Transformers: Dark of the Moon Review

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Review
I like roller coasters, they are fun, they are exciting, and they thrill me. They also last only 40 to 60 seconds. There is a reason roller coasters are only seconds long. If they lasted longer they would make you sick, they would cease to be fun, and people would not ride them any longer. Transformers: Dark of the Moon is like a 3 hour roller coaster. It just makes you sick.

A lot of people are saying that Dark of the Moon is the best of the Transformers movies. Of course thats like saying I am the smartest kid on the short bus. I enjoyed the first Transformers, for the most part it was clever, and gave me exactly what I wanted in a Transformers movie, namely giant alien robots blowing stuff up. The second Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, was a horrific, unfunny, borderline racist piece of trash. But somehow it made money, and earned what many are calling a redemptive sequel. Dark of the Moon is a better sequel than Revenge of the Fallen, but how could it not be?

Transformers: Dark of the Moon wisely eliminates many of the problems that the prior sequel emphasized. However instead of replacing it with clever dialogue, improved characters, or even a coherent story, it crams in more giant alien robots blowing stuff up. For just about the entire movie, I had no understanding of why anyone was doing what they were doing. Not only did the plot make no sense, it took forever to tell us nothing.

One of my favorite comedies is Billy Madison. In it Billy must compete is a Jeopardy like quiz challenge.  After giving a long, unintelligible, somewhat nonsense answer to one of the questions posed to him, the quizmaster says the following:

Mr. Madison, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Thats kind of how I felt after this movie. I just felt dumber for having watched it. A dumb movie can be forgiven especially if it has heart, or a soul, but Transformers: Dark of the Moon is simply void of those things. I will concede that there were spectacular action sequences, and many alien robots were destroyed. But for what purpose? Are we better for it?

Now don't get me wrong, if you love giant alien robots blowing stuff up then you will be orgasmically satisfied. There is an eye-bleeding three hours of it. But for me, I needed a bit more. I enjoy action movies, and I enjoy explosions, but there is a point when too much of a good thing is bad. The biggest issues I have with this movie really stem from its length. At nearly three hours long. I could see an hour or more being cut out of this movie, and not only would the movie still work, it would be better, sharper, and more entertaining. Michael Bay is a brilliant director for this type of movie. He is a master of the heroic low angle pan, and he has never been afraid of mass destruction. What he does tend to lack is a sense of realism. I am not saying that we have to follow all the rules of physics in a movie about giant robot aliens, but I do think that the human characters cannot be thrown violently into all manner of solid objects and simply walk away. Give them a bruise, or a limp or something for crying out loud.

Now that I mentioned it lets talk about the humans in the movie. The human characters in the Transformers series are supposed to be the heart, the reason we care. In Dark of the Moon the human characters are for the most part extraneous. I know the inexplicable romance between Megan Foxx and Shia LaBeouf was a weak point in the prior installments, but the romance in this movie is even weaker. I think the only reason Rosie Huntington-Whitely is in the movie is to pout, wear heels and revealing outfits to apocalyptic battles, and be the stereotypical damsel in distress. Frances McDormand is wasted in a boring lifeless role, and John Turturro returns to again compete with Kevin Dunn, and Julie White for the title of "most annoying character." None of this not the actors fault, they all play the parts they are given quite well.  The real blame must be laid at the hands of the writing, but really who cares about dialogue when there is explosions to be had. Essentially all of the human characters in this movie are reduced to nothing more than shouting and running scenery. Why have human characters at all if their only purpose is to be vaporized or stand behind rubble? However there was two stand out actors in the film. John Malkovich, and Ken Jeong, are unforgettable and together provide the best and most clever sources of humor in the movie.

The bottom line is that like the other movies in the series Transformers: Dark of the Moon is just dumb.  It has no brains, it consists of one explosion after another, and with no real purpose even the greatest of action movies become tedious, and in the end the Transformers franchise is just that, an exercise of our ability to endure monotony.