Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Michael Bay has out Michael Bay-ed himself.

The Transformers movies always get a lot of flack. Sure their plots are simple, women are just there to be gawked at, and the majority of the film involves things blowing up, but I've always enjoyed them. I played with the toys as a kid and watched the cartoon, so seeing them brought to the big screen was always a joy to me, no matter how "bad" the movies got.

This time around Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is a college grad with no job. We learn his previous girlfriend has broken up with him and he's living with his new flame, Carly. (Rosie Huntington-Whitely, who made Megan Fox look like a thespian. I legitimately missed her.) He thinks he should work with the Autobots, but just wants an easy way in. Our robot story dates back to the war between the Autobots and Decepticons when an Autobot ship crash landed on our moon. The humans knew of this all along, and the ship has something key to our Transformers. Of course the Autobots just want peace, the Decepticons just want power.

There were a lot of things I thought Dark of the Moon did better than Revenge of the Fallen. First, Sam's parents were greatly toned down. They were funny in the first installment, then they were shoved down our throats in the sequel, now they show up for a few minutes, have some great lines and it is left at that. Also the fight scenes between the robots that were so quick, jerky, and frankly, hard to tell who was who are slowed down, but definitely not out down. The thing Michael Bay films tend to do better than other CGI heavy films is he makes it look convincing. The Green Lantern suffered from too much CGI that was felt too fake. Transformers is different. The Robots, explosions, everything is done so well that it doesn't have time to look cheesy. It looks real. There's twice the action of the previous installments as well. Whenever I found myself getting bored, an action sequence pulled me right back in. This brings me to a few things I didn't care for.

The length. The movie was nearly three hours long and honestly a good forty five minutes of that could've been cut out. The movie is littered with many familiar faces, but none are particularly useful. Not that I ever complain about seeing too much John Malcovich or Alan Tudyk, but I could've done without Patrick Dempsey. His character started off interesting, but when he started to show his true colors I felt like he was just putting on a pouty face for the camera instead of actually acting. He doesn't play a good villain. Without spoiling anything I was also a bit bummed out about some of the Robots that bit the dust, but it's not like there's going to be another one after this. (right?) All and all, despite the unnecessary length of the movie I felt it was action packed and a good summer popcorn flick. You can tell the filmmakers realized how much they failed with the second installment, so they brought out all their big guns. It worked.

Recommended: Yes

Grade: C+

Memorable Quote: "It kind of looks like Bumble Bee...if Bumble Bee were a peice of shit." - Judy Witwicky (Julie White)