6 Good Things About Transformers: Dark of the Moon
1. This may stun you, but Dark of the Moon is light-years, and I mean light-years, better than Revenge of the Fallen in almost every single way. The action scenes are better shot, the comic relief is much less intrusive, and the plot has much more emotional weight. I actually cared about whether the Autobots would make it out okay or not. In many ways, Michael Bay actually addressed the complaints of the past movies and tried to make an improved sequel this time around (this doesn’t mean that DofM is a good movie, but I’ll go into detail on that in a little bit).
2. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (there is no way I’m going to remember that name later) plays a much better love interest than Megan Fox in the past Transformers movies. She is more sophisticated, more talented, and (dare I say it) more attractive than Fox. Plus, her character, Carly, plays a much more important role in this story than Mikaela had in the past movies.
3. They got rid of Skids and Mudflap. Not sure if this movie deserves a gold star for making the easiest choice in the world, but it’s worth mentioning nonetheless. (However, they do have replacements…that’s for later)
4. Michael Bay must have spent millions of dollars on sociological and psychological research in order figure out how to make Optimus Prime as badass as possible, because he is a cold-blooded mofo in DotM. He easily slices through hordes of Decepticons with his fire blades as if they were melted butter, all while delivering epic one-liners that would make Arnold Swartzenegger jealous.
5. The Autobots actually made weapons for the humans! About goddamn time!
6. SPOILER ALERT!!! The Decepticons do get handedly demolished at the end of this flick, and you know what that means! NO MORE SEQUELS!!!!!!!!! HOPEFULLY!!!!!!!!! (Bay stepping away from a surefire cash cow like Transformers? Not bloody likely.)
25 Horrible Things About Transformers: Dark of the Moon That Almost Make Me Want to Hunt Down the Fans of this Series with My .12 Gauge
1. This movie almost made me throw up. I’m dead serious. Never in my life have I seen a movie that made me sick to my stomach like this. During the climatic Chicago scene, we had to follow flying-squirrel military soldiers zipping around the downtown area, the main characters struggling to climb up inside of a tipping skyscraper, hundreds upon thousands upon billions of twisting metal robots and cogs, and many other disorienting things, all with super-fast edits. I didn’t get to see this movie in 3D, and I’m so glad I didn’t, because if I did I would have hurled for sure.
2. This movie is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong! My God, how it is long! At 2 hours and 35 minutes, this is the longest Transformers movie yet, and it feels long. I was looking at my watch in the theater, wondering if the movie was going to wind down pretty soon, only to realize that I still had another hour and a half to go. This could have been a great movie if they had chopped off an hour or so of material. As it stands, this movie is excruciating to watch. Just plain excruciating.
3. Shia “Squirrel-Monkey” LeBouf. I know, I am a broken record about him, but I do hate him in these movies. His character, Sam, is so damn whiny in DotM. He complains all the time about how he cannot find a job and how under-appreciated he is, even though he has a brand-new supermodel girlfriend, a surprisingly spacious apartment (so that Bumblebee can go inside of it in a later scene, of course), and a medal from President Barrack freakin’ Obama. Moreover, during the entire film he talks and acts like a cocaine addict. I’m serious, if the film had a shot of Sam snorting up a line, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all. Screw Sam, screw LeBouf, screw his acting, next topic.
4. Sam’s parents. They are back in this movie. I don’t care how little they appear in this movie, they still piss me off! They kill every scene that they are in. They shouldn’t be in this movie at all. They are annoying, unfunny, and unimportant to anything relating to the plot whatsoever.
5. Shameless product placement. Everywhere. Lenovo. Bud Light. Impala. Gillette. FedEx. These are just the few brand names that I can remember, out of the thousands that I noticed. You will lose count of the number of times a product name is spread out across the big screen, and each time it is distracting and blatant.
