Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Review

You know what is the best thing about Transformers 3? It's that this officially marks the end of the Michael Bay-directed Transformers films! (If this was a video review, this is the time you would start hearing "The Messiah" playing) Hallelujah!!! Hallelujah!!! Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the 2007 film. It was a fun and crazy over-the-top sci-fi action film. That said, despite what the massive legions of over-enthusiastic fans would say, it was nothing more than a stupid and dopey action film. In other words, the flick was big, fun, and loud but moronic on pretty much all levels of filmmaking with the exception of it's impressive special effects. It was at best a guilty pleasure. The 2009 sequel, on the other hand, entitled Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was a disaster. An over-stuffed, over-plotted, poorly acted, horribly shot, and visually unimpressive nightmare of a film, Revenge of the Fallen stands as one of the worst sequels ever made and one of my personal worst films of all time. Even after two years I'm still spitting out it's horrible taste, so you can probably imagine that I wasn't exactly overjoyed for a third entry. Is it an upgrade over the last tragedy or is this one another broken and buggy mess of a movie?

Dark of the Moon takes place a few years after Revenge of the Fallen. Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf) has just recently graduated from college and is currently living with his new girlfriend Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whitely). Sam takes an entry level job with a major corporation, but finds himself having difficulty conforming to such a mundane job with his Autobot allies out defending the world. Meanwhile, trouble brews on the battlefront as the Decepticons discover a means to turn the tide of their battle with the Autobots. In the 1960s, an Autobot ship known as the Ark, carrying technology capable of rebuilding their home planet of Cybertron, crash landed on Earth's moon. Kept secret by the American government for over forty years, Decepticon leader Megatron learns of it's existance and aims to find it to rebuild their planet on Earth before Autobot commander Optimus Prime gets his hands on it and prevents Earth's destruction.

Alright, let's just get this out of the way right up front... is it as bad as Revenge of the Fallen? The answer... no, it's not as bad, but not by much. To it's credit, I didn't leave this one furious over it's poor quality like I did with ROTF, but then again I went into DOTM with really really really low expectations. I know that Michael Bay isn't out to create high art (believe me, I get that), and he's made a few films that I've really enjoyed. Movies like The Rock, Armaggeddon, and the first Transformers are, in my opinion, some of the better "pure-fun, guilty pleasure, popcorn flicks" out there. That said, Bay's disregard for the basic tenants of filmmaking are so obvious that his films, enjoyable or otherwise, come off almost as amateur as a first year student film if it had a budget of 200 million dollars. Terms like plot, character development, depth, tripod, steadicam, subtlty, have virtually no place in a Michael Bay directed film. In spite of all those criticisms... none of that would bother me much for this kind of movie had it not been so over-the-top annoying and cheesy... but that's exactly what this movie is!

Michael Bay has one particular talent that I don't think gets discussed enough... the ability to get good actors give bad performances. While Shia Labeouf has shown that he's not that bad of an actor, his choice in roles could really use some work. I can't say that I blame him for his choices... being in huge blockbuster franchises like Transformers or Indiana Jones have gotten the guy some major exposure and probably some nice paychecks too. Unfortunately, the Transformers movies are going to hang over him like a sign that reads "Don't Take Me Seriously!" In this, he has his moments and can still hold is own in the action scenes, but his tendency to overact has seriously kicked into high gear. He spends most of the movie looking paranoid and shouts what seemed like half of his lines. I really hope Shia gets some better roles soon, before his Transformers image is permanently typecast onto him.

One of the most talked about casting changes was the replacement of Megan Fox for newcomer Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. A lot of the movie's criticism has been directed toward her acting ability. In my opinion, she's not terribly awful, but just really bland. It doesn't help that her character is nothing more than a generic love interest and occasional damsel-in-distress, but her lack of any acting experience is obvious. An actress with more training could have easily brought out some emotion to the character. That said, with most of this movie's cast either playing a neverending game of "Who Can Overact The Most?", she gave a more grounded performance that was at least not painfully annoying. That's probably why I didn't hate her as much as most people did, but I can't deny that her performance doesn't really work. I suppose you have to make due with what you've got.

