I’m curious… does anyone think it actually matters what human cast they put together for a “Transformers” movie at this point?
After all, even though I gave the last film a positive review, that was for the Bayhem and the hour-long siege in Chicago, which I still think is a dazzling extended bit of action filmmaking. Everything that is wrong with the “Transformers” series can be traced to every scene in the films that does not involve giant robots bashing the hell out of one another.
You can’t blame them, really. The first film told a small-scale and somewhat charming variation on a “boy and his car” story, a coming-of-age piece that also happened to involve giant extraterrestrial shape-shifters. Each of the sequels has added an unnecessary sense of bloat to the proceedings, though, and even as they’ve gotten more bizarre, they’ve grossed more and more money. It’s become harder to sit through long stretches of “character comedy” that is often filled with some of the strangest choices you’ll ever see in a mainstream blockbuster.
Maybe that’s why I find Michael Bay so endlessly interesting. Ultimately, it’s irrelevant if I like or dislike his movies. I’m more interested in just how clearly his voice establishes itself in everything he does, whether it’s a big franchise like the “Transformers” films or his more personal recent movie “Pain and Gain.” There is no mistaking a Michael Bay film for anyone else’s work.
Kelsey Grammer feels to me like the exact right sort of guy to play the sort of comedy that makes Michael Bay happy. Grammer is able to play sophisticated, but he’s not afraid to go broad as well. And when he does chew scenery, he does it with such glee that it’s hard not to go along with him.
This is in addition to Mark Wahlberg, who plays one of the heroes of the film. I know they’re shooting a month’s worth of material at a F1 race track in Austin, TX, which makes me think this one’s going to have a very different perspective on the ongoing story of the Autobots and the Decepticons.
“Trans4mers,” or whatever they end up calling it, will be in theaters June 27, 2014.