6. There are so many annoying Star Trek references in this film, and do you know why that is? Because Leonard Nemoy is in this movie. Whoopee-friggin’-do. We see Star Trek playing on Sam’s TV, as well as an awkward mention of the Starship Enterprise during dialogue. The Sentinel Prime, the Transformer that Nemoy voices, even says a famous line from one of the Star Trek movies, although it makes absolutely no sense in its context here. I’m surprised the Sentinel Prime didn’t give the Vulcan salute just for the hell of it. If Bay is trying to reach out to the Star Trek fans, he is failing here (for the record, I’m not a Trekkie; I just happen to know enough about the franchise to have a respect for it)
7. Wheelie, the foul-mouthed Italian-stereotype robot from RotF, is back in DotM, but he really isn’t much of a problem. What is a problem, however, is his new sidekick, Brains. This creature is like a mixture of Beavis from Beavis & Butthead, George Clinton, and (you guessed it) Skids and Mudflap. I don’t think he is as offensive as Skids and Mudflap, but he looks equally as stupid with his fiber-optic hair and his slanted slack jaw. Why a super intelligent robot species would choose to look or sound like either Brains or Wheelie is a complete mystery to me, but all I know is that they deliver some unneeded, ill-timed comic relief during the otherwise dramatic Chicago battle.
8. A tickle ray. REALLY?! A TICKLE RAY??!!! Bumblebee has a tickle ray. Why?! Why the hell would he ever need it?! Are the Transformers even ticklish at all? A TICKLE RAY?!! ARE YOU SERIOUS??!! A tickle ray!
9. Jerry “Deep” Wang, played by Ken Jeong. I knew that Jeong would play a horrible comic relief character in this movie, but I had no idea it would be this bad. I don’t even remember what the point of his character even was, but apparently he had top-secret information about the moon mission to explore the Ark, and he’s more than happy to keep the secret papers hidden right next to his crotch. Anyways, his character, Deep Wang, as he liked to call himself (le sigh), practically molests Sam in his office bathroom and shoves those papers right into Sam’s face. Classy. Overall, this character is obnoxious, unfunny, and unnecessary. Come to think of it, though, he makes an excellent addition to the Transformers saga! Welcome aboard!
10. Another obnoxious comic relief is Dutch, played by Alan Tudyk from Firefly. He is Seymour Simmons’ assistant or something (yes, he’s back in this movie again, but he’s not a problem either), but you’ll remember him as the completely effeminate tool who first appears wearing a sports jacket with huge flowers printed all over it. You know, so you can tell that he’s gay. He does have some funny moments, but this gay caricature is still pretty offensive. Years from now, people are going to look back at this character as an insensitive stereotype much like Mammy from Gone with the Wind.
11. Let’s do another stupid comic relief for good measure: Hardcore Eddie. He is one of the soldiers that attack the Decepticons in the Chicago battle, and all he ever does is talk about how scared he is of the Decepticons and how he would rather be doing other things than fighting them. He is pretty much the same scaredy-pants comic relief as Leo in the last movie and Anthony Anderson’s character in the movie before. Are Bay and the rest of his story development crew so bankrupt of ideas that they resort to reusing the same tired comic relief archetypes?
12. In case you didn’t think the last two movies had any neo-conservative overtones, this movie practically shoves them right down your throat. You see, Megatron hates freedom, and he also hates humans, especially Americans. In fact, he destroys the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial and then sits in his marble throne. Megatron and the Decepticons also indiscriminately shoot military men in Chicago. Add some 9/11 imagery, and you’ve got binding proof that Bay is a right-wing nut. Still don’t believe me? Bill O’Reilly has a cameo as himself here. I rest my case.
13. So, why are the Decepticons destroying Chicago? I mean, it’s bad, no doubt, but why can’t they attack Washington, D.C. or New York City or some other city that is more vital to America? Wouldn’t that make more sense?
14. Furthermore, why would the Decepticons want to warp Cybertron right next to planet Earth? Wouldn’t they crash into each other and destroy both planets? What’s wrong with warping only the citizens to Cybertron?
15. And while we’re at it, if the Decepticons want to keep the humans as slaves (not sure how helpful they could be to the Decepticons, but whatever), why then are they taking a “leave no prisoner” attack strategy and killing everyone they see? Didn’t anyone check for these glaring plot holes??!!