For the rest of the cast... this is where the whole "Michael Bay makes good actors give bad performances" notion is most apparent. John Turturro returns as Agent Simmons, once again soiling an otherwise solid filmography with another horrendously annoying Transformers performance. Veteran actor John Malkovich shows up in a mostly-pointless role as Sam's boss, Bruce Brazos, only to give a painfully annoying over-the-top performance. Speaking of painfully annoying and over-the-top performances, there's also Frances McDormand as Director of US Defense, Charlotte Mearing. She's right up there with John Malkovich in terms of over-the-top and annoying performances. Julie White and Kevin Dunn (Sam's parents), show up again to give their trademark over-the-top and unfunny schtick again... though they fortunately only had about one or two scenes (gotta appreciate the little things.)

You know what is the worst thing about the Transformers movies? Aside for those two Autobot twins from ROTF (honestly, I still can't get over just how bad that movie turned out), it's the fact that the actual Transformers play second fiddle to the human characters. For a movie that's called Transformers... that's a huge problem! It wouldn't bother me much if these movies had gripping storylines with well-written human characters that would compliment the Autobot Vs Decepticon storyline.... BUT THEY DON'T!!! I'm not even coming at this as some nostalgia-fueled fanboy. On the contrary, I never cared for the Transformers growing up. I didn't watch the show, I didn't collect the toys, and I never read the comics. I was born in 87, so I missed the Transformers generation (had I been born a few years earlier, I'm sure I would have loved them). Still, a series that is as simple and straightforward as good robots fighting bad robots shouldn't be this cluttered.

Have you noticed that the first movie was mainly a story about Shia Labeouf trying to get laid? The second movie... well, that plot was so cluttered and messy that I was barely able to comprehend what it was about. From what I remember, it had something to do with Sam getting laid in college with the Transformers story being treated more as a subplot. The third is about Sam trying to make it in the working world with the Transformers occasionally popping in to say hi. I wasn't expecting greatness or anything like that from a Transformers movie, but don't think a generic good robots vs bad robots story is too much to ask for! At the very least, can't the writers cool it with the stupid government conspiracies crap! It made no sense in the second movie about how the world governmentshad been covering up the Transformers existance for so long or how they managed to keep the whole final battle from the first movie under wraps. This whole movie centers around the the space race from the 60s being nothing more than a response to finding a Tranformer that crash landed on the moon. The movie even got Buzz Aldrin to make a cameo... no seriously, the real Buzz Aldrin is in this movie! I don't know whether to be impressed for the filmmakers attempt at bringing some authenticity to the concept or annoyed to see a genuine icon appearing in such a stupid movie. EESH!

This is the part where I'm supposed to say something along the lines of, "At least the action and special effects are good." Well, I have to admit, this is where the movie kind of works... "kind of" being the key phrase in that sentence. I remember being seriously impressed by the cgi in the first movie, calling it some of the best ever. Watching the robot designs in this one... well, let's just say they haven't gotten better with age. That might be because there's not much diversity in the designs, particularly in the Decepticons. Most of them look so alike, that you can't tell one another apart except for the close ups. As for whether they look convincing... let's say they look flawed yet decent. Still, they do look like a lot of work was put into them, and despite their imperfections, it is still some of the more impressive cgi out there.

The action is still hit and miss, but fortunately it hits more often than it misses. The finale is where it especially works. It's still generic Michael Bay action, if you've seen any one of his movies, you know what to expect. Explosions, guns, explosions, lens flares, explosions, shots of the sunset, explosions, helicopters, explosions, and tanks... the standard. Did I mention there were explosions? I just wish it didn't take so long with the tedious Shia Laboeuf plot to get to the action. Unfortunaely like ROTF, the said plot didn't spend enough time developing enough of the said supporting characters, so you feel no real emotional connection to anyone in the final battle. The 3D effects were surprisingly very well done, making this movie one of the few movies were the 3D actually improved on the overall moviegoing experience. It's not up there with the Avatar or Tron Legacy 3D effects, but it does it's job well. It's your standard Michael Bay action fare... crazy and erratic but for what it is, it's not too shabby.

Odds are if you're seeing a Michael Bay movie, you're probably expecting little more than crazy action. If that's all your looking for, then yeah, you'll probably leave more or less satisfied. It is an improvement over the second but it still lacks the fun factor from the original. It's been in theatres forever now, so you've already decided when/if you are going to see it or have seen it already. Granted, this movie is best seen on the big screen, but still I'm going to say you can probably skip it unless you really really really want to check it out.

My Score: 2 out of 5!