Dark of the Moon marks the end of the Michael Bay (Armageddon)/Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park) helmed Transformers trilogy, which is a shame; as if it’s one thing these films have done well, it’s improve.
It does seem an admittedly odd positive to make but that’s the only way I really see these films; gradual improvement. It hasn’t got to the point where it’s at the level of The Lord of the Rings in terms of storytelling, but at least the action has gotten progressively better, the plots are more interesting, and I have come away more satisfied every time. The Transformers trilogy does what it says on the tin; it’s just action-based, robot-fighting, fun. That said, everything else is still middling at best.
The plot features the discovery of how the 60’s space race was a massive cover up of a Transformers spaceship crash landing on the moon, and the futuristic technology it held inside. New heroic Autobots, and evil Decepticons, are introduced; with the future of the Transformers race to be decided upon with the return of Sentinel Prime; and whilst there is a lot rammed into the 150+ minute run time, Dark of the Moon could really do with a scythe towards the cutting room floor; once again there are too many pointless scenes involving humans, and Bay goes back to using “humorous” jokes from the first movie, which are starkly out of place in the last hour (Also, when will someone call out Bay on how using a useless overweight African-American male character constantly in his films is considered racist?).
It’s pretty much pointless to mention the cast (since the real stars of the show are still the 60ft giant robots that turn into trucks and cars), but the most notable addition this time around is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (a British model brought in to replace Megan Fox); who’s inoffensive enough, and has a lot more character about her; she’s nowhere as needless as Fox was and not shoved in your face as a ‘random hot girl love interest’ like Fox was in the first two films; in fact I’d go as far as to say she brings a touch of class to proceedings; but in true Bay style, that gets ruined, as there is a gratuitous ass shot (Yes, I realise she’s an object of desire Michael but you don’t have to pleasure yourself whilst filmmaking).
Shia LaBeouf (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps) gets by doing the same old Even Stevens schtick in comedy scenes, and still doesn’t convince me when the plot gets more serious, John Turturro (O Brother, Where Art Thou?) is back as Agent Simmons, but remains another comic relief character who clashes with his serious exposition role; highlighting the problem the Transformers’ films have with the inability to separate comedy roles and explanation/plot-advancement characters; and even though John Malkovich (Con Air) also joins the cast, he’s wasted in a minor role (which could easily have been filled by more inexpensive options for only 5 minutes work), while the rest of the cast is more of the same from the previous two movies.
A huge amount of credit needs to go to the graphics team on this film, as the CGI is near flawless in the detail on the robots, and during the action scenes. It’s extremely hard to spot what could have been CG or a model, aside from one notable exception; when a human fights a transformer in a long shot (which looks poor); but I’m willing to put that down to the challenge of introducing convincing CG humans models participating with robots.
As interesting as the plot is, the last (near one hour) fight in Chicago should be a shining example of modern day action, but instead gets dragged down with painfully distracting, bad, storytelling; with too much happening off camera and a disregard for continuity; Optimus Prime loses his trailer containing his weapons, next time you see him, he has all his weapons and upgrades from it (bad storytelling), Megatron has a disagreement with another Transformer, next time you see him, he’s down in the dumps in some random alley before someone perks him up so he goes rushing off into the final fight (bad storytelling), you see the Autobots race off to the final fight with the Decepticons, but next time you see them they’ve been captured and are about to executed (bad storytelling); I’m not saying I want a point-A-to-point-B story with EVERYTHING explained, but when you’re cutting out exposition with important points, you are doing a terrible job.
Poor explanation later on can be explained by the amount of scenes where the humans are fighting the evil Transformers; which far outweigh the Autobots taking on their arch nemeses (and are so frequent that Dark of the Moon really should have been subtitled ‘Humans vs. Decepticons’). I know this was a cost cutting measure and done to give the human cast more to do but I, and probably a lot of the audience for Transformers, don’t care for these characters; the falling skyscraper scene contains about 10 redshirts who have about one or two lines each, and though one or two fall out of the tower eight survive to go through to the final fight and do ridiculously well, despite having had no build, no character arc, and no point (except as extras); and in a film based on a franchise about giant robots, it maddens me that they have been shunted to the side so that Michael Bay can attempt to make me interested in pointless characters.
In the end, Dark of the Moon is the closest Michael Bay has come to directing a satisfying Transformers story, yet it’s still not a candle to the stories, or action, contained in a 90 minute episode of the TV show from nearly 25 years ago.
