Transformers: Dark of the Moon (**½)
Directed by: Michael Bay
Starring: Shia Labeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Torturro, Tyrese Gibson,
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, John
Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Alan Tudyk, Ken Jeong.
Starring (voices): Peter Cullen, Leonard Nimoy, Hugo Weaving
Seen: July 1st 2011
**½
Out of ****
Not as good as the first, but better than the second, Transformers:
Dark of the Moon hangs suspended between good and bad, it consists of
smatterings of both; the collective existence of the exceptional and the
terrible. I think on the whole the movie comes out just ahead of the curve, but
I don’t know it for a fact, as after four days I still can’t completely make up
my mind. Visually this was stunning, story-wise barely enough, and the acting? Well…
TF3 is a reworked version of TF2, the action is slicker and less
confusing; there’s a new leading lady in Victoria’s Secret model Rosie
Huntington-Whiteley; leading man Sam Witwicky (Labeouf) has moved on from
heroic college student to spurned and desperate young job-seeker; and the
Autobots are part of a fully fledged worldwide anti-terrorism/crime fighting
unit. On mission in Chernobyl the Autobots run into something uncovering
secrets the humans have kept since 1961, when a massive space ship crashed on
the moon and kick-started the US – USSR space race. While the USA was first in
getting astronauts on the moon to investigate, the USSR uncovered some good
photographic evidence of Transformer movement on the moon, and it takes a while
to get all the relevant information together and figure out the Decepticon plan
for dominating earth through some ancient technology created by the Einstein of
the Transformers, Sentinel Prime (Nimoy).
Sam is desperately seeking work, and getting money from his new girlfriend
Carly (Huntington-Whiteley) doesn’t sit well with him. He’s spurred at every
opportunity by employers and government agents doubting his ability to be of
help in the global threat the Decepticons pose. His parents again show up to
embarrass him and his only help comes in the form of the support of Colonel
Lennox (Duhamel) and now retired Agent Simmons (Torturro), filthy rich after
writing a conspiracy theory novel about the events from the first movies. Carly’s
super-rich boss Dylan Gould (Dempsey) is influential in Sam finally getting a
job, working for the details-obsessed Bruce Brazos (Malkovich). It is here that
Sam is accosted by the nut-job conspiracy theorist Jerry Wang (Jeong), and thus
pulled back into events, even though it happens erratically, as Sam is not
immediately accepted by all.
TF3 features some of the greatest action-adventure-big budget sci-fi
scenes seen in a long time, reminiscent of Cloverfield and Inception, coupled
with some roll-your-eyes humour and wooden acting (I’m looking at you Rosie
Huntington-Whiteley and Shia Labeouf). I’d like to see Labeouf in a normal
movie to figure out if this constantly pained and frantic squirming and
screaming has become his interpretation of acting, or whether this is all down
to Michael Bay’s direction. John Torturro as Simmons, and to a lesser degree
Frances McDormand as Mearing, both seem to know what type of movie they’re
starring in, and they turn up the ham to maximum which results in an uneasy
feeling of supposedly serious characters being nothing more than silly
caricatures. Mearing, the head of National Intelligence, sarcastically remarks to
Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen, Prime’s voice since 1984) (partially paraphrased) that:
“you can’t bring anything to earth, you kinda have to go through customs…”.
The dialogue is just wrong at times, people in those positions don’t use words
like kinda. On the upside, the ridiculously offensive comedic relief characters
of Mudflap and Skids from the second movie are gone, replaced by the more
moderately used and thus more entertaining Wheelie and Brains. The scale of
destruction and danger is massive, and the fighting and action scenes are
jaw-droppingly good, with very little resembling the confusing jumble of TF2. Pity
the story doesn’t really feel new when compared to TF2 (it is more believable
though, with the absolutely ridiculous dream scenes, or scenes in a similar
vein, from TF2 not featured again).
While the movie’s runtime is again a bloated 2:34, it doesn’t feel as
long as TF2. Transformers: Dark of the Moon is essentially a bad movie dressed
up as an awesome visual spectacle, and if you’re a fan of the first two movies
you’re likely to really enjoy this one too.
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