Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Dir. Michael Bay (2011)

"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: ** (*****)

Life as We Know It

Life as We Know It - Dir. Greg Berlanti (2010)

Katherine Heigl doesn't seem to have a problem biting the hand that feeds her. She made digs at the writing staff of Grey's Anatomy and lambasted Knocked Up for its sexist themes, despite the fact that the film made her a movie star. Ironically, Heigl would participate in features that were far more misogynistic and insipid. She's frequently cast as the shrill and vapid control freak in a continuing stream of empty-headed romantic comedies. Life as We Know It isn't any different as Heigl once again plays an uptight professional woman who is thrust into motherhood with an emotionally immature man-child.

Heigl is Holly Berenson, the owner of a bakery and catering service, who is best friends with Alison Novak (Christina Hendricks). Josh Duhamel is the subtly named Eric Messer, a technical director for the Atlanta Hawks, who is best friends with Alison's husband, Peter (Hayes MacArthur). The Novaks figure their long-time buddies would make the perfect couple and set them up on what turns out to be a disastrous blind date. Holly wears a slinky cocktail dress. Messer is dressed in a leather jacket and tattered baseball cap. She drives a Smart Car. He rides a motorcycle. Oh, how will it ever work out? Well, it doesn't at first.

Two years later, Peter and Alison are killed in a car accident. They leave custody of their 1-year old daughter, Sophia, to the bewildered Holly and Messer. The newfound parents have a difficult time balancing their work and social lives with raising a baby. Holly and Messer may smart and successful people, but one dirty diaper later, they're suddenly bumbling idiots. One montage later though and suddenly they've turned things around and slowly realize just how much they match up as a family.

Life as We Know It is on the level of a bad sitcom. It's like a pilot for a throwback to the TGIF line-up. The film is full of stock characters that get into stock situations that are easily solved as sappy music plays in the background. Life is stepped in rom-com clichés with Holly romancing a good-looking pediatrician (Josh Lucas) who acts as the third wheel in the relationship. He's the nice, bland guy who gets dumped for the leading man. There's an extremely forced, second act complication that breaks the couple apart just so they can have another idiotic scene where one character rushes to the airport to catch the other before it's too late. The humor is equally inane with scenes of Heigl getting poop on her face and watching The Wiggles while stoned.

Life as We Know It is overly sentimental drivel, but it's harmless, sentimental drivel and that's the nicest, backhanded compliment I can pay it.

Rating: * (*****)

Transformers

Transformers - Dir. Michael Bay (2007)

Any child of the 80's will remember how their Saturday mornings and after-school afternoons were spent watching mind numbing cartoons based around toylines. For girls, there was My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, and Rainbow Brite. For the lads, there was G.I. Joe, Thundercats, He-Man, and Voltron. Without a doubt, one of the most popular franchises was Transformers. The concept was pretty simple. Boys love playing with cars and robots. What if they had a toy that was both? Hasbro bought the rights to several toylines in Japan and merged them into one brand for distribution in the States. They created an entire world of colorful characters with assistance from Marvel Comics and tasked Sunbow Productions with animating the TV show. Hasbro, Marvel, and Sunbow were also the Holy Trinity behind the G.I. Joe series. Over the next three decades, the original Transformers (dubbed by fans as G1 or Generation 1) would return in various incarnations like Beast Wars, Transformers: Armada, Robots in Disguise, and numerous shows that aired only in Japan. The original series was also spun-off into Transformers: The Movie, a feature film version that traumatized countless children due to the death of the heroic Optimus Prime.

Fans have clamored for a live-action adaptation and they finally got it thanks to Michael Bay, master of mayhem and entrepreneur of explosions. Bay knows how to construct spectacular action sequences (or at least he thinks he does) and screenwriters Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman have become Hollywood's go-to guys, but it was executive producer Steven Spielberg who knew how to crack the story. It was his idea to inject a little E.T. flavor to the film by making the movie revolve around the story of a boy and his car.

In this case, the boy is Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), a dorky high schooler who has the hots for the insanely gorgeous Mikaela (Megan Fox). Hoping to make some extra cash to get a car, Sam sells paraphernalia belonging to his great-grandfather, a famous explorer. Among those items include a pair of glasses with a map etched into them that leads to a powerful source of energy known as the Cube. Two tribes of alien robots from outer space are after the Cube. The benevolent Autobots wish to use the Cube to restore their dying homeworld, Cybertron. The evil Decepticons want to use it to conquer the universe.

