Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILERS)

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Armond White is going to love this movie, isn't he?

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Shia admits he nailed Megan Fox.

http://www.accesshollywood.com/shia...p_article_49951?__source=rss|access-originals

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

"Chemistry?" Okay.

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Someone needs to do one of those Hitler-meme vids with him complaining about Fox getting fired for comparing Bay to him.

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Brian Austin Green has to be extremely pissed right now.

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Eh. STDs are overblown anyway.

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Good Grief,

Are there any like NORMAL reviews of the film. It seems every reviewer I've read is using Transformers review as an excuse to write a half-assed comedy routine.

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Can you blame them?

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Yes, it's obvious that none of these people were paying attention if all they wrote were some lame jokes about Michael Bay, explosions and the girl's ass.

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

In line now for the 12:01 showing and there is a full house for the 9 already playing. Plus they are doing a 2:45 show!!!

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Well FWIW, as a life long fan who still reads the comics and watches the animated shows, this was FANTASTIC! So much better than 2, maybe better than 1. And, Rosie Huntington-Whitely wasn't that bad. Having not seen Avatar at the movies, I can't speak to the 3D of it but of the few films I've seen in 3D, this was most amazing.

ncc71877

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

It was pretty okay. Definitely better than the first two, but still only about a C or C+. (For comparison, I'd say the first was a D and RoTF was an F-, if such a grade were possible.)

Much of the credit for this improvement goes to the story, which was strong enough to survive everything Bay did to dumb it down. In the right hands, the premise of betrayal and double-dealing leading to an alien confrontation in a major American city could have produced an incredible action movie. Indeed, there's enough conceptual heft to the Optimus/Sentinel relationship that Pixar, say, would have no problem integrating it into an Oscar-winning story. Which is certainly not something you can say about either of the previous entries. Alas, however, here it gives us a serviceable but not remarkable summer blockbuster.

One of the larger problems I had was choppy transitions; for example, the start of the Chicago invasion – which is the major shift into the last act – comes out of nowhere, editorially. The bad guys set up their space bridge pillars in Chicago to teleport Cybertron to Earth in a scene which contains giant gobs of exposition the audience needs to digest. For some reason, as soon as they're done talking, we jump-cut to swarms of Decepticon ships in the sky already well underway blowing up the skyline. The hell? I was so entrenched thinking about all the new plot information we'd just been handed that I actually didn't realize for a second that the invasion had started. There were several moments like that, where time felt badly managed, which is inexcusable in a 2-1/2 hour film. Most of the movie managed to feel rushed and padded at the same time, which is no mean feat.

There's also a disturbing bloodlust underlying much of the action, where the Autobots not only kill the Decepticons but seem to take a savage glee in tearing them apart in the most horrific way possible. The final, epic three-way battle featuring Optimus, Megatron and a spoiler character concludes with said spoiler character sprawled on hands and knees, stripped of weapons, armor and most of his head while totaly defenseless and actually begging for mercy...resulting in Optimus cocking his rifle and blowing his disarmed opponent's body apart. It was profoundly unsettling, and made all the worse for being greeted with yelps of glee from the audience. Again, what the hell people?

But that's about all the stuff I hated. To Bay's credit, he does much better job here of managing the innumerable returning characters even while introducing several new ones. Which is not to say the movie needed as many as there were – I can think of four right now that could have been consolidated into two and been stronger for the result – but it's not a dealbreaker. If you've seen any of the previous films, you know that large casts of mostly useless characters is just something he does, and most of them this time out get something constructive to do.

Much of the humor was actually funny (I was especially fond of the photo of Sam receiving his medal from Obama – got a genuine laugh), and that which wasn't was over and gone before it could overstay its welcome. Shia was more focused and far less annoying than in either of the previous movies, and Rosie was inoffensive and not nearly as grating as Megan Fox. They're not good per se, but coming out of two really bad features, "not bad" is acceptable.

There's also more action than there needs to be, and as with all of Bay's previous efforts, I found myself more interested by all the non-action setup than the supposed payoff. But, again, that's kind of to be expected going in and it's hard to complain about it as if we didn't all know it.

Still and all, it's giant transforming robots in a visual effects extravaganza. So if you grew up on Transformers or like that sort of thing, it's well worth seeing – even if you wait for the DVD release and watch it at home.

Oh, which reminds me: the 3D was almost entirely pointless. The only moment of joy it brought me was seeing the inside of the Apollo 11 module with the astronauts and their floating pen. The rest of the time, it was mostly unnoticeable, except for the occasional gimmicky shot, which took me out of the film due it being all gimmicky and stuff. Despite their supposed improvements to the process, I actually had a harder time with this one than I did with either Avatar or Tron. For some reason, it was very difficult to keep the screen in focus and I spent much of the movie with a sense of some kind of filter distancing me from the experience. It was distracting enough that I'm considering going back to a 2D showing at a later date to see if my opinion is affected.

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

I wanted to see the movie last night, but when I got there, I saw that the only showing was in 3D, something the schedule didn't mention, so I turned right around and went home.

Way to go Shia! And now the follow-up... 'I'm Learning How To Edit Myself'

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Grade: B-

The Pros
Action was great
Use of 3-D worked really well for once finally after so long
Rosie Huntington-Whitley looks equally great on screen
Leonard Nimoy as Sentinel Prime
The spacecraft is called The Ark, G1 reference nod

The Cons
It's 20 min too long
I just feel the robots cursing isn't A)funny B)needed by "hero" robots aimed at kids
Plot holes: Shockwave is just on Earth, how again? When did an invasion fleet get placed on the moon again and why were they inactive? We can infer when but still.
The cliche of killing off a bunch of bots/cons cause "It's our last one"

There is a brief sequence that starts in the credits almost as soon as the credits start. Some people said there wasn't anything at the end of the credits, hope they were right cause at 3am I readily believed them and left. I had heard there was a Unicron reference but if there was missed it.

It's better than Revenge of the Fallen which imo was a shitty movie. I rate that as a D+\C- movie. While DOTM has it's problems I still enjoyed it more than Green Lantern which to date is my biggest summer movie disapointment.

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Horrible movie. Bay manages to finish the character assassination of OP that he started in RotF.

F-

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Ok from all the reviews I'm reading, It doesn't sound good. You literally have to turn off your brain to enjoy this movie and sleeping through the first hour helps.

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

What else is there?

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

I FUCKING LOVED IT! IT FUCKING ROCKS! SCREW THA H8RS!!!!

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

^^^Yeah, okay...this.

My more detailed gut reactions:

-Optimus Prime got his trailer back! WOO-HOO!

-Flip side: Did they really have to make it a jigsaw puzzle transformation like everything else? It's a big box. Drop the sides and inside is a BFG and Roller. Simple.

-Shockwave's aim was better here than it ever was in the 'toon.

-Say what you will about Rosie Huntington-Whitely. At least she's a better actress than January Jones...

-BTW, Megatron laid out in the street getting psychoanalyzed by a fashion model? Priceless!

-They managed to sneak Spock's "Needs of the many" line into Sentinel Prime's lines! WOO-HOO!

-They should have processed Frank Welker's voice. Soundwave without the musical registers and processing just sounded like Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget.

Overall, Above Average. I actually liked the first two better. That doesn't mean I won't watch this about five or six times before it's out of theaters...

 

Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE

Big, dumb, loud... perfect. Going again this weekend.