Latino Review found out Max Makowski is going to direct Voltron, which is based on an animated television series in which five Galaxy Alliance pilots control vehicles shaped like lions that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron robot in order to battle an evil menace. Latino Review also reviewed the Justin Marks script over a year ago and gave it an A+ calling it a “Complete Miracle”.
Variety says the story is a post-apocalyptic tale set in New York City and Mexico, where five survivors of an alien attack band together and end up piloting the five lion-shaped robots that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron that helps battle Earth’s invaders.
The film is currently at Relativity Media after picking up out of turnaround. Most recently Relativity was behind 3:10 to Yuma and Mr. Brooks and the obvious appeal Voltron is based on the giant robot angle following the success of Transformers. However, with a studio like Relativity, a director such as Makowski whose highest profile work is directing episodes of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and a screenplay by Justin Marks who is yet to prove himself doesn’t have me doing cartwheels over this project.
Reading LatinoReview’s coverage of Voltron basically has me throwing their “Miracle” comment out the window as they obviously are biased, no offense, but it seems to be the case. Also, this isn’t exactly my kind of film, that is unless they are out to make something of an anti-Transformers, which is to say a film that lives up to the trailers for Transformers and not the goofy film it turned out to be.
Everything surrounding this film gives me zero confidence in it. One thing that really worries me is that Transformers was made for $150 million and that budget actually turned out to be too small for all of the effects work Michael Bay wanted to do. Despite how great the robots looked in that film one of the largest complaints had to do with the way the robots were portrayed on screen and all the close-ups and lack of wide shots. I don’t like saying a film will be better if it has a bigger budget, but when it comes to what will obviously be an effects driven film it is hard to think otherwise.
Maybe I am judging a bit too harshly on only a little bit of information, but it’s just what it looks like to me on the surface.
