(Long Island, N.Y.) It you’ve seen Transformers 1 & 2, director Michael Bay’s take on the popular 80’s toy and cartoon series about alien robots who turn into cars and trucks and planes and coffee cups or whatever, then you’ve already seen Transformers 3, or “Dark of the Moon,” as per it’s odd subtitle.
Seriously, it’s exactly the same as the first two…same goofy humor, same nonsensical storyline, same over-reliance on the super-annoying human characters (seriously, every human in this movie acts like a complete idiot, insane, or both, which hardly endears you to them), to the point that we never really get to know any of the robot characters that are supposed to be the stars of the movie. Despite being called “Transformers,” this film seems to concentrate even more on the humans and even less on the robots than ever before in this series.
The Transformers themselves just seemed really unimportant for large chunks of the movie. Dark of the Moon is all about dunce lead character Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf, about whom I have a rant all ready to unleash…just wait a minute) and his new job and his hot new girl Carly Spencer (knickers model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) and his parents (whom I hate so much that I’m refusing to even name their actors) and Agent Seymour Simmons (John Turturro, who’s just as crazy and unfunny as ever) and Sam’s boss (John Malkovich, who also makes an fool out of himself in a completely embarrassing performance) and Sam’s girlfriend’s boss (Patrick Dempsey) and some mean government woman whose name I forget. Oh, and maybe once in a while a robot says something or causes something to explode to break up the pace.
Anyway, once in a while the story shifts to the Transformers, giant robots stranded on Earth that are divided into two groups: the heroic Autobots, lead by the noble Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) and the evil Decepticons, lead by the rather beat-up Megatron (Hugo Weaving).
Here and there they fight each other, or do little things to advance the overall plot of the movie, which involves these pillars that can open up a dimensional gateway to the Transformer’s home planet of Cybertron, but it’s all treated as secondary to the next “comedy” scene involving the stupid human characters.
If I actually liked the human characters I might have minded their huge amount of screen time less. As it was, I came to watch giant robots, not Sam’s mother wondering how big her son’s, um, “Johnson” is (except she doesn’t say “Johnson”).
Seriously, this really happens.
Shia LaBeouf…I used to be a fan. He gets a lot of grief from the public, and I always kind of defended him, but after playing the same type of character for the millionth time – the whole panicky, confused klutz thing – I can no longer do so. I used to think this gimmick was fine acting; I now realize that it’s merely the feeble limitations of his debatable skills in front of the camera showing for all the world to see. He plays that one role very, very well, but it’s all he can do, and seeing it milked to death and beyond for more than one or two movies simply becomes an exercise in intense pain. He’s gone from a promising young leading man to the most annoying actor in Hollywood in the span of just a few years. Congrats, Shia.
Oh, and the Sam Witwicky character now has a new girlfriend in this movie, and somehow Michael Bay found a woman on Earth
even HOTTER than ex-Transformers female lead Megan Fox to play her. Sam’s very average-looking, a total goofball, can’t find a job, and constantly whines that he should be out adventuring with his Autobot pals instead of living a boring, dull life, and yet his successful supermodel-quality girlfriend who always wears skin-tight micro-mini dresses and high-heels and perfect make-up and is filmed by the voyeuristic fiend Bay in every scene like she’s in a porno (she’s introduced in the movie with a tracking, panty-clad 3D tushy shot…isn’t this movie based on a kid’s toy line?) loves him without question, covers all the bills (they share an apartment), and generally puts up with all his B.S. This just really stretched the believability of Dark of the Moon to its tearing point, and I’m talking about a movie where 50 foot tall robots fight each other in the streets.
The only real difference between Dark of the Moon and the other Transformers installments (and a positive one, at that) are the limitations placed upon Michael Bay’s editing style because he was shooting in 3D, which necessitated a slower, more deliberate style since 3D doesn’t really favor fast movement. What results is that, for once, you can actually SEE what’s happening in the battle scenes; the camera is pulled back and no longer shakes like it’s operator is being fed 20,000 volts. It’s like night and day from the other two movies in that regard, whose battle scenes were almost incomprehensible due to the close-up, rapid-fire, MTV-style camerawork.
I thought the focus would switch more to the Transformers for the big battle at the end, but the humans are even the stars during that part. For a movie that’s supposed to be about giant robots beating the tar out of each other, you don’t see that very much in this movie…almost all of the action centers on Sam and his girlfriend. But when you do see some huge robots fight, it’s pretty damn cool, I will fully admit. I just wish there was more if it happening; when this movie left behind the horrible attempts comedy and just concentrated on action, be it robot-on-robot or human military-on-robot, it was good, mindless fun.
Oh, and it goes without saying that this movie is very, very pretty. Mind-blowingly so, in fact. Best interaction between live-action humans and CG characters (in this case, the giant robots, of course) ever seen. So, despite everywhere else that Dark of the Moon trips and fumbles, at least they got the visuals right. Of course, what movie doesn’t these days? For once I’d love a movie with a great script and characters and maybe some so-so effects. I’d be okay with that.
The easiest thing to say about Transformers: Dark of the Moon is that if you liked the first two, you’ll like this one. But if you hated the first two, nothing, and I mean nothing, about this movie will change your mind. Personally, I thought it was okay, but I have zero interest in ever watching it again.
