Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) Review

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

Judgment Time #1- Transformers: Dark of the Moon

“Judgment Time” is a periodic feature that I will now do every once in a while on this site.  In it, I will look at an upcoming heavily hyped film and discuss (using the advertising material, production news stories, and other sources) whether the movie should be seen or skipped in the theaters.  This is intended to help those who are considering watching this movie right as it comes out without reading any other review.  This is NOT meant to be a review of the film; this is merely a prediction based on what I’ve observed in the past and from the trailers I’ve seen.  So without further ado, let’s get to the first movie of this series, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which is due to come out June 29th.

The Series Up To Now

Let me start by saying that the Michael Bay Transformers series so far has been one of the most despicable film series that I have ever seen.  You can read my reviews of those two movies here and here, but I’ll give you quick synopses on what I thought.  The first one had some decent moments in it, but lacked many essential elements that could have made it an endearing film.  Revenge of the Fallen was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and those who enjoyed it should off themselves for the sake of our gene pool’s future.  There are so many layers of suck in that film, I don’t even think that my detailed review of it covered a quarter of them.  Common complaints that I’ve had with both movies include annoying characters, sickening editing, barely recognizable and distinguishable robots, lame jokes that often rely on racist presuppositions, and hackneyed scripts that make for an overall immature story.  It goes without saying that I hated both films.

However, that doesn’t mean that I am predestined to hate Dark of the Moon.  Actually, I believe that it will be the best film in the series, which isn’t saying a whole lot.  Still, I’ve heard a lot of positive press about it.  Michael Bay has publicly admitted to the mistakes he made with Revenge of the Fallen and the attempts he made to rectify them in Dark of the Moon.  Actors Shia LeBouef and Tyrese Gibson have both gone on record to say that DotM will be the best film in the series.  Furthermore, starpower heavyhitters such as Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, and Patrick Dempsey are set to appear in this flick.  All of this buzz sounds pretty promising, and yet a lot of it sounds like press release material used to further hype the film.  It’s hard to say now without actually seeing the film, but I have a pretty optimistic feeling that DotM will be an improved film.  I mean, it could not POSSIBLY be worse than Revenge of the Fallen, right?

The Love Interest

Of course, the biggest news from DotM’s production is that Megan Fox will not be returning to reprise her role as Mikaela, Sam’s love interest.  Honestly, I don’t have much of an opinion on this matter.  I mean, I didn’t really have a huge problem with Mikaela in the first two movies.  Sure, she was obviously there as eye candy, and she did have some dramatic moments that were hilariously bad, but Fox was one of the least offensive aspects in the Transformers series compared to the rest of its terrible crap.  It is kind of depressing, though, to see this actress turn her back on those who helped start her career up, just so that she can be featured in a string of bad movies (Jennifer’s Body, Jonah Hex, and Passion Play).

So out with Fox and in with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, slated to play Sam’s new love interest, Carly.  I am frankly a bit worried that Huntington-Whiteley has not had any acting experience, working only as a fashion model up to now.  This, coupled with the fact that of every actress considered for the role was a model at some point, is pretty telling as to what Bay wants in a female costar.  Also, I wonder how the writers of DotM are going to handle Sam and Mikaela’s apparent breakup, seeing has the relationship had two full movies to develop.  Overall, I am not looking forward to this introduction to the new love interest.

The Trailers and Commercials

From what I’ve seen, the advertising material for DotM does not reveal much about the movie and its story.  From what I’ve gathered from the trailers, history is reinterpreted as it is revealed that the legendary American mission to the Moon in 1969 was actually a mission to investigate a wrecked Autobot spacecraft on the Moon’s surface.  This idea sets off a number of red flags for me, but I will spare you from them for now.  Anyway, the realization of this in the present day leads a climatic progression in the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, which once again involves Sam Witwicky and the other familiar characters.

The latest trailer especially seemed to have made a grand impression on a lot of people, and I can see why.  The tone in the trailer is much darker and more foreboding than anything we’re used to in the past two films.  We see much larger scale attacks on cities, including spacecraft that bomb through the business district and a snake-like Decepticon that constricts an entire office building.  It all looks pretty promising, but the trailer mostly appears to be comprised of third-act material.  It is easy make a two-and-a-half minute trailer look good when you only use the most exciting clips of the film.  Still, compared to the trailers of the previous films, DotM looks like a much more serious and mature story.

