"Years from now they're gonna ask…where were you when they took over the planet?"
The summer blockbuster season reaches its nadir with the third installment of Transformers, based on the popular toy line from Hasbro, and directed by Michael Bay, purveyor of overblown schlock. Bay’s first Transformers film was lifted above its leaden coming-of-age narrative by a Spielbergian sense of wonder as an unassuming suburban boy meets a race of giant robots from outer space. The sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, was an atrocity of epic proportions that was hastily slapped together before the Writer’s Strike of late 2007 to early 2008. Even Bay and star Shia LaBeouf apologized for the rancid turd they unleashed from their bowels. Not that it matters, audiences ate it up as if the manure pile were a tasty bowl of ice cream. Thanks to them Revenge made over $800 million worldwide. Dark of the Moon has already grossed half that in its opening week. In financial terms, it's a rousing success, but what about the actual movie?
I can honestly say that Dark of the Moon is better than Revenge of the Fallen. However, that's the equivalent of saying being smashed in the face with a pipe wrench is better than having your genitals hooked to Bumblebee's car battery.
Much like X-Men: First Class, Transformers plays with revisionist history by planting the idea that the entire space race was predicated on the discovery of an ancient Autobot ship that crashed on the moon. The prologue is peppered with archival footage and actors who look nothing like their real-life counterparts. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (who makes a cameo appearance) explore the massive spacecraft and sworn to secrecy about what they've seen. And just when you think the story is building momentum, it all comes crashing back to modern-day Earth as we follow the plight of Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) in the current economic crisis.
Poor Sam has helped the Autobots save the world twice, but he can't find a job and mopes a lot. You'd think he would be way happier considering he has yet another insanely gorgeous girlfriend. Following the acrimonious departure of Megan Fox, Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley replaces her as the pouty lipped, hot chick that runs away from the robots. She plays Carly Spencer, a former British attaché now working for millionaire playboy Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey). The film spends an interminable amount of time introducing us to a cavalcade of new characters like John Malkovich as Sam's orange-skinned boss, Frances McDormand as a director of intelligence, and Ken Jeong doing his usual Ken Jeong schtick. We are also reunited with several returning characters such as soldiers Lt. Col. Lennix (Josh Duhamel) and Robert Epps (Tyrese Gibson), Sam's parents (Kevin Dunn & Julie White), and the eccentric Agent Simmons (John Turturro). It goes on and on until finally scenes of actual importance occur in rapid succession as Decepticons murder human beings and Optimus (voiced once again by Peter Cullen) revives his long-lost predecessor Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy). It all builds to 45 minutes of pure, unadulterated Bay-hem as a full-scale Decepticon invasion force lays waste to downtown Chicago.
Dark is just as loud, obnoxious, and over long as the previous pictures and filled with plot holes big enough for Optimus Prime to drive through. On the positive side, Bay has toned down the puerile humor as well as the blatant misogyny and racism. The ridiculous, buck-toothed Twins from Revenge are thankfully gone though the Joe Pesci-esque Wheelie (Tom Kenny) is still around to provide a poor excuse for comic relief. Still, Michael Bay cannot help being Michael Bay and there is underlying sexism throughout the narrative. Dark of the Moon has no strong female character whatsoever. Women in Bay movies are generally nattering twits (Sam's mother), shrewish harpies (McDormand's Charlotte Mearing) or blatant sex objects (everyone else). This is never more apparent than the replacing of Megan Fox with a lingerie model, who can serve as each one of those archetypes. At least, Bay had no pretensions at all to the role. Why hire an actual actress when all you need is someone to walk around in their underwear. Bay's sensibilities for fast cars and beautiful women are comparable to a hormonal adolescent boy getting aroused by covers of Lowrider displayed at the local supermarket magazine rack.
The first shot of the film following the prologue is a gratuitous butt shot of Huntington-Whiteley as she pads up a staircase barefoot and clad in skimpy panties and a man's dress shirt. Fox may not be an incredibly nuanced actress, but at least she displayed some semblance of personality and got involved in the action scenes. Huntington-Whitely is a complete cipher whose only talents are squeezing into form-fitting dresses and staring blankly into the distance as objects explode behind her in slow motion. Her romance with LaBeouf's Sam arbitrarily runs hot and cold according to narrative conventions.
The main problem with Bay's Transformers films has always been the inordinate amount of screen time wasted on human characters that nobody cares about. You would think a Transformers movie would be about the Transformers. Not that the machines are depicted as multi-dimensional beings. Giving them funny accents are about as deep into characterization as the writers go. There is just something about giant death metal robots clashing and causing massive amounts of property damage which appeals to simple-minded pleasures. Bay provides that in spades with an extended battle in the Windy City as skyscrapers topple and Transformers perform Mortal Kombat-style fatalities on each other. It's certainly the most ambitious action Bay has ever directed. It feels like he watched Independence Day, Cloverfield, Inception, and Spielberg's War of the Worlds and said, "I can do better." However, the climax is lacking in any kind of coherent flow. There's never a sense of where everyone is located in relation to each other and how each section connects with the other. It's more like a jumble of incomplete sequences strung together. Bay appears to be afflicted with the worse case of ADD as scenes and subplots abruptly end as if he walked away halfway through and moved on to the next thing.
Bay also has a habit of recycling the same action sequences over and over. How many times have we seen a highway chase where cars attempt to dodge heavy objects hurtling at them? There's one in every Transformers movie. It's gotten to the point where Bay has lifted entire shots from The Island and reused them for Dark of the Moon. Granted, he was unable to complete the sequence due to the horrific accident to an extra. Nevertheless, the fact that Bay so easily integrated old footage from an entirely different picture speaks volumes to his unoriginality.
The one shining light in Dark of the Moon is Leonard Nimoy, who is related to Bay by marriage, proving you can pick your friends, but not your family. Nimoy previously voiced Galvatron in the animated Transformers: The Movie and imbues a gravelly gravitas to the inane dialogue he's forced to spout. There are also a couple Star Trek references thrown in, a call back to Wrath of Khan and another that cleverly foreshadows a crucial plot twist.
Michael Bay has lashed out at his critics by claiming his movies are meant to be fun summer films, which means his films aren't supposed to have highbrow nonsense like logic, great acting, and a coherent storyline. There's no reason for these things to be mutually exclusive. Iron Man and The Dark Knight are proven examples that big-budget blockbusters don't have to be mind-numbing special effects extravaganzas. Unfortunately, Bay seems more than content to wallow in soulless spectacle and audiences are happy to line up around the block. The two highest grossing movies in 2011 are The Hangover Part II and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Transformers: Dark of the Moon has taken the fourth spot less than a week after release. I admit Dark of the Moon provides a visceral gratification to our base desires of seeing things get blown up, but I crave something with more substance.
Final Thoughts: I caught Dark of the Moon in IMAX 3D and if you are going to see the most excessive movie of the year, see it in the most excessive way possible. The 3D effects are surprisingly effective. The opening sequence, in particular, has a very noticeable depth of field. It's one of the most pleasant 3D experiences I've had and I'm no advocate for the process. There's no feeling of flatness and very little dimming since Bay implored theater owners to burn out their projection bulbs to display the film at the proper brightness levels. The 3D also forces Bay to rethink how he directs action sequences since rapid editing, tight close-ups, and jarring camera movement do not work with 3D cameras.
Rating: ** (*****)
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