Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Writer: Ehren Kruger
Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington - Whitely, Josh Duhamel, Leonard Nimoy, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Ken Jeong and Patrick Dempsey
Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington - Whitely, Josh Duhamel, Leonard Nimoy, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Ken Jeong and Patrick Dempsey
Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen were two films that got tore to shreds by a vast majority of the film critic community. Reasons for this critical hate were mainly founded upon the films lack of a coherent plot, the poorly developed “characters” the silly humour and the bombastic, overly done action sequences. Despite the immense amount of problems with the first two Transformers films (particularly the second) I had a blast watching both of them, sure there were dumb but they were sheer summer spectacle at its stupidest, loudest and most technically impressive. I went into the first two Transformers films just wanting to be entertained and awed by the spectacle and both times I was provided with exactly that, in short Transformers and its sequel were my guilty pleasure films. Therefore I went into Transformers: Dark of the Moon with the same expectations, I did not want plot or characters all I wanted was dumb, technically impressive fun. It was dumb, it was technically impressive…but it wasn’t very fun.
There are MANY problems with Transformers: Dark of the Moon but the biggest of all those problems is that it is not fun. The film starts off with a pretty well done prologue showing us brief glimpses of the civil war that tore the Transformer’s planet apart. It then proceeds to embark on laughable attempts to integrate its story into world history with some of the worst J.F.K and even Obama stand ins that I have ever seen. If you have ever seen the Sky One show Dream Team, well the quality of editing they use in that show to integrate their characters in real life games is akin to these early scenes in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Once we get past this opening we are then subjected to an incredibly dull first hour, a first hour which tries way too hard to give this film a story and by the time we get to the much talked about hour long climax, all the plot dealt with in the first hour just goes completely out of the window, rendering it pointless.
All people want and expect from a Transformers films is robots fighting each other, while there obviously has to be exposition and reasons and stakes for their fighting, this scene setting does not have to be an hour or so long. The Transformers films should be 90 minutes long and be sheer shameless action, with ten to 15 minutes either side between that. The whole opening hour of this film is not only poorly written, poorly acted but just plain dull and oddly action light. The whole moon conspiracy element of the plot is poorly done and the performances of Ken Jeong and John Malkovich are just annoying and not funny in the slightest. Actually John Malkovich has one funny line but like a lot of this film his character could have easily been cut out.
The fact that the first hour or so is purely dedicated to exposition means that all of the films main action is shoved into the final hour of the picture. This means that we have one hour of non stop action…now that may sound appealing on paper but watching it is completely different prospect. There are some great things in this hour and there is no doubting the technical accomplishments of the film. However the pacing for this film is all off, you do not have one full hour of action. The action needed to be spread out over the course of the film not just all in one big go. In short the pacing and plotting of this film is all off, the first hour is dull and the second hour starts off as exciting but then fast becomes tedious. When we finally get to the stuff that you actually paid to see, you want to stand up, take those 3D glasses off and go home.
Now there are of course a ton of plot holes and moments of sheer nonsensical stupidity in this film but I don’t feel the need to pick on them because I expected it. I expected the movie to be dumb and not to make sense what I did not expect was that I would have to sit through an hour of poorly done and dull exposition to get to what the Transformers films are all about only for that to become a chore to watch due to the way it was all shoved into one go late into the films narrative.
In terms of the acting again Transformers is not a film that you should judge on acting and story. Shia Labeouf was somebody who I actually found funny and enjoyable to watch in the first Transformers films but he is very annoying in this film. All he does is run and scream, run and scream, HEROIC MOMEMT, run and scream etc. A lot of attention is on Rosie Huntington Whitely who is the replacement for Megan Fox. She is perfectly fine in her role as all her role requires her to do is walk around in tight jeans, revealing dresses and be saved again and again by Sam Witwicky. The only real talent in the cast are Malkovich and Mcdormand who are given annoying, poorly written supporting character roles.