Transformers weaves together several plot threads with the central story being Sam and Mikaela making first contact with the Autobots. We also follow a detachment of American soldiers in the Middle East as they are being pursued by Decepticons. Finally, there's a subplot involving government officials investigating the possibilities of an alien invasion.

The cast also includes Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as two of the lead soldiers. Jon Voight co-stars as the Secretary of Defense with John Turturro as an eccentric man in black, and Aussie actress Rachael Taylor as the world's hottest computer analyst. Fans of the original cartoon will be pleased to hear Peter Cullen once again provide the voice for Optimus Prime. The late-Bernie Mac appears in a bit role as a car salesman while Hugo Weaving is the voice of Decepticon leader, Megatron.

As the director of shlock like Bad Boys and The Rock, Michael Bay was probably as good a choice as any to helm a movie about giant robots. The action sequences are chaotic and loud enough to make the toughest ears bleed. The special effects by ILM are impeccable and there's never a moment when the Transformers looked phony. The transformation sequences are incredibly detailed with shifting panels and whirling cogs. While the visuals are amazing, the story leaves much to be desired.

First of all, the film is called Transformers, not 'Lame Humans We Don't Care About.' The picture spends far too much time with bland cardboard characters, despite the fact that the Transformers are far more interesting. Many of the scenes involving different government departments could have been cut and the less said about Anthony Anderson's annoying hacker, the better. Speaking of which, what is it with Michael Bay and juvenile humor? Black people always seem to be wacky comic relief in his films. If I go to see a movie about giant robots, I want to see them smashing stuff, I don't want to see them spend ten minutes playing hide and seek while a dog pees on one of them. Finally, who came up with the brilliant strategy of leading the death metal robots into a heavily crowded city in the middle of the day?

MICHAEL BAY RAPED MY CHILDHOOD!!! That was the rallying cry for Transfans the world over after Transformers hit theaters. It can still be heard to this day. Optimus Prime has flame decals. Michael Bay raped my childhood! Bumblebee is a Camaro. Michael Bay raped my childhood! While I wouldn't break out the torches and pitchforks, I will say Bay's Transformers is all sound and fury with a distinct lack of substance.

Rating: ** ½

When in Rome

When in Rome - Dir. Mark Steven Johnson (2010)


Was it too much to hope that When in Rome would bring something new to the table to the stagnant romantic comedy genre? Considering the film was written by the team behind Old Dogs, David Diamond and David Weissman, the answer is an emphatic yes.

Kristen Bell is the archetypal female lead, a Type-A career woman. In this case, she’s Beth Harper, a curator for the Guggenheim. Sadly, no twenty minute shootouts ala The International occur in this film. She flies off to Rome to attend her younger sister’s wedding. Beth is a cynic about love and doesn’t give much of a chance to her sibling’s impending nuptials. However, Beth hits it off with Nick Beamon (Josh Duhamel), a dashing sports writer whose football career was cut short after being struck by lightning. No, really…

When Beth sees Nick kissing another woman, she gets drunk and stumbles into a fountain and pulls out four coins and a poker chop, believing she is liberating those wishes. Instead, the men (glorified cartoon characters) who tossed them in originally fall madly in love with Beth due to the magic of the fountain. They include Dax Shephard as a narcissistic male model, Jon Heder as a Criss Angel-looking street magician, Will Arnett as an Italian artist, and Danny DeVito as a sausage magnate. Hmm…I wonder if he knows Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago.

These suitors stalk Beth all the way back to New York City. Nick is also making an attempt to woo Beth, but the question remains whether or not his love is real. As if you didn’t already know the answer.

I’ll give When in Rome a single shred of credit for not following the paint-by-numbers formula that all rom-coms do nowadays. No, Rome is a screwball comedy all the day and I doubt anyone has been clamoring for its return. I loved the classics like His Girl Friday, but the genre was laid to rest by Peter Bogdanovich’s homage, What’s Up, Doc?, and, aside from perhaps A Fish Called Wanda, the genre has been flatlining ever since. Not even the Coens could resuscitate it with Intolerable Cruelty and its star George Clooney failed as well with Leatherheads.