Michael Bay and His Changes

So Michael Bay has released a number of statements claiming that he now recognizes how bad Revenge of the Fallen was and how things are going to be different with Dark of the Moon.  He blamed much of the failure of RotF on the big writer’s strike of that year and claims that the story is much more polished this time around.  Furthermore, Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman, two of the writers of the last two movies, are apparently not involved with DotM (even though there are rumors that they contributed to the script in some way).  Hey, I’m all for changing the writing staff after the terrible script of RotF, but it isn’t that comforting to realize that Ehren Kruger is now the head writer for DotM.  For those who don’t know, Kruger is the “genius” behind such films as Scream 3 and 4, Blood and Chocolate, and my personal favorite whipping boy, Reindeer Games.  Needless to say, I’m not at all confident in the written story.

Another big change in DotM is that most of it was shot in 3D.  Great.  I’m sure that I am not the first one to say this, but the 3D fad has now passed.  Judging from the most recent 3D film sales, no one is really excited to see movies in 3D anymore.  They double the price tag of a normal movie ticket, they give some people headaches and eye strains, and the silly required glasses needed to view the effects darken the whole screen.  But it’s movies like DotM that keep extending the life of this fad, making it hard to see this type of film in 2D.  And by the way, do not even get me started on the re-release of the entire Star Wars series in theaters in 3D.  Jar Jar Binks will fly right at my face only in my darkest nightmares (shudder).

Speaking about horrible characters that represent horrendous racial stereotypes, let’s talk about the much beloved comedy duo of the series, Skids and Mudflap.  Apparently, according to Michael Bay, they are NOT going to appear in DotM, even though Skids (yes, I can tell which one is which) is clearly seen in the latest trailer, and Bay had previously defended both of them in past interviews.  Bay is even offering a ridiculous “$25,000 Challenge”, in which he will give anyone a large sum of money if they happen to find Skids and Mudflap anywhere in the movie.  Honestly, I don’t care if they are in DotM or not; the damage has already been done.  Plus, it sounds like they are going to be replaced by some other robots that are “street smart”, which is a euphemistic buzzword for “gangsta-stereotype”.  I expect no less than the same racial sensitivity seen in the past Transformers films.

So all in all, Bay is promising a much different Transformers movie then we’ve seen before.  The thing is, though, the trailer reveals a lot of the same elements that have dogged the series from the beginning.  The lens flares, the multitude of nameless grey robots, the mindless, glorified violence against them, John Turturro as Agent Simmons, and of course, Shia the rabid squirrel-monkey.  Ken Jeong is going to have a role in DotM, and I know that it is going to be the same over-the-top, unfunny comedic cameo that have been performed by Bernie Mac and Rainn Wilson in the past movies.  Bay better not be lying through his teeth by differentiating DotM from the other Transformers films and then having it end up just like the others.

The Early Review

On May 14^th, Capone from Ain’t It Cool News’ website published a review of a test screening for DotM (you can view it here).  The review is very positive, praising the darker imagery of the city attacks and actually calling the script “clever”.  He ends the review by saying “I’m genuinely surprised what a strong effort this film is, not just in terms of its scope, but also in its pacing, performances, and ideas.”

I’ll let you read the review and judge for yourselves, but let me put in my two cents.  To me, the review feels a little too personal, in that much of the praise the reviewer gives strictly comes from his own personal experiences.  For example, he found the Chicago scenes to be very moving because he lives in Chicago.  That’s good for him, but what about the rest of us who don’t live in Chicago?  Are we going to be as emotionally invested in the city as he is?  I mean, it’s not like the robots haven’t destroyed cities before; that’s not really what we, potential audience members, are concerned about.

Speaking of which, Capone also doesn’t really answer to some of the major complaints that popped up in the past films.  Like, is the comic relief going to be as pervasive as before?  Will we actually care about the old characters, or are they still going to be as annoying as ever?  How about the new characters, which seem to be a lot this time around?  How about the editing?  Is the story going to have huge plot holes as the previous films?  Is the racist humor cut out of this film?  He seems to just glance over these problems and solely talk about the cool action shots.  It could be because he doesn’t want to spoil the story, which I respect, but I’m very suspicious that this review is serving as a promotion tool for the film.

The Verdict:  Skip It

There is no doubt in my mind that Dark of the Moon is going to be the best Michael Bay Transformers movie, but I still don’t think that it will be worth watching.  As far as I can see, DotM is going to be as shallow and as loud as ever before, and of course, Michael Bay will always be Michael Bay.  I really hope that I am wrong, though.  I want people to enjoy the movies that they see in theaters.  If you hear any good reviews of the film after its launch, please listen to them before you heed my advice.  I’ll even try to do a review of the movie (easier said than done, since I am so very poor).  However, before the reviews arrive, please do not go rush out to see Dark of the Moon.  It’s not like you are hurting the film studio’s feelings; they’re too busy rolling in the money they conned people out of with Revenge of the Fallen.  If it’s June 29^th and you absolutely have to watch a movie in a theater, make it X-Men: The First Class instead.  I heard nothing but good things about it.

So long, and enjoy your summer!