Plot: The latest edition in the popular billion dollar Transformers franchise, Dark of the Moon continues the story of the war between the Autobots and their evil counterparts the Decepticons. In this go round, returning protagonist Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) uncovers that the entire space race was predicated on a Transformers spaceship, called the Ark, that crash landed on the moon in 1961, and that the crew of Apollo 11's main mission was to investigate the crash. Meanwhile in 2011 while on a mission at Chernobyl, Autobot leader Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) discovers a fuel cell that could could only have come from The Ark. The discovery ignites another confrontation between the Autobots and the Decepticons, led by Megatron (Hugo Weaving), that could have disastrous consequences to Earth and the human race.
Review: If the above description of Transformers: Dark of the Moon reads as ridiculous and convoluted, it's because it is. Once again director Michael Bay brings the world another loud, obnoxious, overly long, explosion filled extravaganza that is devoid of logic and almost completely unwatchable. Granted the main premise of all the Transformers movies involves alien robots fighting each other so it's not going to be Shakespeare, but you'd hope the movie would at least make some kind of sense.
No. Not at all.
But then again why should I expect anything different from Michael Bay, whose life credo might as well be "boom goes the dynamite." That's because Dark of the Moon is filled with enough explosions to eliminate a small rain forest. Ehren Kruger's story is long on action and short on dialogue, logic, empathy, and suspense. So yeah pretty much everything a script should have. Subplots such as Sam's inability to work with the Autobots and his frustration in not finding job detract from the main "story." Also how he managed to score his amazingly hot girlfriend Carly Spencer (Rosie Huntington-Whitely) is never fully explained. Even the Decepticons main plan to bring their home planet of Cybertron to Earth makes no sense. Apparently they've completely ignored science which dictates that gravity would cause both planets to collide and result in mutual destruction. Additionally, why the government would give in to the Deceptions demands that the Autobots leave Earth is beyond me. After all if we give into the demands of the Decepticons doesn't that mean the terrorists win??!!! Whatever. I guess we should be thankful that unlike Revenge of the Fallen, Dark of the Moon contains no racist robots or giant Decepticon testicles.
The acting in this movie also makes Taylor Lautner's work in the Twilight films look Oscar worthy by comparison. John Turturro reprises his role as Agent Seymour Simmons, whose only purpose in this film seems to be acting batshit crazy insane. Patrick Dempsey (yes McDreamy from "Grey's Anatomy") somehow also plays Dylan Gould, Carly's boss and one of Dark of the Moon's human antagonists. He's more out of place as a villain than Charlie Sheen at a monastery. I won't even go into John Malkovich's role as Sam's boss whose name Bruce Brazos is only surpassed by Ken Jeong's ludicrous handle of Jerry "Deep" Wang. Good to know Michael Bay had 8th grade boys picking the characters names. Even Academy Award winner Frances McDormand can't save this film. McDormand only projects cold bureaucracy while playing the Director of National Intelligence Charlotte Mearing. Hell somehow the producers even convinced Buzz effing Aldrin to be in this film. Who was the casting director a meth addict? At least Steve Jablonsky's score was decent.
LaBeouf wasn't too bad in Dark of the Moon. Once again the young actor manages to do well in a bad movie. His scenes were some of the very few in Dark of the Moon that were in any way believable and empathetic. And surprisingly, Huntington-Whiteley was strong as Sam's girlfriend Carly, although her role did involve a fair amount of running and little dialogue. Leonard Nimoy manages to entertain as Sentinel Prime, Optimus Prime's pseudo-father. Nimoy's involvement lends a slight amount of legitimacy to Dark of the Moon. He even managed to work in a classic line from Star Trek. How they got him to be in this movie is a mystery though. Guess Vulcans need cash too.
Thankfully, the special effects in Dark of the Moon were excellent, although I've come to expect nothing less from Industrial Light and Magic. There was one exception though. Someone must have been high one day in the back room at ILM because JFK's face looked like Sloth from The Goonies. Other than that the film was a visual success.
Unfortunately Tranformers: Dark of the Moon doesn't succeed on any other level.
My rating: 2/10
No comments:
Post a Comment