INTRODUCTION
Admittedly, the Transformers trilogy has done some impressive things, but to put it bluntly, it still totally blows chunks. But why? They've got a practically limitless budget, some likeable actors, lots of explosions, attractive women and a concept that's so vague they can do more or less anything they want with it. Given all of the above, how could they possibly screw it up so badly? Well, to the film-makers credit it's easier than you might think. Allow me to explain why this entire franchise is irreparably flawed right out of the gate;
1: The Entire Idea is Stupid in the First Place
I hate the first two movies. This is no secret. I often get people argue at me that it's not Citizen Kane - it's a popcorn flick. You're just supposed to switch off your brain and look at the big shiny robots. Well, me being in cynical douche isn't the problem, as BASEketball happens to be one of the stupidest movies of all time. It's also one of my favourite.
I have this problem switching off my brain because of the concept. It shoves a mix of startling modern day reality and overblown sci-fi stupidity directly into your face-hole at 600mph. It's nauseating. Basically what I'm saying is on the one hand, they're trying to make an action movie that's as realistic and as culturally relevant as possible. They spend significant time in all three movies saying this is the world that YOU live in. Here's that car you've seen advertised, here's that games console you play while you're not masturbating, and here are some characters in that world. Now, this works fine in movies like James Bond, The Bourne series, Die Hard, The Nolan Batman movies and so on, because it's believable. But on the other hand they have to shoe-horn in these ridiculous fucking 60 foot robots causing all sorts of havoc and no one's supposed to give a damn?
See, what this does is it immediately alienates the audience, because just when you're think you've got a story you can relate to, a big clunky ridiculous CGI robot appears, shattering all the realism they've spent so much time setting up. This results in the movie looking like nothing more than your average video game, no matter how much "photo realistic" CGI you use. You can never fully evoke an emotional reaction from the audience because we immediately know and accept it's fake, but of course that doesn't stop them trying with Spielberg-style shaky camera and big dramatic scenes which pull out all the stops to evoke an emotional reaction, but it just doesn't work.
What results is a thing called "boredom". If a movie was band, the drum kit would be a thing called "tone", and the tone of the entire trilogy is seriously upset by this contradiction. Michael Bay himself describes the tone of "Dark of the Moon" as "A Homeland version of Black Hawk Down... with Giant Alien Robots". According to my metaphor, you end up with something like this.
This is the foundational flaw of all the Transformers movies, and there is nothing they can do about it. Metaphorically speaking, what they've done is bought a house in the township of Artistic Integrity, but it's sat on top of a swamp. You're boned right from the get-go. But still, let's talk about Dark of the Moon.
2: Stuff they Got Right in Dark of the Moon
Well, all the characters from the other two movies are back - this might sound terrible, but it actually pans out okay. Shia Laboeuf is back as Sam Witwicky (that's a horrible name - hope someone lost their job over that one), and he gives a much more solid performance. Not too “Even Stevens” like in the first one, and not too stupidly overacted like the second one. He gets the balance just about right, and I've got much more respect from him in the wake of seeing this film.
John Turturro's back as well – his character's still kinda “goof-ball” stupid (especially in one scene during the end credits) But he's been toned down to a satisfactory degree – and thankfully no more crappy one liners either.
The parents are back as well, but thankfully they're only in a couple of scenes, which do have some chuckles. In the first movie it felt like they were just there to do Panto-style improv, and the second movie's not even worth talking about, but here they're just about tolerable.
Now, I thought the new love interest was going to be really awkwardly shoved into the movie after their little fallout with Megan Fox, but no, they managed to just about write their way out of that one, because her and Shia actually talk to each other like real couples do - where as Megan Fox and Shia would just slow-mo run away from explosions, and the audience would just have to independently reach the conclusion they were watching true love unfold. Beforehand, they never took the time to actually develop their relationship, whereas in this movie, in the first twenty minutes they've been introduced and she actually comes off pretty likeable – although having said that, that's probably the script doing the work, because she is an abysmal actress. Yes, worse than Megan Fox.
