My almost-ten-year-old son wants to see the new Transformers movie. It’s rated M, which means that it’s not recommended for kids under the age of fifteen. On that point alone, my answer is no. But I was curious about the movie – I remember the cartoon from twenty-something years ago, plus my kids have seen the cartoon themselves. So I went with my brother this week. Before the US release, too. Lucky Australia.
Like most movies of TV shows, they seem to want to put the whole plot (or in this case, war) into a single movie. That frustrates me a little, but it doesn’t spoil the movie. On the whole, the movie is great for the giant-robots-fighting-each-other genre. There’s plenty of action, particularly towards the end of the movie, and although it’s predictable at times, that’s not why you go to see it.
It doesn’t feel as violent as it is, because they’re robots fighting, not people. Sure, there are buses that get wrecked, things like that… but it doesn’t feel any different to the Superman movies of the 80s. There is no bad language (that I can remember), and although there are references to sex, it’s not a major factor. It’s not a kids’ movie though, and my son won’t be seeing it for a while yet. In the UK it’s rated 12A, and PG-13 in the USA, but in Australia M is as close as it gets. 12A or PG-13 seems to be the right kind of level for it.
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I took my 11yo to see it on the weekend, and while I didn’t have a problem with most of the movie, I’m glad I decided not to take his 6yo brother as well.
It was a good movie IMO, but there was one scene which I thought was a spoiler – but for that scene it could have been much more age appropriate and dropped from an M rating (its based on a kids show after all) – that being the masturbation inquisition scene. It didn’t offend me, but really, it was totally overdone and drawn out and as such completely out of context with the standards of the rest of the movie. They could have been much more subtle about it. Luckily my 11yo ‘gets it’, but it wasn’t that funny or relevant …
The closing scene was a little corny, but you get that, Yankee films and all that.
The cool thing was seeing it at the 1010 Sunday session at Cameo Belgrave – a total of 6 customers, no problems finding a seat …