This film also takes itself way too seriously. I know a lot of people objected to the infantile toilet humour of the previous Transformers films but I am sorry they helped and were necessary (well some of it) in breaking up the onslaught of the action and keeping the tone light. This film seems to completely lose the sense of fun the first two films had and I think I know exactly why. Ehren Kruger is the man who wrote Scream 3, a film, which I did not hate but also is a case of a film losing what made its predecessors so enjoyable. Now Kruger has done exactly the same with the Transformers films, he seems to with his script lost his grip completely of what made the first two films dumb fun.
Terrible pacing, a dull first half and an overly done second and a complete lack of fun are the problems at the heart of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. If you add that to the accepted lack of a coherent plot, bad acting and poorly developed characters then you get a film that fails to deliver the guilty pleasure thrills I was seeking. I could have forgiven the film, like I did the first two for all of its accepted flaws if it had provided the same sense of fun I got out of the first two, hadn’t taken itself so seriously and hadn’t been so poorly plotted.
On a positive note however, Transformers: Dark of the Moon is not completely without its achievements. Technically this film is stunning and the sound and visual effects are worthy of Oscar nominations and even wins. There is also one sequence in this film that makes me wish I had seen the film in IMAX (The only way I would want to sit through this two and a half hours again would be if somebody paid for me to see it in this form) As a certain sequence where U.S army soldiers jump off planes and buildings and soar through the Chicago skyline are stunning to see just in 3D on a an average cinema screen, I cannot imagine the effect of those shots in IMAX. Speaking of the 3D, like the film it needed to be dumb and shameless. Save for that one sequence I mentioned the 3D was once again relatively pointless. IMAX, yes, 3D? No.
Nobody can direct action quite like Michael Bay and you cannot deny that the man delivers spectacle. Another sequence that comes to mind is the cutting in half of a building, that entire sequence while dragged out, is superbly done on a technical stand point. Beyond those two great action sequences, the amazing special effects and sound design and the music, there is nothing else about Transformers: Dark of the Moon that is note worthy in a positive sense. I wanted to enjoy it and have the dumb fun time at the movies that the first two films gave me. People are praising this film and saying it is the best in the series because that is the “cool” thing to do, Transformers 2 was not that bad and in fact it was a hell of a lot more fun that Dark of the Moon.
A terribly paced, terribly plotted film which completely lacks any sense of fun whatsoever. The visual effects, sound design, music and some of the action sequences may be incredibly well done but this is a film that is way too long and takes itself too seriously.
There are MANY problems with Transformers: Dark of the Moon but the biggest of all those problems is that it is not fun. The film starts off with a pretty well done prologue showing us brief glimpses of the civil war that tore the Transformer’s planet apart. It then proceeds to embark on laughable attempts to integrate its story into world history with some of the worst J.F.K and even Obama stand ins that I have ever seen. If you have ever seen the Sky One show Dream Team, well the quality of editing they use in that show to integrate their characters in real life games is akin to these early scenes in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Once we get past this opening we are then subjected to an incredibly dull first hour, a first hour which tries way too hard to give this film a story and by the time we get to the much talked about hour long climax, all the plot dealt with in the first hour just goes completely out of the window, rendering it pointless.
All people want and expect from a Transformers films is robots fighting each other, while there obviously has to be exposition and reasons and stakes for their fighting, this scene setting does not have to be an hour or so long. The Transformers films should be 90 minutes long and be sheer shameless action, with ten to 15 minutes either side between that. The whole opening hour of this film is not only poorly written, poorly acted but just plain dull and oddly action light. The whole moon conspiracy element of the plot is poorly done and the performances of Ken Jeong and John Malkovich are just annoying and not funny in the slightest. Actually John Malkovich has one funny line but like a lot of this film his character could have easily been cut out.
The fact that the first hour or so is purely dedicated to exposition means that all of the films main action is shoved into the final hour of the picture. This means that we have one hour of non stop action…now that may sound appealing on paper but watching it is completely different prospect. There are some great things in this hour and there is no doubting the technical accomplishments of the film. However the pacing for this film is all off, you do not have one full hour of action. The action needed to be spread out over the course of the film not just all in one big go. In short the pacing and plotting of this film is all off, the first hour is dull and the second hour starts off as exciting but then fast becomes tedious. When we finally get to the stuff that you actually paid to see, you want to stand up, take those 3D glasses off and go home.
