Re: Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Discuss, Grading, Reviews (SPOILE
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Brace yourselves......
My Grade: B-
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I went into this movie all prepared to hate it, come back to this thread and rip into it. Bad professional reviews, mediocre word-of-mouth here on the board with some bad reviews, then the two (long) stream of consciousness videos from Spoony and The Cinema Snob both led me to believe this movie was going to be terrible and not much removed from its predecessor which, in my words, skull-fucked the sense out of you over the course of its running time.
This movie? Is a bit more gentle, comparatively. I gave the first movie a grade in the C range (C-, IIRC) which is about the lowest I give out unless the movie was really bad which the second movie was getting probably the lowest grade I'm likely to give out in a flat D.
Here, we actually manage to get an entertaining movie.
The continuity of this movie is hard to pin down compared to the others, in a V.O. I believe Optimus tells us a year has passed between the time-frame of this movie and the Autobots' arrival on Earth, in which it seems like something closer to four years have passed in the movie's world (in the first movie Sam was a senior in high-school, in the second movie he's in college, in this movie he's trying to get into the working world) and the same length of time has passed for us.
Anyway, Shia LeBouf's Sam is an unemployed job-seeker living with his current girlfriend in her multi-story D.C. loft that probably costs her $2,000 a month and she's subletting. Sam has had a break-up with Megan Fox's character is now dating some reedy blond chick whose name escapes me as I am not good with names, I'll just call her by the actress' name, Rose. Sam has had trouble finding a job as it seems that saving the world twice in as many years, getting a medal from President Obama and having a solid education while also getting job-references from prominent people doesn't make one a very valuable prospective employee. Hey, it's a down job market.
Shia's Autobot car, Bumblebee is traveling the world with the rest of the Autobots doing various missions for the American government leaving Shia with a crappy car to drive around town in a city with a pretty damn remarkable public transportation system, at the same time Shia is being a Debbie Down and bitches about his life as pretty much being a kept-man to his hot girlfriend. Yeah, sucks to be you, Shia.
Anyway, through a series of events Shia ends up back in the mix in a fight between the Autobots and the Decepticons over a series of devices recovered from the moon that will either replace Earth with the machines' home world of Cybertron or simply put Cybertron in Earth orbit. It's not clear which it is. There's a bit of a conspiracy involving an Earth businessman who thinks it's a good business paln to enslave all of mankind, a power struggle between the military, an NSA operative and the Autobots, and a recovered Prime who has a centuries old mission to complete using advanced Cybertron technology.
Really, the plot and story is murky and while being basically simple is also a bit convoluted but it does bring with it some nice twists.
The movie is not without its faults, however. I still think the transformers' transformations from vehicle to robot is still too quick and complex to be appreciated, while also times not being framed very well, the movie is filled with a lot of characters who are mostly pointless, the humor sometimes is a bit forced (though not as bad as int he previous movie) and the climatic action sequence just goes on too long for too much. This is a movie that could have really spent more time in the editing room; for example in one scene Shia has tethered himself to a Decepticon using a grappling hook and we spend several minutes watching him getting swung through the air while screaming before he's able to get a bomb onto the robot to destroy it, too many scenes involving Shia with his parents that weren't needed, Shia's trouble finding a hob, Shia's problems at work, lots of trimming in the action scenes and "plot" set-up. This bitch is 2 1/2 hours long and it doesn't need to be. Lots of trimming could have been done.
The movie improves over the former by pretty much either reducing or eliminating racial stereotypes, there's some there but not nearly as bad, in fact I quite enjoyed Shia's two little "pet" robots. Thankfully Skid and Mudflaps the two illiterate racial-stereotype robots from the previous movie are nowhere to be seen.
Another fault this movie has is Shia who is otherwise fine to watch unless he's screaming, emoting, yelling, or trying to be "funny." Other than that I can handle him.
The movie makes a vast improvement with the female lead as Rose brings something to this movie that Megan didn't have in others. Screen presence. She brings some emotion, depth, charm and warmth to the screen and her relationship with Shia is actually a touch bit believable, yeah there's a few gratuitous shots of her various qualities but it's one of those movies where that is sort-of expected, the funniest for me comes near the end where she stands against a slo-mo background looking hot while stuff blows up behind her. She also has the amazing ability to run around and survive in a giant battle while wearing pumps.
I really liked this movie, I had a good time. It's probably too long and has plenty of stupid and annoying moments (mostly ones involving Shia and his lungs) but it actually has some fun to it and makes for pretty decent escapist entertainment. All said, the Rifftrax guys will have a field-day with this movie.
I also saw this movie in 3D which I though worked really well for this movie, not too many gimmick "things sticking through the screen" moments, that 3D didn't have what I call the Colorform Effect and it had a good sense of depth, I think comparing to Avatar is fairly apt, though I think Avatar's bar is still a bit higher, but this movie is probably one of the better ones I've seen in 3D since the trope became the norm. But wearing those glasses over my own glasses for 2.5 hours is a bit annoying and gave me a touch of eye-strain.
Still, fun movie. I'll openly admit it.
I enjoyed this movie. And, keep in mind, I really dis-like the other movies. This is not likely a movie I'll see again on its own as it's not quite that good, but the DVD will bought for sure but, again, only for the Rifftrax.
