Transformers (Blu-ray)

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Then there's the plot. The Allspark has been kept in a U.S. landmark for decades, and its power signature has been masked from everyone by reinforced concrete. I'm sorry, but concrete? Are you serious? This thing has the power to destroy entire worlds and concrete keeps all manner of scans from seeing its location? And the final decision to move the cube is just as bewildering. Why, outside of the "blowing stuff up good" rationale, would anybody agree to this plan?

Hell, we can bat around all manner of plot holes or head scratchers, but that wouldn't be fun. For the sake of argument, though: Why are people continuing to run from the scene of the final battle twenty minutes after its started? Is the government so desperate as to be recruiting analysts out of high school? And why, for the love of everything rational, does the military consistently discount the one person with any credible information on the Transformers or the Allspark? Not that it really matters: This is an action movie with no agenda.

If there is one aspect of the film that doesn't quite live up to what it should be, it's the introduction of Optimus Prime and the final battle with Megatron. When Optimus finally comes on the scene, there should be a bombastic score, something to herald the coming of the hero the fans want to see. There isn't that sense that everything will be okay once he's arrived. Think of how Darth Vader is introduced in "Return of the Jedi," with the Imperial March. Prime is a hero worthy of that level of reverence.

And that final battle is the one flat action sequence in the film. The other scenes are kinetic, with dizzying camera shots and a clear idea of who's doing what to whom, a directing style many action directors can learn from. Yet there's no sense of drama or excitement about the final battle; this is the titanic match up between Luke and Vader or Picard and the Borg Queen, but it comes off as feeling run of the mill.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a major disappointment: the classic "Transformers" theme song is nowhere to be found in the film. It had been remixed for the 1986 animated movie, but it's absent here. The whole thing didn't need to be included; but part of it over the end credits would have been welcome.

"Transformers" isn't supposed to be anything except loud, action pulp to fill a summer slot and rake in the money. Oh, yeah, and sell toys. It's a family-friendly film, with no real objectionable content. However, there is a large amount of fighting and peril, which might cause a smaller child to have problems. The movie rates a strong 7/10 because it delivers on its premise and doesn't get bogged down in plot trivialities. And summer action never looked so good.

Jason's film rating: 7/10

Video:
The film showed up pretty well in a theater, and Paramount's Blu-ray disc reproduces it much as I remember it from my local movie house. Using an MGEG-4/AVC codec and a dual-layer BD50, the video engineers maintain the film's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio and its somewhat dark, oversaturated hues. What we see is a relatively clean screen, free of excessive grain, even in darker outdoor shots, so free of grain, in fact, that it leads me to think that perhaps Paramount applied some grain filtering to the transfer. Colors are bright, rich, and deep, perhaps a tad too bright, rich, and deep for real life, and a touch glossy and glassy, too; but they're all appropriate for a cartoonish movie like "Transformers." Definition is, as we might expect, excellent, the crispness of the delineation serving to point up every detail in the mechanical creatures. Any slight motion blur I noticed in the transformations on HD DVD (which may or not have been intentional), I didn't notice as much in the BD edition.

Incidentally, Rob Moore, Vice Chairman of Paramount Pictures, has said that "Because of Blu-ray's expanded capacity we are able to elevate the bit rate used for the picture as well as present uncompressed audio in the form of Dolby TrueHD." So I compared the picture quality of this Blu-ray transfer to the picture quality of the HD DVD using side-by-side players but found little discernible difference. Nevertheless, the changeover from one HDMI input to another took several seconds, and the mind is a notoriously fickle instrument when making comparisons, so there may easily have been bigger differences I didn't notice than just motion blur.

Audio:
When Paramount issued "Transformers" on HD DVD, the big audio controversy swirled around their decision not to include a lossless track on what was possibly their highest-profile HD DVD release of all time. The HD DVD's Dolby Digital Plus track was excellent, but missing a lossless track annoyed audiophiles and videophiles no end. I thought the most likely reason the studio didn't include a lossless track was that they didn't have room for it on the disc, but what do I know. In any case, with Blu-ray's increased disc capacity, the studio engineers have now rectified the situation with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack.