When in Rome won’t be heading up a revival anytime soon. The film uses only the broadest strokes in its lame attempts at slapstick humor. Nick falls down holes and bumps into things. Not for any reason, he just bumps into things because that’s supposed to be funny. You know your movie is in trouble when the best gag you can come up with is having your lead characters drive around town in a ludicrously tiny car. Another scene finds Beth and Nick dining at a restaurant where the lights are turned out and the wait staff wears night vision goggles. I’m sure it sounded funnier on paper (actually, it doesn’t), but the sequence is such a mess that you wish they had just shot the whole damn movie in the dark. One of the staples of the screwball comedy was witty, rapid-fire dialogue. There is none of that in When in Rome. Nope, we get characters who say, “My bad,” which got annoying two seconds after the first time it was ever said.

Kristen Bell, who was so good in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, doesn’t have much of a presence in the lead role. Duhamel is so bland as the romantic interest, you probably could have stuck any generic pretty boy (Paul Walker, I’m looking at you) into the role and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Jon Heder is the saddest of the bunch, still desperately trying to milk whatever is left of his Napoleon Dynamite fame.

When in Rome was directed by Mark Steven Johnson who also helmed Daredevil and Ghost Rider. Let’s just say, his contributions here won’t ever be compared to Howard Hawks or Preston Sturges. I do hope Johnson makes more films like this. If he keeps making crappy romantic comedies, he won’t be able to make anymore crappy comic book movies.

Rating: * ½

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - Dir. Michael Bay (2009)

I previously thought Transformers was the most Michael Bay that Michael Bay ever Michael Bay-ed. But, the Bay actually out-Bays himself with the sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The second film based on the popular Hasbro toyline is bigger, louder and longer than every previous version of the property combined. It’s a two and a half hour assault on the senses. Notice I haven’t said anything about it being a great movie?

Like most sequels, Revenge of the Fallen has more of everything, more robots, more action, more characters, more explosions (including one that took seven months to set up) and more glamour shots of Megan Fox, etc. It actually has more story. Not a better story, just more half-ass subplots strung together into a semi-coherent narrative.

It’s been two years since the Transformers arrived on Earth. The Autobots led by Optimus Prime (voiced again by Peter Cullen) battle alongside an international taskforce led by Maj. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson) in hunting down any remaining Decepticons still in hiding. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) says goodbye to his Autobot protector Bumblebee and girlfriend, Mikaela (Megan Fox) as he prepares to go to college. I don’t remember what school he enrolled in, but every female student is thin, flawlessly beautiful, lathered in make-up, and horny for advanced theoretical physics. Sam’s new roommate is Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez), a tech head who runs a conspiracy theory website attempting to uncover the truth about the Transformers. Leo replaces Anthony Anderson’s character as the annoying, comedic sidekick computer nerd. Meanwhile, Sam’s long-distance relationship with Mikaela is put to the test by an overly aggressive co-ed (Isabel Lucas).

Sam barely makes it through day one before his hopes of a normal life are dashed. He breaks out into near-epileptic fits after touching a sliver of the Allspark that had been destroyed in the first film. He goes into John Nash mode, seeing ancient Cybertronian hieroglyphs everywhere. The Decepticons want what’s in Sam’s mind as it will lead them to a machine that can destroy the sun and harness it into their fuel source, Energon. The villainous robots resurrect their leader, Megatron (Hugo Weaving), who now takes his orders from the title character, the Fallen (voiced by Candyman Tony Todd). The Fallen was one of the original Transformers who betrayed his mechanical brothers. He’s the Palpatine to Megatron’s Darth Vader.

There’s also a government toady who blames the Autobots for all the death metal destruction and pushes to have them deported off-planet. John Turturro’s Agent Simmons is also back, now working the counter at his mom’s deli.