Besides this, there were some pretty good cameos - Mr Chow off the Hangover shows up, which was a little gimmicky but not bad; so does John Malkovich, Frances MacDormand, Bill O'Reilly, Alan Tudyk - the guy from A Knight's Tale, Leonard Nimoy, and even Buzz Friggin' Aldrin. Some of these cameos are a little clunky and out of place, but it's does contribute to one's overall enjoyment, as most of these cameos include their own cultural references which aren't too cheesy (for instance, classic Star Trek starring Leonard Nimoy is shown in one scene. Nimoy himself voices one of the silly robots). Finally, the stunts were really impressive. Now I say stunts, not special effects. Because while I respect Michael Bay for all the strife he would've inevitably gone through filming the movie – considering it's all on location, using real explosions and props when possible, added to the fact that he seems to know exactly what he wants from his shots which is great - because he could just CG the whole damn thing; it'd save so much effort. But unfortunately for Bay, when 60% of your special effects are done by some guy on a laptop, the audience really start to switch off. A truckload of high-definition 3D computer-animated bullsh*t might make your movie look flashy, but it will not make it effective. Case in point, take a trip to YouTube – search for “Transformers 2 Forest Fight”, and then search “Saving Private Ryan – Omaha Beach”. The first clip is two 60 foot robots hacking each other to pieces with giant flaming swords. The second clip is a bunch of guys running on a beach being shot at. The difference is there is not one single frame of CGI in that Saving Private Ryan. Sometimes it's just better to not use it. “Visionary” directors such as Bay, Cameron and Lucas seem to completely missed this and assume it's a catch-all for a special effects display, and continue to advance motion picture technology in completely the wrong direction. Now you might say, “Well how else do you make a movie about giant robots?” Frankly, I have no idea - however I did say it was a bad idea in the first place. But I digress.
3: Pacing and Plot
The pacing in this movie is worse than Gout. Seriously. It gets off to a great start – they introduce their moon thing that was so proudly displayed in the trailer, and that was cool... then there's what feels like an hour of Shia Labouef just being an unemployed nobody, which, while totally pointless is still entertaining because it's decently scripted. But then about half way through it all grinds to a halt because everyone's trying to make sense of the ridiculous plot that's developing.
Basically, nobody has any idea what's going on, and neither do we. And once the plot is steadily revealed, the more you think about it, the less it makes sense. I don't want to give too much away, but I will say there's a cunning plan and a scheme and a double cross, and it is all completely stupid. Now I'm not saying I didn't understand the plot – it wasn't that kind of confusing – there were just so many holes in it. It just leaves you thinking “What was their motivation in the first place? And why would they choose this ridiculously complicated means to an end?” Admittedly however, lots of movies don't make any sense at all if you really think about them (*cough* DARK KNIGHT! *cough*) but this movie seemed to take lessons in villain motivation from Star Wars Episode 1.
Ultimately, I could forgive all of this – all of it if it wasn't so damn long. This movie was 2 hours and 40 minutes, and usually this isn't a big deal as long as it's paced decently, which this film completely is not. For example, at one point during the final third, they try and throw you a red herring and tug on your heartstrings by leading you to believe all the Autobots are dead or whatever - but we know they're coming back because we've seen the trailer. Regardless, they drag this out for something like half an hour. During this time, some bad stuff does go down, and you actually see some regular people die – just to let you know they're being serious. This lasts for somewhere in the region two whole scenes, before suddenly “Wahey, the Autobots are back!” Then it stops trying to be Schindler's List and it's back to the kids movie, so this is a firm contender for the most pointless 20 minutes in the history of cinema.
After this, there's this big long climax which is far too incomprehensible and drawn out to be fully enjoyed, and at this point you're not seeing anything new or interesting anyway. This just leaves one thinking that this movie would be pretty tolerable if they'd just wrapped it up twenty minutes ago. William Shakespeare once said “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Which in layman's terms means “I'm desperate for a slash – why is this movie so f*cking long?”
4: Conclusion
So in a nutshell, it was a well made, enjoyable cinematic experience - and the special effects, while pointless and generic, were still incredible, and I don't regret spending the money to see it. However, because of it's sheer conceptual stupidity, it's pathetic attempts at making an emotional connection with the audience, and because sitting through it felt like standing on one leg for 157 minutes, I am never, ever, ever going to watch this movie again. And for that I'll give it a C+.
