Transformers: Dark of the Moon **
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is better than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Not exactly a recommendation as ‘Revenge…’ was the worst movie of 2009. I wasn’t really interested in seeing this 3rd, and hopefully final instalment in the Transformers franchise, however my 5 year old son was desperate to see it.
To give the movie some credit, the effects are excellent, and… That’s it. Where X-Men: First Class rewrote history surrounding the Cuban missile crisis to good effect, here scriptwriter Ehren Kruger has rewritten the history surrounding the Apollo moon landing to set-up the nonsensical plot.
The ‘story’ concerns a new character called Sentinel Prime whose ship was discovered on the moon in the aforementioned Apollo mission; some new Decepticons hiding out in Chernobyl and a deceitful businessman Dylan (Patrick Dempsey). Sam Witwicky (Shia Laboef) is unemployed and a little bit bitter after “saving the world twice”, he has a new girlfriend, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whitely), he bitches and moans for a while before discovering what the Autobots and U.S. Government fail to work out for an hour… There are so many plot holes and loose ends throughout the movie that just make no sense. Not that the series ever did, apart from having big robots fighting each other there is little ‘story’ to connect the three movies.
The acting is fairly awful, good actors such as Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and John Turturro are as bad as the rest due to the wooden dialogue they have to deliver. Shia Laboeuf has now made four of the worst movies of the last few years, this, the previous instalment, the terrible Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and the Wall Street sequel. He desperately needs a good movie to restore some credibility. The worst acting is undoubtedly from Rosie Huntington-Whitely, it’s pointless to ridicule her as she’ll receive bad reviews from all corners of the globe. As Sams girlfriend they have absolutely no chemistry.
Director Michael Bay has made another worthless movie, better than his last effort but nowhere near as good as the surprisingly fun first effort in the series. His attempts at humour are at best, peurile and they all fell flat, there was no laughter in the screening I attended. This movie looks like a 2½ hour MTV clip, and an unoriginal one at that. I can handle a big, dumb, fun popcorn movie, I even enjoy them occasionally, but this makes Battle: LA look like Citizen Kane. I really can’t be bothered to write anymore, I’ve probably spent more time writing this than Bay and his collaborators spent writing the movie.
The movies one saving grace is that the most annoying and racist characters, from the previous movie, Skids and Mudflap, have gone… hopefully so has this franchise.
Quality: 3 out of 5 stars (all of them for the effects team)
Any good: 1 out of 5 stars
socialpsychol 