Robots In This Guise

Tha trailer for Transmorphers is online now. Stop sniggering.

The only reason the film has that title is to ride the crest of somebody else's hard-worked-for and fairly-purchased hype. On the one hand it doesn't seem fair, on the other it just seems like cheeky, low-rent gusto.

When the robots appear in the trailer, its to mixed effect. There's a couple of well rendered shots - well rendered enough for the small screen at least - whereas some other bits and pieces don't look one half as good. The costumes are probably the single least satisfying component of the images however. Asbolutely none of the plot elements revealed show any imagination, however - here's hoping the full film isn't so pedestrian and predictable throughout.

Downloading and watching this trailer will probably have two effects:

a) make you appreciate the production values of the Transformers film all the more (Mitchell Amundsen, Jeff Mann, Deborah Lynn Scott and Dan Akers - to choose a few examples - end up looking like unparalelled geniuses).

b) make you wish these low-budget exploitation films were a little more ambitious, daring, witty.

I'd go over to Asylum and plot, script and direct a straight to DVD title for them in the blink of an eye - there's no reason to not take such a job as seriously as any other, of course. And no reason the next Asylum film couldn't be the greatest film ever made - commercial value and quality are in no way exclsuive. And if you make your budget your aesthetic, you'll be okay on an Asylum-sized spend too.

I'd love to see some of these bottom-shelf titles start punching a little harder.