Nathan Lee on Transformers

Transformers image

Point is, giant robots turn into cars! (More specifically and profitably, they turn into Pontiacs and Hummers and GMC pickup trucks.) And jets! And helicopters! And boom boxes! And cell phones! And then they fight each other! All sarcasm aside, that's pretty much awesome. On some very basic level, I don't think you can fuck up the kick of a movie about metamorphic robots--no, not even you, Mr. Bay. Let us acknowledge that Transformers is not simply a story of humanity being attacked by a sophisticated breed of technological nihilism--it is that assault.

Excerpted from "Auto-Chaotic" by Nathan Lee, The Village Voice, July 3, 2007

Last Seen

  • Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Edgar Wright, 2010) B+
  • After.Life (Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo , 2009) C+
  • Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966) B
  • The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971) A
  • Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz, 2009) B-
  • Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) B-
  • Dogtooth (Giorgos Lanthimos, 2009) B+
  • The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009) B
  • Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik, 2010) A-
  • The Killer Inside Me (Michael Winterbottom, 2010) B+
  • Ondine (Neil Jordan, 2009) B+
  • Splice (Vincenzo Natali, 2009) B+
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  • Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau, 2010) C+
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  • Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010) A-
  • The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Lotte Reiniger, 1926) B+
  • Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaughn, 2010) C+
  • Greenberg (Noah Baumbach, 2010) B
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