; not very serious (even though it does have dark moments), LOTS of 80s music, cheesy sound effects and just plain fun. It's exactly what you'd expect from an 80s animation film, I guess the critics at the time were probably expecting more. I respect this film for what it is as it was just trying to be a fun animation film and not the greatest thing in the world. This film was also different to the series and had a different, darker feel to it. Obviously it shows that many characters are in fact vulnerable and shows some of the Autobots as a group of survivors basically rather than an army which shows them in a state of more peril and that the army has met a foe more powerful than them. It also shows a threat to both the Autobots and Decepticons which makes for a different type of villain. Overall, I'd say this is a love it or hate it film; if you're a Transformers fan, you'll likely love this. However, if you share many of the same opinions as the critics then you'll probably hate it and I can easily see why someone would hate this film to be honest. However, I can at least say that you should watch this instead of The Last Knight or any of the Michael Bay Transformers films any day. 7.5/10 Fun fact: this movie takes place in 2005. Wish we'd seen some REAL Transformers by then. No, the Michael Bay ones don't exist.

lothos-370-690020 At the height of the Transformers popularity, the Makers, Habro, decided that their demographic, had already bought most of the toys in the line. So in order to make parents shell out even more cash, they decided to release this deeply disturbing "movie"/ marketing ploy. How do you ask? Well simply put, by killing every single recognisable character from the original series, and replacing them with all new ones. If corporate America, ever had reason to hold its head in shame this was it. Not only was this series one of the worst offenders in the selling kids crap with 20 minute adverts thinly clothed as cartoons, but here a new low by making all those toys already bought, redundant, at least from the cartoon's perspective. The cartoon's sole purpose was to advertise pointless toys in the most consumer unfriendly way imaginable, it is quite an achievement in its self. Think about how often the Transformers actually transformed into anything, and how often transforming was a benefit. This film however, doesn't even try to attempt to tell an interesting story. In fact subsequent games based on the films and cartoons, did a much better job of telling a story and progressing the universe. Never really understanding the attraction of the original series, and having only a passing interest in the toys, I suppose I can't fully appreciate the nostalgia for many adults. However, that said there was nothing creative or in the least bit laudable about this film, or the cartoon franchise that spawned it. The sooner it realised for the marketing sham it was the better.

Mr-Fusion If the argument can be made that the original "Transformers" cartoon is about as commercialistic as they come (it surely can), then TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE is that notion taken to an extreme. To remedy the drop in sales of some of the action figures, Hasbro decided to just kill off those characters on the big screen and make room for new ones. That is some cutthroat boardroom strategy, right there. In any event, we got a decent movie out of it. Or at least a peculiar one. The voice cast is an eyebrow-raiser (Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Orson Welles, the Micro Machines guy), but there's at least the heightened production values that are an improvement over the quality of the TV show. And I've grown oddly fond of the movie's soundtrack - awful metal and all – but it's also got one of my favorite Weird Al songs on it . . . seemingly at random! That tickles me. It's pretty cool, taps into the whole childhood thing pretty well (even with the slaughter of all those non-selling characters) and it doesn't induce nausea like the Bay movies do.7/10