Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Review

I seriously must be displaced into Bizarro World or the Twilight Zone. I have dubbed this film season to be a summer of disappointment, where the few gems are outweighed by several colossal failures. I've seen pirates, kung fu animals, wolf packs, space cops, and talking cars all unable to rise beyond being stupid and boring. And now we come to Michael Bay and the continuation of his "Bayformers", a franchise that has produced a lot of scorn and loathing due to its awfulness and its racist and sexist attitudes. Well for one of the few times imaginable, everybody wins. TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON is shockingly an entertaining action exploitation sequel where past critical and public opinion is implemented to fix some of its major problems.



Now don't expect everything to work out because the plot is still plot hole filled and dumber than a bag of hammers. If you saw any of the early trailers for the film then you've seen all of the important moments of the prologue. Bay crafts this overlong opening montage, complete with archival footage, of a Cybertronian ship crashing on the Moon during the Cold War and the political cover-ups of it. This ship carried an important piece of weaponry that would have been a game-changer to the war on Cybertron, so now both the Autobots and Decepticons want it. But it order to use said weapon, they need the revival of its guardian Sentinel Prime, voiced lovingly by Leonard Nimoy. So, in other words, Optimus Prime uses the second film's Macguffin to bring life to another Macguffin for another Macguffin.



This plotline with the Transformers is somewhat interesting, since it heavily involves the main stars and the main reason people watch these films, but of course humans have to be involved as well. Yet again, Bay and screenwriter Ehren Kruger subjects the audience to the misadventures of Sam Witwicky. The creators thought it would be funny and topical to have Sam now unable to get a job in our current era and how his parents smugly rag on his failures. This is just very offensive to viewers like myself; Using an easy tactic for audience sympathy and the fact that the U.S. government has Sam off the grid despite saving the world twice is insultingly dumb. But the human incompetence continues during the vastly pointless first hour of this two and a half hour film. An entire subplot involving the assassinations of several space officials and the rise of Decepticon sleeper agents ultimately doesn't matter besides raising the body count. Frances McDormand is brought in to play the newest political bigwig who, along with the world's top leaders, makes big inane decisions on how to handle the Transformers war simply to further the plot. Bay and Kruger's humor also sadly returns with multiple gay panic jokes, "wacky" slapstick, and a mind-numbingly atrocious scene involving Sam and some security guards.



However, once the war heads to Chicago, everything is muted considerably. The characters nobody likes vanish completely and the comedy is vastly subtracted. You get to experience a heavily grim tonal shift with the Decepticons ruling over Chi-Town while committing a human genocide. This leads to all-out mindless fun and an epic third act as the Autobots and the U.S. military bring the pain to prevent the Decepticons' master plan from being completed. This is the true reason to see the film as the action choreography and visual effects work beautifully together for many memorable moments, most notable being a sequence in a collapsing building. Sure the final and important part of the Decepticons' plan would scientifically be a dumb thing to do but you'll be busy being distracted yet exhausted by explosions and gunfights that will give you shivers.



The entertaining finale can't cover up all the gaping holes of Bay's tapestry of action. The majority of the robots are still hard to distinguish and some of them, especially an Autobot named Que, are frighteningly ugly to behold. The early battle scenes are blurry to watch and are ripped-off from the previous films, i.e. yet another firefight on a highway. Michael Bay also made sure to bring his infamous portrayals of women as hand-holders for men or sexualized centerpieces. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley replaces the departing Megan Fox as Sam's new love interest, though the character is clearly written for Fox's character, and is wooden as expected. The love story with her and Sam is more superfluous and extraneous than the previous film's "I love you" plot.



The creators did at least try and succeed with solving some of previous franchise problems with some acting and character decisions. McDormand, though forced to do idiotic things, is a true pleasure as a clearly created powerful woman. Her only job seems to make wisecracks and belittle Sam constantly so of course she's a great delight to have. I also enjoyed John Malkovich as a Steve Jobs parody who's more interested in the visual layouts of his offices than his products. Props also to Partrick Dempsey as the smooth operating boss of Whiteley and the expansion of Tyrese Gibson's character as a make-shift but courageous leader of human resistance. Also, no appearance of the Racist Twins and Peter Cullen as Optimus is still the best actor.



I went into this film honestly with no expectations. I though it was going to suck hard at times, which it did considerably, with only a few minor improvements. Instead, TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON became a genuine surprise with its depressing melodrama and the impressive action in its last half. If you go into it only for popcorn thrills and a bad plot, then you'll receive a nice guilty pleasure.




FINAL REVIEW: 3 / 5