TRANSMORPHERS (2007)

SCIENTIFIC FACT LEARNED: Everybody have fun tonight, everybody transmorph tonight.

THE CARD:

Frozen pop hero, a sexbot building Nerdlinger, a video store of rip-offs including Aliens, Transformers, Matrix, X-men, Terminator, and Demolition Man, casting from the line at the DMV, a sexy android that does nothing, hot space lesbo action, score samples from the Battlestar Galactica theme, the Whammo Frisbees of Death, and these ain’t yer Grandpa’s squealing robots.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Doesn’t anything nice ever happen in the future? An invasion of intelligent transforming toasters kills most of Earth’s inhabitants. The bread-burning alien suckers, called “Z-bots”, come in all shapes and sizes and seek to wipe out all humankind for unknown reasons. Decades later a small, heavily armed, heavily mascara-ed team are humanity’s last chance to reclaim the planet. They plan a last chance offensive against the Z-bots who look like refugees from a 1992 Sega game.

After the heroes’ initial attack fails, they decide to resurrect a fallen warrior from years past – Mitchell (Matthew Wolf). Yes, our hero’s name is Mitchell and while I was praying for Joe Don Baker, I got some scruffy looking dude. Oh, and he’s got a pal named Itchy (Griff Furst) and then again I prayed for a blue homicidal mouse, but my dreams were dashed. They are commanded by a beehive-haired bitch and her squad of similarly bitchy female soldiers. And they all have weird eyes.

As if their situation wasn’t dire enough, the female grunts can’t get along with the pilot grunts, Mitchell still has feelings for his long-lost girlfriend Karina (Amy Weber) who’s with someone else (maybe the beehive chick?), and genius robot-designer Dr. Alextzavich (Michael Tower) reveals a horrifying secret about Mitchell with dire ramifications for the mission. Despite all the bickering, lesbian tension, and female android ogling, the team saddle-up for their final battle against the Z-bots, their Statue of Liberty-sized masters, and the attention span of anyone bored enough to stick with this turkey.


THE FINISHER:

Ah, the 80s. How I miss those afternoons coming home from school, grabbing some Plingles Chips, a tasty Blinkie, and a Mr. Pibb and settling in for an afternoon watching cartoons. First up was G.I. Moe, A Real Canadian Hero, followed by The Smurks, those cute and pesky purple wood-chewing pals. And then Hee-Hee Man the barbaric comedian, Thundercoons, and the Super Duper Pals, from the pages of Marble Comics. But the pinnacle of entertainment was the Transmorphers, an action-packed hour of laser blasts, robo-drama, mighty transmorphin’, and mild seizures.

Transmorpheeerrrrrrrsssss … additional material that encounters the vision!

The little studio that could The Asylum once again jumped ahead of Hollywood and took advantage of Transmorpher mania that swept the land in the summer of ’07. You’ll find no Shia Labeouf whining, Michael Bay meddling, or Spielberg tax sheltering here! Much like the cartoon, the movie is jam-packed with nonsensical time filler, long stretches of nothing happening, and screechy human characters. Oh, the memories!

My only big problem with this movie was the exclusion of Transmorpher regulars including Autobob leader Bobtimus Primal, evil Liar-tron head Megakorn, and wisecracking Beatle-borg, the transmorphing Yugo voiced by Ringo Starr. But I guess writer-director Leigh Scott was placed in a tough spot bringing this animated Belgian classic to life, just like he did with never told before giant monkey tale King of the Lost World, the totally not familiar fantasy Dragon, and the no-really-it’s-not-a-amusement-park-ride buccaneer epic Pirates of Treasure Island. I felt fortunate to get a copy of this movie as there was only 750 left at the rental store, so consider yourself lucky that I’m able to fully recommend this really-not-ripped-off, entirely non-copied, and so not anything like forty sci-fi films of the last twenty years.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my toaster is pointing and giggling at me.