A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

If you were a kid in the 80s, you likely heard about this film even if you didn't ever see it. It's definitely a nostalgic 80s cult classic. I can't say enough good things about it. I loved it as a kid. My kids love it today, and I can appreciate the level of story telling and animation on a whole new level now as an adult. The soundtrack isn't for everyone,(mainly 80s rock and roll) but when I hear it, I'm instantly transported back to my childhood with a warm fuzzy nostalgia rush. Seriously, Stan Bush is a genius. You don't need to have a strong working understanding of the Transformers universe to enjoy this film; the story can stand on it's own. A small appreciation for sci-fi, explosions, rock 'n' roll and the 80s will be an asset to your enjoyment of the classic.

I really wanted to rate this one higher, really, I did, but there are just one too many things holding this movie back for me to call it anything more than "above average".The first main issue with this movie is how it mistakes "kill a whole bunch of people off" for "dark". There's a lot of character deaths in this film, most of them happening to characters that aren't established well enough for them to have much emotional meaning. I know, this was made for fans of the show, but this is also a feature film. It needs to stand or fall on its own, and fall this film does. Kinda hard.For the main problem with the film, you see, is tone. This movie goes from mess-your-drawers planet-eating monstrosity to kick-ass 1980s opening song in an instant, and the tonal whiplash HURTS, man. Then there's the moment where Galvatron walks in and he doesn't just MURDER, Starscream, he turns the dude into ash and then crushes the crown he was wearing, all from a blast with that Hanna-Barbara "shyoomp" sound effect attached to it. I get that it was something on the show, but this goofy sound instantly sucked all the menace out of Galvatron. Tell a good story first, appease raging fanboys like myself LAST. Finally, the story itself plays more like a three-part episode from the show than a movie. After Optimus's death, the movie just meanders from scene to scene with the Autobots trying to evade Galvatron while working their way towards their home planet Cybertron in order to stop Unicron from eating it. There's a lot of popcorn action, but roughly half of it involves. Shoot, the good guys only learn Unicron's name by sheer coincidence, in a subplot that's completely disconnected from the main one, on some planet with some kind of weird law system where the innocent are put to death and... I have no idea what happens to guilty, nor can I fathom it. Point is, that whole detour, again, comes off like the plot to a filler episode rather than a plot beat of a movie. Oh, and Unicron's defeat is a complete deus ex machina. His opponent never even fights him proper, he just opens this Matrix of Leadership thing and then Unicron blows up. Makes you wonder why previous Autobot leaders didn't go out and do that, you know, BEFORE Unicron set his sights on Cybertron.On top of that, Unicron himself manages to get progressively less threatening as the film goes on. When he starts, I was genuinely frightened of him as I watched him devour the screaming inhabitants of a planet and grind them up into primordial soup to power his veins. And then he wet himself when he realized he'd sent a tyrant off to collect the one thing that could destroy him, and then he transformed into his robot form and proceeded to get his eyes blown out and his head blow off, all while systematically shrinking as the animation severely downsized his scale in contrast to the "normal" sized Transformers. He had his moments, and he was certainly a threat worthy of a feature film, but overall I felt he was squandered in the end.By all rights, I should find this movie pretty forgettable. Outside of Galvatron icing Starscream, the death of Optimus Prime, and the sheer pants-darkening terror that was Unicron's first scene in the movie, there's nothing to this for me to really keep. I'm not a G1 Transformers fan. I grew up watching Armada and later checked out Transformers Prime, and this movie banks pretty heavily on its audience already being fans.That is, except for one thing: THE MUSIC. Holy crap, this movie has a soundtrack to rival the likes of Star Wars and Highlander in its sheer, magnanimous badassitude. As Team Four Star proved in their Bardock Abridged special, you could stick some of these kick-ass hair metal tunes over any kind of action scene and they would fit like a glove. Unicron's medley as he prowls across space and eats a planet is equally frightening as the scene itself is, and Optimus Prime's death is sold almost entirely on the music. Prior to that, Prime had maybe 2 scenes and no substantial character moments to speak of, so there's nothing to get attached to in the movie itself.I'd rate this movie as merely "above average", but this soundtrack is so awesome that I can't in good conscience rate it any lower than I did. If you're not a Transformers fan, just skip the movie and put on the soundtrack. I wasn't lying when I implied that it's one of the best movie soundtracks I'd ever heard.