Where there were about a dozen Transformers in the first film, Bay ups the ante for the sequel with forty-six even including fan-favorites such as Soundwave (once again voiced by Frank Welker who also did Ravage), the Constructicons who merge into the much-larger Devastator, and Arcee, one of the few female Transformers. Many die-hard Transfans will likely be disappointed by their long-awaited appearances. Devastator is reduced to a lumbering quadruped whose main form of attack is to literally suck. There’s also Jetfire, a geriatric Decepticon who defected to the Autobots long ago. He’s nothing more than a plot device to move the characters from point A to point B and drop a huge chunk of exposition in the middle of the film. The biggest problem with the increase in the Transformer population is the fact that you can only tell a handful of them apart. This muddies up the action sequences when you have no idea who is who. Was that an Autobot that got destroyed or a Decepticon? The filmmakers don’t seem to have a clue either as some of the same Constructicons that formed Devastator can also be seen battling the Autobots elsewhere in the desert.

It also doesn’t help when Michael Bay directs the majority of the action with the patience of a ten-year old with ADD on a truckload of methamphetamines. Bay can’t keep the camera still for a second to allow the audience to actually watch the battle, instead choosing to pan the camera around and around in a dizzying pattern. Just because the camera constantly moves doesn’t make the scene more interesting.

With so many new characters, many of the original characters that the audience have known and become attached to are marginalized here. Lennox and Epps barely factor into the film. While Sam and Mikaela were able to get in on some of the action in the first film, they’re relegated here to screaming at the top of their lungs or running away from explosions in slow motion. Ironhide and Ratchet, two of the only Transformers I can actually recognize, hardly do anything either. Even the Fallen, who is supposed to be the big bad, maybe only gets fifteen minutes of screen time and hardly seems anymore menacing than any other Decepticon. No, the Transformers who appear to get the most screen time are the Twins, Mudflap and Skids (one voiced by Reno Wilson, the other by Spongebob Squarepants himself, Tom Kenny), who have garnered a lot of controversy in the press. The pair have big ears, bugged out eyes, buck teeth (one of them gold), and speak in Ebonics. They’re stupid, illiterate and on a level of annoyance that rivals Jar Jar Binks. Remember that annoying, unfunny little robot from the first film? Well, Bay throws in two. There’s an evil version of the microscope Autobot, Perceptor, in The Doctor, a Decepticon microscope that turns into a spider-like robot with glasses that speaks in a German accent. Always one to run a crappy joke into the ground, Michael Bay also throws in Wheelie, an RC 4x4 who looks like Wall-E’s evil cousin and inexplicably speaks like an extra from Goodfellas. He humps Megan Fox’s leg too, not that I blame him.

Does the idea of a robot humping a woman’s leg not seem funny to you? Michael Bay apparently thought it was so hilarious; he also threw in two scenes of dogs humping each other. Bay’s excesses and lack of originality run deeper than just recycling the same shots in every one of his films. He repeats the same lame jokes that revel in the fact that they target the lowest common denominator. We get the robots with bad teeth as well as a butcher with bad teeth trying to earn money for dental work. There’s dry-humping, Transformer testicles and an exceedingly long gag involving Sam’s mother tripping out on pot brownies. Curse words are liberally dropped into dialogue that’s already as clunky as the Transformers themselves. For a film that’s essentially selling toys to kids, Revenge is hardly family friendly.

There are some positive contributions in Revenge. The special effects are the usual top-notch work from ILM. The Transformers fit seamlessly into their surroundings and there are moments where you believe they are standing side-by-side with their human compatriots. Catching the film in IMAX and seeing Optimus Prime in scale was pretty cool. Starscream (one of my favorite characters) gets a bit more to do in the sequel and his additional dialogue brings him more in line with his G1 incarnation.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the perfect embodiment of every negative aspect of the summer blockbuster. It’s a film that panders to the bases, adolescent desires. It’s loud, obnoxious, and unrelenting. Its junk food and for some that’s more than enough to satisfy their appetites. The thing about junk food is, it gives you a quick fix, but you’re eventually left hungry for a real meal. Films like Iron Man and The Dark Knight proved you can be a big-budget action spectacle with a smart story and genuine emotion. Revenge simply substitutes noise and movement for any type of true emotional connection. The audience isn’t taken along for a journey as much as press ganged into it and yanked along. This is the type of messy sequel that was churned out of the Matrix and Pirates franchises. Whatever weak plot it possesses is only there to service a string of action scenes that are directed either blandly or nonsensically by Michael Bay.

Rating: * ½