Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Praising Transformers: Dark of the Moon simply because it is superior to Revenge of the Fallen is like praising John Wayne Gacy because he didn’t kill as many people as Henry Lee Lucas. Either way, we’re talking about a serial killer. It is true that Dark of the Moon is not the crime against humanity that its predecessor was, and that many of its 3-D effects can be impressive, but to over-praise mere competence is a dangerous road to travel. It’s relatively inoffensive—which is more than you can say for much of Michael Bay’s work—but it’s still a two-and-a-half hour slog made bearable only by a few shots which inspire little more than an “oh, that’s cool.” It’s a superior film in that it at least has the common decency to look you in the eye as it violates you.

The premise is this: back in the ’60s, an Autobot spaceship crash-landed on the moon. When the Americans reached the moon back in 1969, their real objective was to explore the contents within. What they find is startling. Fast-forward to present day, where the Autobots are allied with the United States. They spend much of their time keeping the peace on Earth, but when they discover the existence of the ship’s wreckage, they find out that one of their own—Sentinel Prime—has been stranded up there all this time. After they bring him back to Earth, a series of betrayals eventually lead to the invasion of Earth by an army of Decepticons. What follows is an extended battle sequence which leaves the city of Chicago in ruins. And that’s what you go to a Transformers movie for, right?

But as this is supposed to be a live-action movie, the use of non-robotic characters is required to provide the illusion of humanity. As such, we get the return of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), who has moved to Washington, D.C. with his new girlfriend Carly (former lingerie model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, replacing Megan Fox). Despite his… experience in national security, he can’t seem to land his first job out of college. Eventually he gets a mailroom gig, but it all gets real interesting when he realizes that the Decepticons have returned to wreak havoc. Thus begins 150-plus minutes of him staring in awe as the robots battle around him. He isn’t so much an active protagonist as he is the film’s central witness, but that’s usually the case, isn’t it?

Before I go into the negative stuff—and believe me, it is coming—allow me to admit that Bay was mildly successful in his attempts to dial back the more unseemly aspects of his previous work. Where the previous Transformers films shot Megan Fox as if she were a porn star, Dark of the Moon is slightly more respectable toward the fairer sex. (The only exception is the shot which introduces Huntington-Whiteley, which is rather fond of her posterior.) This is best exemplified in the character of Charlotte Mearing, the Secretary of Defense played by Frances McDormand. She is—God forbid—a strong female lead the likes of which we’ve never seen in a recent Bay film. Perhaps this is calculated, but it’s an improvement nonetheless. Yes, the inferred relationship between her and John Turturro’s character is about as well-developed as a ham sandwich, but it’s progress. Baby steps, Michael.

Another plus: the humor in this film is far less sophomoric than in Revenge of the Fallen, which stooped so low that it included a joke about a freaking Decepticon scrotum. Here the humor is slightly more—and I hate using this word—mature, and is based more on the likability of the actors than the joke’s ability to make pubescent males giggle. LaBeouf proves in this film that he has the ability to be a genuinely funny actor (Even Stevens, anyone?), and even the likes of Ken Jeong and Andy Daly drop in to provide a few laughs. Many of the jokes fall flat, but I must admit that this movie’s comedy was far more tolerable—and sometimes effective—than in Revenge of the Fallen.

Okay, now I’m done with the positivity.

The inherent problem with Transformers is that the robots themselves aren’t all that exciting to behold. They don’t look like a single, living being as much as they appear to be a heap of junk thrown together and made sentient. The battle scenes aren’t exciting because it’s hard to tell what exactly is going on; it’s just piles of metal being thrown against other piles of metal. It’s equally difficult to tell which Transformers we’re supposed to root for and which we’re supposed to root against. Only a select few—such as Optimus Prime or Bumblebee—seem to have any personality whatsoever. The rest are as distinguishable as a line-up of vacuum cleaners.

This is just a portion of the series’ largest problem: Bay has yet to give us a reason to engage with the Transformers films. It’s obvious he cares a great deal about creating action sequences the likes of which we’ve never seen before, and it’s equally obvious he was cognizant of the more horrific flaws found in Revenge of the Fallen. Yet creating an epic action/adventure film with stakes and characters worth caring about seems beyond his grasp. Action-first filmmaking is fine, but you need to provide the audience with a way in. Any joys found within Transformers: Dark of the Moon are entirely superficial. Mainstream audiences may be fine with that—most go to the movies as a form of escape—but genuine cinema fans require more from their movie-going experiences. If you’re going to make us sit down for two and a half hours (nearly three, if you count trailers) there has to be something, anything worth caring about.

Perhaps this would have been a good, even great, cinematic experience had it been cut down to 90-100 minutes. That way the film may not have seen so overstuffed or padded out. There are some great 3-D moments (“The best since Avatar,” many exclaim) but they are so few that they do not justify the endless slog around it. The best moments come at film’s end, when the characters all diverge on Chicago for an epic Decepticon v. Autobot battle. In particular, there is one skydiving scene which may have been the most fun I’ve had in the entire series. Had this led to an immediate, exciting climax I might have been won over. Unfortunately, the battle kept going and going and going until it lost any and all impact. When the end credits rolled, it felt like freedom rather than emotional catharsis. That any film based on a Hasbro toy line is over 150 minutes long is absolutely inexcusable.

The Transformers films are likely the films Bay has dreamed of directing from the beginning. They provide him the opportunity to unleash his unholy cinematic id; which consists of robots punching each other, massive explosions and beautiful women who wear revealing outfits. This may be why he has refused to direct a non-Transformers film since the series began in 2007. (For the record: I saw the first film back when it came out, but I couldn’t remember anything about it if you paid me a thousand dollars.) Considering the financial success of the series, I’m not sure he will direct anything else for the foreseeable future. Therein lies the genius behind the hack that is Michael Bay. He knows what audiences will pay to see, as he has a brain similar to the target demographic. He has no reason to make anything with more ambition—or anything that makes sense, for that matter—because he has been so successful at cranking out these films which, really, have no reason to exist. He is a master at doing one thing: creating a slick, superficially attractive film that the public will eat up no matter how bad it may be for them (and their brains). He’s done it his entire career, and he has no reason to stop now.

GRADE: C-

P.S.- Listen to the film’s soundtrack—particularly in the Chicago sequences—and notice just how much Steve Jablonsky’s musical score sounds exactly like Hans Zimmer’s work in Inception.