I spent a little time comparing the BD's TrueHD track to the HD DVD's DD+ track and, adjusting for level differences, found the TrueHD a marginal improvement. Both tracks produce room-shaking bass, with a strong, well-focused impact; midrange of remarkable clarity; and treble that glistens. The front-channel stereo spread is wide, and the filmmakers take all the advantage they can of the surrounds. Rousing, pinpoint directional noises from all five main speakers do a lot a to sell the show. The advantage of the TrueHD track is its being a touch smoother overall, not quite so bright or forward as the DD+, and maybe a bit tauter in the deepest bass. The soundtrack is among the best I've heard on any disc, so it must be doing something right.

Extras:
The sheer quantity of extras remains the same on the two-disc Blu-ray set as on the two-disc standard-def and two-disc HD DVD editions. They will thrill fans of the film, I'm sure, especially as most of them are in high definition. Non-fans, however, may simply see them as more of the same. Disc one includes the feature film; twenty-three scene selections; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

In addition, disc one includes a commentary by director Michael Bay in which the filmmaker seems to me a somewhat immodest fellow, his comments often self-serving. Then for Profile 2.0 Blu-ray players there is "BD-Live" for further on-line features like an "Intelligence Mode," "GPS Locator," "Profiler," and "Menubots," among other things I did not access. Probably of greatest use, though, is the "Transformers H.U.D.," a "Heads Up Display" that is a picture-in-picture affair featuring various bits of pop-up trivia about the film as well as shots of the filmmakers discussing various scenes as the scenes are playing out. Finally, we get an "Iron Man" trailer and a "Transformers" teaser and "Rise of the Autobots" trailer.

Disc two (a BD25) includes a number of other bonus items in high def, duplicating the second disc in the HD DVD set. It's divided into three categories: "Our World," "Their War," and "More Than Meets the Eye." In "Our World" we find "The Story Sparks" (HD), "Human Allies" (HD), "I Fight Giant Robots" (HD), and "Battleground" (HD), segments that one can play separately or all at once. Together, they total about forty-nine minutes and provide information on the origins of the movie, the actors, the military background, and the special effects in the battle scenes.

In "Their War" we find "Rise of the Robots" (HD), "Autobots Roll Out" (HD), "Decepticons Strike" (HD), and "Inside the AllSpark" (HD), about sixty-five minutes total, covering the background of the toys and cartoons and the special effects of the cars and such. In this section we also find "Transformers Tech Inspector," where we can look at each of the autobots up close in an interactive mode.

Then, in "More Than Meets the Eye" we find a nine-minute segment called "From Script to Sand: The Skorponok Desert Attack" (HD) and, better, a series of beautiful concept art (HD). Also on disc two, we find trailers--two theatrical trailers and a teaser trailer, all in HD. Lastly, I understand there is a series of Easter eggs in the set: a Michael Bay cameo appearance, "Bay Bot," "Girl in Dress," and "Casting Mojo," but I never looked for them.

The two-disc BD case comes housed in an attractive slipcover. But here's the thing: The thin, translucent-plastic slipcover contains all the disc details printed on it. The BD case itself has a cover with nothing written on it front or back, only the title on the spine. Therefore, if you want to read about what's inside, you have to use the slipcover, something I don't generally do. I usually leave slipcovers in a drawer upstairs because I see no need for them in my collection. Except in this instance.

Parting Thoughts:
It's huge; it's loud; and it's filled with things that crash and blow up in glorious high-definition picture and sound. "Transformers" is everything you'd expect from a colossal summertime blockbuster. However, looking for logic, sense, reason, even sanity in a story based on a children's toy would be stretching the point. The movie is for the eye and the ear, not the brain. It turned out a lot better than I thought, though, by looking and sounding so very good on Blu-ray disc, so I've got to give it credit. Big, dumb, and attractive in this case is good enough.

As Mikaela says, "This car's a pretty good driver."

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