For the toy company of Hasbro, one of their most successful cartoon TV adaptations and iconic staples among many children are the transformers robots. Who knew that such a simple idea of a robot that could transform into item that we are familiar with everyday could be so entertaining? To many, the TV series is what made the toy line even more fun for people because at that point, they had characters with personalities and backstories that made them somewhat relatable to their viewing counterparts. Twenty years later or so action director Michael Bay got a hold of the rights turned it into even more of a phenomenon, spawning sequel after sequel. While seeing how popular the concept had become it's important to take note that the "robots in disguise" characters originally had their own animated movie two years after its official TV airing. With that said, expectations should be different for this viewing. The problem is even with a different set of expectations; the end result is disappointing. There is effort here, but it lies among a pile of questions.The story takes place in the midst of war between the Autobots lead by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and the Decepticons lead by Megatron (Frank Welker). During this period they are interrupted by a massive alien planet known as Unicron (Orson Welles) looking to destroy anything with life and can only be stopped by the matrix of leadership. The premise at first is acceptable but once immersed into the conflict all buildup is lost. Penned by Ron Friedman (who wrote for a lot of other TV shows), this feature length film was actually a connecting point between seasons 2 and 3 of The Transformers TV show. This is the immediate problem for several viewers. For those who never saw the TV show, are now required to see seasons 1 and 2 before even thinking about viewing this movie. On top of that, there are numerous characters listed and seen throughout the run time but yet are not mentioned, given backstories to or even speak dialog. This makes it all the more difficult for a viewer who is not familiar with the TV show.Then there's the whole plot, which originally stated seemed easy to follow. However as the viewer watches, they will notice that for Unicron's motivations and background go untouched. Why does Unicron want to destroy all life and where did he come from? Why does he destroy his own kind? Even the plot point of the matrix of leadership isn't very clear. How does it keep Unicron from doing its business? All these questions go unanswered in the form of convenient contrivances. Perhaps this information was given prior in the TV show? Again though, how would this win over new viewers if they've never seen the show? This lack of exposition can make the viewing feel quite empty. Nonetheless there are still some elements that provide enough saving grace to keep this movie at an average level. One of the more noticeable things is for anyone who saw Michael Bay's live-action franchise before this, they will at least be able to point out any of the characters they've seen before but in their 80s version.Another positive is the voice-actors cast for the characters. Of the most popular you can't go wrong with is Peter Cullen who will always be Prime and Frank Welker who is practically anybody and anything else. There are also vocal appearances for Grimlock, one of the dinobots (Gregg Berger), Shockwave (Corey Burton), Jazz (Scatman Crothers), Bumblebee (Dan Gilvezan), Starscream (Chris Latta), Blurr (John Moschitta Jr.), Hot Rod (Judd Nelson), Galvatron (Leonard Nimoy), Ultra Magnus (Robert Stack) and Kup (Lionel Stander). But the voice that stands out the most of this bunch is none other than the voice of the late Orson Welles. Although it was reported that Welles hated his role, the magnitude of his voice-work at which it is used for the massive planet destroyer is gleefully astounding. Welles voice is so deep and booming that it matches the look and presence of this memorable character with ease. Imagine if Welles voiced a character today? Holy cow.Helping at least make what's left of this product somewhat enjoyable is the overall visual design and animation. Directing this movie was Nelson Shin whose main expertise is being an animation director. So although he wasn't heavily involved in the actual steps of animation, his supervision was still critical. Other animators like Satoshi Urushihara (Akira (1988)) also worked on this project and most of the animation looks great. The entire look of the film has a very anime inspired feel to it, making the detailing on a lot of the backgrounds and close up shots look very intricate. Lastly, the musical score composed by Vince DiCola is actually well put together. Although he tried his best to score Rocky IV (1985) as his first attempt, his style just didn't match. Here however, DiCola feels like a better fit because of his reliance on synth musical instruments. It centers on robots so why not? Also Stan Bush's "Touch" single is quite the catchy song. It rings all the more 1980s to anyone looking for a blast from the past.It's not the movie some fans of the newer films may expect it to be. If you never followed the TV show then it will be confusing to understand much of the plot devices, extra characters and their motivations. This is where it fails. Yet even with that, it's hard not to enjoy the anime-style detailed animation, appropriate electronic musical score and respectable voice cast, including a final stoic performance from the late Orson Welles.

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