Now there are of course a ton of plot holes and moments of sheer nonsensical stupidity in this film but I don’t feel the need to pick on them because I expected it. I expected the movie to be dumb and not to make sense what I did not expect was that I would have to sit through an hour of poorly done and dull exposition to get to what the Transformers films are all about only for that to become a chore to watch due to the way it was all shoved into one go late into the films narrative.
In terms of the acting again Transformers is not a film that you should judge on acting and story. Shia Labeouf was somebody who I actually found funny and enjoyable to watch in the first Transformers films but he is very annoying in this film. All he does is run and scream, run and scream, HEROIC MOMEMT, run and scream etc. A lot of attention is on Rosie Huntington Whitely who is the replacement for Megan Fox. She is perfectly fine in her role as all her role requires her to do is walk around in tight jeans, revealing dresses and be saved again and again by Sam Witwicky. The only real talent in the cast are Malkovich and Mcdormand who are given annoying, poorly written supporting character roles.
This film also takes itself way too seriously. I know a lot of people objected to the infantile toilet humour of the previous Transformers films but I am sorry they helped and were necessary (well some of it) in breaking up the onslaught of the action and keeping the tone light. This film seems to completely lose the sense of fun the first two films had and I think I know exactly why. Ehren Kruger is the man who wrote Scream 3, a film, which I did not hate but also is a case of a film losing what made its predecessors so enjoyable. Now Kruger has done exactly the same with the Transformers films, he seems to with his script lost his grip completely of what made the first two films dumb fun.
Terrible pacing, a dull first half and an overly done second and a complete lack of fun are the problems at the heart of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. If you add that to the accepted lack of a coherent plot, bad acting and poorly developed characters then you get a film that fails to deliver the guilty pleasure thrills I was seeking. I could have forgiven the film, like I did the first two for all of its accepted flaws if it had provided the same sense of fun I got out of the first two, hadn’t taken itself so seriously and hadn’t been so poorly plotted.
On a positive note however, Transformers: Dark of the Moon is not completely without its achievements. Technically this film is stunning and the sound and visual effects are worthy of Oscar nominations and even wins. There is also one sequence in this film that makes me wish I had seen the film in IMAX (The only way I would want to sit through this two and a half hours again would be if somebody paid for me to see it in this form) As a certain sequence where U.S army soldiers jump off planes and buildings and soar through the Chicago skyline are stunning to see just in 3D on a an average cinema screen, I cannot imagine the effect of those shots in IMAX. Speaking of the 3D, like the film it needed to be dumb and shameless. Save for that one sequence I mentioned the 3D was once again relatively pointless. IMAX, yes, 3D? No.
Nobody can direct action quite like Michael Bay and you cannot deny that the man delivers spectacle. Another sequence that comes to mind is the cutting in half of a building, that entire sequence while dragged out, is superbly done on a technical stand point. Beyond those two great action sequences, the amazing special effects and sound design and the music, there is nothing else about Transformers: Dark of the Moon that is note worthy in a positive sense. I wanted to enjoy it and have the dumb fun time at the movies that the first two films gave me. People are praising this film and saying it is the best in the series because that is the “cool” thing to do, Transformers 2 was not that bad and in fact it was a hell of a lot more fun that Dark of the Moon.
A terribly paced, terribly plotted film which completely lacks any sense of fun whatsoever. The visual effects, sound design, music and some of the action sequences may be incredibly well done but this is a film that is way too long and takes itself too seriously.
Summary:
Besides two standout action sequences, stunning visual effects and sound design and a great score, Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a poorly paced; overlong, unenjoyable and forgettable bore.
Rating: 3/10
Rating: 3/10
Written by Movie Parliament Prime Minister
Michael Dalton
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Michael Dalton
Disagree with this review? Let us know your thoughts on Transformers: Dark of the Moon in the Your Say section.