16. I absolutely love this one. About midway through the film, the Decepticons announce that they will leave Earth alone as long as the U.S. government deports the Autobots in a space shuttle, somewhere in space. And the U.S. government agrees. That’s very trusting of us, shipping out our only lines of defense against an unstoppable robotic army, just because these evil robots promised they wouldn’t do the smart thing and take advantage of this situation later. What’s the name of the evil robots again? Oh yeah, the DEEEEEEEEEEEEECEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPTICONS!!! DECEPTICONS!!! AS IN THEY USE DECEPTION!!! My God, how this stupid government deserves to be destroyed!
17. As is tradition with the Transformers movies, the comic relief is terrible. It is much more funny than in RotF, but it is still pretty inefficient. They should call it “comic derailment instead”, because these “funny” moments really destroy any sort of dramatic tone this film is shooting for. The entire section of Sam trying to find a job should have been cut out; it’s pointless and only wastes screen time. This movie could have been an enjoyable hour-and-a-half action flick, but because of the lame jokes thrown about everywhere, it sits at a nauseating 2 ½ hours.
18. I mean, really?! A tickle ray?!
19. Like in the last film, DotM is not really for the kiddies. I mean, come on, a film that sells action figure toys based on characters in the franchise shouldn’t feature red liquid spraying off the decapitated heads of the villains like its Kill Bill or something. There are also a bunch of citizens who are brutally (yet bloodlessly) killed by the Decepticons in the final scene. You can’t have it both ways, Michael Bay; either make Transformers a colorful action movie for the kids or a mature-themed movie for the adults.
20. Some of the Transformers look bad, and I mean cartoonishly bad. I already mentioned Brains, but what about the bald Autobot with the weird spectacles? What about the facial hair on the Sentinel Prime? How does a robot grow facial hair?! And don’t get me started on the stupid-looking green, Igor-ish Decepticon robot that is actually named Igor. That thing stupefied me every single time it showed up on screen.
21. Michael Bay is still a self-promoting jerk. I didn’t notice any shameless plugs for his previous films, but there were some other shameless moments in here. For example, when Wheelie talks about how mean Mikaela was, you can tell that this line came directly from Bay as a sort of revenge against Megan Fox for calling him Hitler. Oh, and during the end credits, Bay’s name is the only one that shimmered. Burn in hell, Michael Bay.
22. Sam should have died. At least 20 times during this film. We’ve seen him flung around so much during this film, and each time there just so happened to be an Autobot to catch him. In one scene, Sam shoots a grappling hook at Starscream’s eye, and this causes Starscream to freak out and swing Sam around all over the place. Realistically, one hit against the parking ramp or even against Starscream’s body and Sam’s brain would have been crushed. But no, Sam makes it out with hardly a scratch on him.
23. And the award for most obsessively clean person in the world goes to…Carly! For making it through the whole Chicago battle, while crashing through office building windows and running through the whole damn city, without leaving a single smudge on her lovely pure white jacket. Congratulations, Carly! (Special thanks to my dad for pointing this one out to me)
24. This movie largely uses and wastes an amazing cast here. You have John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, and John Turturro, a perfect Coen Brothers film cast, and they only have idiotic bit parts in this film. They are all respectable actors, and now they each have a Transformers film on their resumes that will never be removed. Shame on you, Bay!
25. Seriously, how would a tickle ray work?! Does it only tickle humans? We only see it tickle Malkovich’s character. What’s the point of that? Come on, people, a tickle ray??!!!
Conclusion: This movie sucks. It sucks hard. It could suck a golf ball through a garden hose, it sucks so hard. It’s not as bad as RotF, but it was nowhere near as good as the hype would like you to believe. I thought that the action sequence would be so good, and it’s not even as good as the first film’s ending battle. So I urge you to skip this one, and avoid it at all costs. If you must watch a Michael Bay Transformers, make it the first one. At least it is shorter and less nauseating than this piece of crap.
More than meets the eye? Bullshit.
Rating: 2 Stars
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Studio: DreamWorks Pictures
Running time: 155 minutes
Steve, you have some great writing here. Almost makes me want to watch the film.
ReplyDeleteUm, that wasn't my intention, but thank you very much!
ReplyDelete