REGENERATING THROUGHOUT 'THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE'

Orson Welles in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE Year: 1986 Rating: ****

Critics unfairly blasted THE TRANSFORMERS MOVIE as nothing but a prolonged toy commercial while it's really a collected hybrid of brisk, adult-oriented, ultra-violent Ralph Bakshi HEAVY METAL-inspired animation; stylized Japanese anime; 1970's expository-filled Marvel sci-fi comics; Roger Dean's proggy planets inhabited by those titular robots that turn into motor-vehicles and spaceships or are already (in the best scenes) metallic dinosaurs, lizards and sharks... while a planet-engulfing planet derived from George Lucas's STAR WARS weapon The Death Star and V'Ger from STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE is the truly formidable antagonist...

In the budding-hero lead, Judd Nelson turns in a kind of deliberately cornball 1950's throwback, befitting the equally cheesy wall-to-wall 1980's stadium-rock/arcade-jukebox soundtrack... while Orson Welles provided his last professional job, voicing that immense world-engulfing villain, splendidly named Unicron...

David Mendenhall drives Judd Nelson in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)

Unfortunately, a distracting metallic/robotic effect filtering throughout Welles's delivery leaves only sparsely sporadic reminders of his timing without fully embracing the legendary godlike voice...

Leonard Nimoy's more recognizable as Unicron's slave/thug: both desperately trying to destroy the good-guy autobots, brought to life by gruff veteran warrior Lionel Stander, comic-relief Eric Idle, a jazzy Scatman Crothers, in-house regular Peter Cullen (dramatically dying as Optimus Prime) and the always seriously-commanding Robert Stack...

Leonard Nimoy in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)

The only real visual problem is the same reason football teams wear different uniforms... the first half, with every Transformer a brilliantly-bright color involved in furious non-stop battles, makes it difficult to tell who exactly's fighting who, where, or why... it's during the last half, when the combative strategies are replaced with locations befitting various alien-obstacles, that the plot-line becomes more loose and adventurous...

It actually takes several recommended viewings (maybe even using subtitles) to follow the fast-paced, quick-framed, vibrantly-colored 84-minute cult classic that, while sometimes action-exhausting, is one of the greatest animated movie experiences since every single frame tells its own epic story.

Orson Welles in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)

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Death of Optimus Prime inTHE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)

Orson Welles in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)

Orson Welles in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)

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Judd Nelson and Lionel Stander in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)

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Orson Welles in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)

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Orson Welles inTHE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)

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Judd Nelson and David Mendenhall in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986)

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Robert Stack in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE