MOVIE: Transformers - Dark of the Moon (2011)

[Matt C 455]

Let me say outright how I loathe most of Michael Bay's filmography, including the first two Transformers movies. The guy is a critics' worst nightmare and the gift that keeps on giving for Paramount and audience members worldwide. When I saw Dark of the Moon (worst title ever for a movie) earlier this year, I was fully expecting to hate this one. But I was fully surprised that I found it watchable, and I found it has more than a semblance of plot.

Now that I've the Blu-ray combo in hand and watched it, it still has all of Michael Bay's terrible trademarks from the first two movies. Worse is the pacing in the first hour of the movie, where the actual story could be condensed in a half-hour or so. I couldn't care less about Sam without a job or any scene with John Turturro's endlessly annoying character. Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson aren't given much to do, aside from yelling, running and shooting at stuff (again). Even though Megan Fox is out of the picture, Michael Bay is more than happy with ogling the ridiculously hot Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Then you see this chick running around Chicago in heels as the Decepticons ravage the place, and she doesn't trip and fall (any smart girl would've taken them off). And some plot developments make no sense at all, like Rosie's character convincing Megatron to take on another robot (when did she grow a pair and when did Megatron ever take a human's advice?).

Okay, the good: the action. The beauty of Blu-ray and DVD is that you can skip the boring first hour and head straight to the action-packed second hour. ILM and Bay have really outdone themselves this time, and since Bay shot it in 3D, he finally allows the audience to drink in the details of these CGI creations. And the 3D production also forced Bay to edit the movie more slowly, so all the action sequence aren't one incoherent blur but actually exciting. The action goes nonstop until the movie ends, even if the actors yell too much or the plot goes south (which happens regularly). Jablonsky's score isn't as annoying, but I dislike how the temp-track blatantly rips off Zack Hemsey's "Mind Heist". That said, it was fun seeing Patrick Dempsey ham it up as Carly's boss-turned-bad guy, and Frances McDormand and Alan Tudyk in small but throwaway roles.

In short: this movie is a great demo disc to show off your home theater and the action is great. Bay haters will want to steer clear of this, while TF movie fans will eat it up. Don't buy it if you're waiting for extras or the Blu-ray 3D release.

[Trent B 337]

Transformers 3 is better than Transformers 2 but at the same time it still was a let down especially with all the hype it was built upon. Ya having Leonard Nimoy voicing Sentinel Prime was cool but over all the series was just MEH. If it had been done by a better more competent director, they probably would have been a lot better.

The CG for the Autobots and the Decepticons were awesome, don't get me wrong. Just the over all story and plot for all three films suffered and don't get me started on the scores...

[Matt C 455]

Transformers 3 is better than Transformers 2 but at the same time it still was a let down especially with all the hype it was built upon. Ya having Leonard Nimoy voicing Sentinel Prime was cool but over all the series was just MEH. If it had been done by a better more competent director, they probably would have been a lot better.

The CG for the Autobots and the Decepticons were awesome, don't get me wrong. Just the over all story and plot for all three films suffered and don't get me started on the scores...

I still don't get why Spielberg choose Bay to direct Transformers in the first place. Bay wasn't even a fan to begin with, and he finally agreed after turning it down once. I think Spielberg would've been better off picking a genuine fan or someone enthusiastic about the project to direct it. A Brett Ratner Transformers would've gone down better, since the guy knows how to stage and edit action sequences.

For me, the best iteration of Transformers is the Beast Wars and Transformers Prime series.